War, Actually

Anne of Idaho sends along this excellent Jonah Goldberg quote from his Corner post on War and its Moral Equivalents:

But as a general proposition, I think it's true that the people who invoke the moral equivalents of war as an organizing principle seek to expand what the conservative proponent of actual war wishes to contract, to prolong (or make permanent) what the conservative hopes will be only temporary, and to celebrate as essential what the conservative sees as an unfortunate necessity.