America's generosity of spirit made it a superpower, maker and leader of the Western Alliance for our mutual security during a time when costs didn't obscure the benefits of working together as they do now with a president posturing " Look Ma, I'm at the top of the world, the rest can go to hell."
old colonel, the US got over-involved by itself with its national interests fully in play: taking up France's lost colonial battle in Vietnam and a hideously concocted and executed debacle of hubris in Iraq. Let's not count Grenada and Panama although none of it provided security for the US or any one else.
Yes, Canada said no to Vietnam and Iraq because it considered the US "domino theory" of Communism as foolhardy and unsupportable, and Iraq for what the US admitted belatedly was a tragic mistake. Canada held back because neither war was in anyone's interest---certainly not for the 60,000 US military dead.
You must be aware of reasons why the US was late into both wars. British istorians claim Canada had the best fighting formations of both sides in the First World War, and with a tenth of US population, ended the Second with the 4th largest air force and 3rd largest naval surface fleet in the world.
No one discounts the American contribution to the Allies. It did help, as you say, bail out the British and Commonwealth forces as they fought alone for years while the US ambassador to the Court of St. James, Joe Kennedy, told FDR to let us go under, we couldn't win. As Churchill said in Missouri: "Some neck. Some chicken."
As for holding back, we're doing that now with 600 special forces committed and ready to go for anti-terrorist engagements in Africa; others are with the Kurds. Were waiting for your commander-in-chief to make up his mind. He weakens NATO with his fulminations, says America first, the rest of you are on your own. Canada doesn't do war that way.
