America's Foreign Policy Problem is Fumbled Humanitarianism, Not Imperialism

President Barack Obama’s resolve to punish Syria for using chemical weapons has critics of U.S. foreign policy upset that America is yet again acting like an imperialist. Their frustration is appropriate—but their accusation is not. America is less an imperialist and more a hapless uncle trying to teach his wayward nieces and nephews the right moral lesson.
But, just as with the uncle, no one will thank America if it averts further catastrophe—but everyone will blame it if it doesn’t.
It has become fashionable in anti-war circles to rail against American imperialism. But genuine imperialism involves exploiting others for one’s own material interests. That’s what British colonialists did when they took minerals and other raw materials from Indians at confiscatory rates for their factories back home. Or when the Soviet Union transported Eastern European industrial assets to reconstruct the motherland after World War II. The Soviets siphoned out resources from the Eastern Bloc roughly comparable to what "imperialist" America pumped into Western Europe under the Marshall Plan.

http://reason.com/archives/2013/09/03/americas-real-foreign-policy-problem-is