When I posted the quotation, as Jonathon rightly infers, the idea was to provoke discussion. I was a little surprised by the lack of response or even curiosity, but I'm delighted by the result as you will be when you read Jonathon's thoughtful and informed essay.
The question is an old one, as Jeremy pointed out in the comments to my original post. In the fourth act of Shakespeare's Henry V there is a conversation where the King talks to some of his soldiers who are unaware of his identity.

     King: By my troth, I will speak my conscience of the King: i think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.
     Bates: Then I would he were here alone. So should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men's lives saved.
     King: I dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this to feel other men's minds. Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the King's company, his cause being just and his quarrel honorable.
     Will: That's more than we know.
     Bates: Ay, or more than we should seek after; for we know enough if we know we are the King's subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the King wipes the crime of it out of us. [Emphasis mine]

Is the speaker a cultural or political hero as Jonathon posits or rather a loathsome militarist. Is your political hero my loathsome militarist. My first thought upon reading the quotation was typical and predictable. The Nuremberg trials immediately came to mind, but the question of course is not a simple one though some would like it to be. The speaker is Bob Bennett Senator from Utah, not to be confused with William J. Bennett though I suspect they share much the same philosophy. The comment was in response to a remark Mr. Bennett heard as he sat in Salt Lake City's LDS Church conference where Apostle Russell M. Nelson told the faith's semiannual General Conference that "As a church we must renounce war and proclaim peace." and admonished the faithful to be "personal peace-makers". Senator Bennett in an attempt to reconcile those words with backing for a preemptive strike against Iraq said "I interpreted his remarks that members of the church should do everything they can to promote peace, and I certainly hope I do." and then cited "scriptural evidence" that Mormons have a duty to support their country if a decision is made t go to war. "The decision to go to war is not yours, It's the decision of the state in which you live and if the state decides to go to war. you are not responsible for that decision". [Emphasis mine] The problem for me has to do with our nature as humans. We tend to approach problems backwards. That is backward in the sense of arriving at rational conclusions. We begin with some emotional stimulus such as the World Trade Center on 9/11 and react emotionally. We let the feeling, the emotion too quickly become a part of us. Our opinions no longer informed by rational thought but by the most visceral of our feelings. We then go looking for evidence to justify those feelings. If we fail to find what we are looking for we create our own evidence or distort what others offer, anything to satisfy the emotional need. That is what it seems to me Bob Bennett is doing here it is certainly not analogous to Nuremburg, my initial feeling, but it is nevertheless a dangerous game. "We want regime change and the only way to do it peacefully is for Saddam to change. He has moved to the degree he has simply because he
has a gun to his head." said Bob Bennett. The only problem is that if he doesn't move you have to pull the trigger with all that implies, and That's more than we know. but not more than we should seek after.