William J. Astore | Tourists of Empire: America’s Peculiar Brand of Global Imperialism

Tomgram: William Astore, Taking Selfies in Iraq and Afghanistan. American troops are never seen as conquerors or oppressors, always as liberators and freedom-bringers, or at least helpers and trainers. There’s just enough substance to this myth (World War II and the Marshall Plan, for example) to hide uglier imperial realities...