There is another way to look at this and since you guys do not appear to be scholars of US history, I will share it with you. While some of the individual interventions were debatable, ill advised and bungled, you really need to look at the big picture over 75 years since World War II and the big picture in the years prior to World War II. After World War I, the US adopted an isolationist policy in world affairs, this because Americans were leery of getting involved in "European wars" after the distasteful involvement in World War I, which fortuitously tipped the balance in favor of the Allies, but at a tremendous cost to the US with no real benefit to it in foreign policy. This prompted the period of isolationism, in which US Presidents left Europe to its own devices, a policy that continued even TWO YEARS AFTER the outbreak of World War II. All of that ended when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor at the end of 1941.
After World War II, a different world order emerged- essentially the USSR/communist influenced world and the USA/ western democracy influenced world. The "Cold War". While there were no more world wars, due to the shift in the balance of power and generally sane politicians, there were smaller wars and conflicts in Korea and Vietnam and elsewhere, in which each side tried to extend their influence or sphere of influence so as to shift the perceived balance of power.
Even after the Cold War ended, the US foreign policy remained actively interventionist rather than isolationist. So it is 75 years of interventionist policy by the US after a long period of isolationist policy.
I would contend that the collective 75 years of interventionist policy has, overall, and despite a few bad decisions, ill advised interventions, bungled operations etc. sent a strong deterrent message to all of the bad elements in the world, and this deterrence has inured to the benefit of the entire civilized western world, Canada included. So I am looking at the big picture and seeing the entire forest from the trees, while you guys focus on a few dead or rotting trees. That is poor forest management. You have to look at the whole forest, not just a few trees.
I would also note that the US period of isolationist policy has been the subject of INTENSE criticism by historians and scholars. Although it is true that the US for the first 2 years of WW II was assisting and supplying the UK and lost many lives and ships doing so, many historians have contended a swifter military entrance and support of the allies would have dissuaded Hitler or possibly prevented the 2 front World War that ended up happening. So there are huge amounts of hypocrisy in some of the criticisms of some of the later American interventions, because we do not really know what wounds would have festered had the interventions not occurred, as was the case in the early years of World War II.
