[cderwin]

It is most certainly not contradictory. For example, one could make the argument that the allied effort against the Nazis in WWII was tantamount to "saving the world", yet the allied forces certainly didn't treat everyone in the most humane way possible -- see Japanese internment in the US, or the presumable "war crimes" that Allied forces committed in WWII. Yet that doesn't mean Allied forces weren't capable of destroying the Axis, which obviously is what happened.

A similar argument could be made about the Cold War and McCarthyism. It is simply nonsensical to mistake the goal of "saving the world" with the goal of "don't ever treat anyone slightly questionably ever again".