> ... the US preying on its neighbors the way Russia and China are currently doing

Well, that's a matter of perspective isn't it? Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama, Puerto Rico, Chile, El Salvador, Venezuela, the list goes on. There's a Wikipedia page dedicated to all the US backed coups since 1945 [1] it happens so often.

We've had a post-WW2 history of deposing democratically elected countries (in the Americas and elsewhere) to suit the interests of Western corporations. Who exactly are we protecting?

> ... it was a policy aimed at keeping wars between European colonial powers away from the newly independent countries in the Americas

Where is Moscow?

> ... people in the Americas shouldn't have to die in wars just because one European king insulted another.

Ok, but what about American belligerence? Pinochet and Noriega spring to mind.

Aso, I reject the contention that colonial wars were the product of European kings insulting one another. The interests were and always have been material. Even the Crusades (which were sold on Christian conflict with Islam) were fundamentally materialist in origin.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...