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I’d like to add on to what @lrc said.  I believe that most (possibly, all) wars come with both a reason and a pretense.  The powers in charge have their reason (case in point, secession and preserving the Union) but to get people to be willing to enlist and fight they need a pretense (slavery).

Not to say that the pretense isn’t partially, or totally true (works better if it is), just saying that it is not the same thing as the reason.

WWI:
reason – fulfilling the duties of our european alliances
pretense – sinking of the Lusitania
WW2:
reason – nazi bid for world domination
pretense – pearl harbor
Korean War
pretense – Northern incursion into south Korea
reason – cold war with China
(Vietnam, more or less the same thing.)

You could go on and on…