American liberators

In his The Icarus Syndrome: A History of American Hubris , Peter Beinart describes a Wilson-era American action that sounds vaguely familiar. Wilson was convinced that what Latin Americans wanted was identical to what he wanted for themselves, but he was happy to let them choose, so long as they followed his counsel: “I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men!”

They didn’t listen and Wilson “convinced himself that the leaders he disliked didn’t represent their people as well as he did.” Then the familiar part: “he sent U.S. troops to depose an anti-American dictator in Mexico, confident that the Mexicans would welcome the arriving U.S. soldiers as liberators. Instead they rose up in fury against the gringo invaders, and American quickly withdrew.”