[slg]

Part of it is also how we teach history. US schools have a tendency to only focus on the wars in which we are clearly the "good guys" until you get to the post-WWII wars in which things become much more clouded morally. This gives off the impression that the US and its military have sort of lost our way in the last half century or so. The truth is that all war is generally bad and only our perception of it has changed. Look through the Wikipedia page of US conflicts and you will see a long history of wars in which our actions were morally questionable that we are never taught about in school. And even our "heroic wars" like WWII include plenty of war crimes at the hands of the US.

[mc32]

You’d be surprised then by how history is taught in other places. Even when people look at themselves introspectively, most people will see the good over the bad.

I don’t think were much worse than any other major actor in this regard. I have an incling we do a fair bit better than most at catigating ourselves.

[hopler]

Bad wars are a standard part of history education, from the Trail of Tears to Jim Crow to the Spanish-American war.

People are willfully ignorant.