One of the numerous tragedies here is our textbooks. I remember vividly the first time I realized that a good half the governments the US has pulled down in the Middle East and South America were democratic. Just not "US democratic." Never got that in school, certainly. Every high school history textbook paints democracy as our worldwide goal and pretends to be entirely unaware that we're just as against democracy as we are communism if it comes in a form not amenable to us. Ridiculous.