Excellent essay by William Bennett. It must be read in it's entirety, but here's a good piece quoting Daniel Patrick Moynahan.

Remembering Why We Fight

"Am I ashamed to speak on behalf of a less than perfect country? Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don't. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do. Have we done obscene things? Yes, we have. How did our people learn about them? They learned about them on television and in the newspapers." And we put our criminals—whether in uniform or not—on trial.