You must not be very familiar with hostory... Let's go back to when we organized a coup to over throw Mossadegha in Iran in then 50s. Or that time in 1954 when we organized a coup, armed rebels, and used a naval bloclade to overthrow Arbenz of Guatemala... all because he was proposing some land reforms that were going to hurt US fruit companies... Another fun fruit related incident was Honduras during the early 1900s. American troops were sent 7+ times over a 25 or so year period.. primarily just to protect the interest of "Big Fruit" (Aything sounds super scary with Big in the name). It was all this fruit nonsense that coined the term Banana Rupiblic (Which Ofcourse. directlt created over priced clothing stores as a result). Also, there was that time in the 60s when we helped Belgium overthrow the first president of the Congo. Another good one was Brazil in the 60s. According to the US ambassador to Brazil they were worried Brazil would become, " The China of the 60s"... so obviously we backed a successful Military coup that ruled till the mid 80s. We tried to organize three coups against a socialist Chile in the 70s, all the while trying to destroy the Chilean economy. After a Military coup finally knocked out Allende's government, the CIA overlooked glaring evidence of political prisoners and murders and not only supported Pinochet's government, but went as far to help with their propaganda. You also can't forget the bay of pigs! You could easily go on and on, that doesn't even touch any of the Many Many Many proxy wars that didn't end in coups in the past 200+ years. When you look at it objectively we aren't perfect, but still better than the rest. This idea that we lost moral high ground in the past 12 years isn't really anchored in fact though. There are still the proxy wars (Syria being a prime example), and sure we still purposefully stir up unrest (Arab spring, crimea), I wouldn't say we are much better than we used to be, but we certainly aren't worse.