The last time the American military fought for freedom was the Civil War, when it fought to end slavery.

With one exception, every conflict since has been pure imperialism on the US’ part. That one exception is World War II, where we were responding to an attack on our soil–but that’s defending sovereignty, not freedom.

(And no, we weren’t fighting for freedom in World War II. While the Allied victory had the effect of toppling some of the most horrific empires the world had ever seen, it wasn’t why we were there. Most Americans’ attitude to the Holocaust was “don’t know, don’t wanna know,” and we cared even less about Japanese war crimes.)