"We shou’d not, in imitation of some nations which have been celebrated for a false kind of patriotism, wish to aggrandize our own Republic at the expence of the freedom & happiness of the rest of mankind. The prospect that the Americans will not act upon so narrow a scale affords the most comfortable reflections to a benevolent mind." - George Washington, April 30, 1789.

I sure am glad he can't see us now. As you say, we've been duped.

I think Americans, by and large, are very ignorant and very complacent. Also, and I don't like to throw the term "racism" around lightly, but sometimes I can't help but wonder if the reason we don't care what happens to these people is because they don't look like us. So many deaths in our foreign wars are, as you say, civilians - women and children. That's not brave, that's not heroic. That's wicked. A real man would rather die fighting on his own ground than let a mother and her baby die on theirs.

Either way, it's not going to change anytime soon. Too much money involved. James Madison once wrote a great essay called "Universal Peace" basically describing why such a thing could never be. In it, he said there would always be wars as long as,

"war is to be declared by those who are to spend the public money, not by those who are to pay it; by those who are to direct the public forces, not by those who are to support them; by those whose power is to be raised, not by those whose chains may be riveted"