And it went to war for the following reasons:

a) scarcity of resource (oil) / humanitarian reasons (whichever you prefer to believe)

b) was provoked into it (because of cold war or terrorists)

This is demonstrably false. You need only look at the actions of our government (e.g. The CIA) to discern that the United States has gone to war (or "military conflicts" or whatever they call them these days) for reasons such as A) financial gain for private persons and companies B) financial gain for politicians C) financial gain for the country D) political gain for individuals E) extending a miltary based hegemony F) moral agendas (e.g the War on Drugs) etc, etc. The United States is by no means some perfect rational actor which engages in war solely for economic reasons or for "self-defense".

Those were the declared reasons, yes. But exactly what would you say are the resource and humanitarian gains and to what degree forgivable-due-to-provocation-in-retrospect is, say, the US-Vietnam War?