1. How many people actually knew what he was doing? How many people actually KNEW about Venat in the first place?

2. Of course bad things are made less bad by good intentions! You're so stuck on this whole "war is bad" thing that you can't see that sometimes it's necessary and the people causing the war aren't necessarily horrible people for it. Lincoln could have avoided the Civil War by not trying to stop the spread of slavery. Does that make him evil? Of course not. He hated slavery and wanted to end it, and the war was the result.