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Yes, I think this is because despite simply recounting the justifications for levelling a city that US forces put forth, it gives the misleading impression of having some suggestion on how to improve things.

I do think that the US military is reporting their objectives honestly. Armies are very much task focused organisations, and it really doesn't work if you are unclear about the task.

What does tend to be questionable is the metrics reported towards completion of the task: a military tends to solve tasks given to it no matter how it must misreport things on the ground. Ground reports are usually unreliable anyway.

>The US has no honorable reason for being in the Middle East - if it did, it would also have invaded large chunks of Africa, probably North Korea, Saudi Arabia wouldn't be a US ally and maybe send some troops into a few well chosen South American countries for good measure. The world is horrible, and it is highly suspicious that the Middle East was the first mob in need of 'saving'.

Not only that -- for this assumes that it's ok that the world should have some "savior" state, and even more so, a self-proclaimed one -- as opposed to sovereign countries solving their own problems.

This is a tough one. If Nazi's hadnt tried to expand their borders, but still kept killing all the jews in Germany, is that a sovereign country solving its own problems?

Well, yes it is. Ask the cambodians or the chinese.

.. or the Australians.

It’s not suspicious, it’s oil. The US government has been pretty transparent about that for decades. Africa can’t precipitate global instability the way the Middle East can, they just don’t tick the boxes for military intervention.