Poignant! Agree with your main point - that war should not be glorified. In fairness to Hollywood, many of their latter day war movies - as opposed to the John Wayne variety - do a much better job ob depicting the horrors and insanity of it. 

And while all wars I suppose are ultimately a failure of diplomacy, I have to disagree with you on your characterization of WWII. Arguably it was Chamberlain's policy of appeasement (diplomatic naivety) that allowed the fascist movement in Germany to reach the point where war was inevitable. 

Had Europe and the U.S. held Germany to its obligations under the Treaty of Versailles or, failing that, moved sooner to quarantine it when it did re-arm, Hitler might have been stopped in his tracks. Sometimes the best diplomacy is a clear, irrevocable line in the sand.