The Korean War was undertaken by the United Nations. There WAS an international consensus there.

That may be your perspective on the Canadian attitude to its history but I’m here to tell you that my teachers as a kid couldn’t shut up about Cartier, Champlain and Cabot. They would go on and on about McKenzie and Hudson and the Hudson’s bay company. To their credit, I learned from fairly early on about smallpox blankets and residential schools.

Canada and the us were settled at the same time. Jamestown and Quebec City were the first two permanent European settlements in North America. And settled within months of each other. The history of Europeans in Canada didn’t begin in 1867 just like the history of Europeans in the united states doesn’t begin in 1776.

Before the 20th century the United States was almost completely isolationist. This discussion was about international conflicts. Since the Spanish American war the United States has become involved with a large number of foreign conflicts, some have benefited the world, the Second World War, the Korean War, (both of which Canada also fought in). More recently, the Bosnian conflict, the Grenadian conflict, Rwanda and other have all been defensible if not outright boons to freedom, democracy and good government.

There have been others, named above in previous comments where the unites states has pursued self interest to the detriment of human rights, democracy, and common decency. Can you name a single conflict in which Canada has done the same?

To your last point, if only countries without any marks on their records can comment on the records of others, by what right do you judge Russian foreign policy?

I don’t think the “who has the least guilt for international atrocity” fight is a fight an American is going to win against a Canadian.

Canada has had a few dark spots in its history. Of particular note is our history with the First Nations, as every country in the Americas treated indigenous people very poorly indeed.

Canada has certainly benefited from friendly relations with The United States and it’s my hope that both our countries continue to benefit from that relationship.

By and large, however, Canada has not been a terribly aggressive actor on the international stage. Certainly not compared to The United States’ history of overthrowing democracies that don’t toe their line or having inconvenient leaders killed. Or even the Canadian mistreatment of First Nations, as bad as it was, can not compare to the barbarity of the trail of tears and the American “Indian” Wars.

Agreed.

I’m not opposed to many of The United States’ interventions abroad but your statement is not nuanced at all. Many countries opposed the invasion of Iraq, the Vietnam War and the numerous coups and proxy wars in Latin America (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chile, etc.)

American foreign policy has a checkered past and any attempt to characterize it as all good or all bad is a gross oversimplification. As is saying there was universal support for any one of their military actions since 1945.