You have a very poor grasp of history if you mistake the lessons learned out of two brutal world wars, not to mention the senseless history of violence that preceded it, with some kind of cowardice. Your viewpoint can probably be traced back to some notion of Anglo-Saxon supremacy, that by now has lost its racial undertones and lives on as the idea of American exceptionalism: That somehow the US is a gift to the world and not a country like any other.

The US is just such a young country that it simply either hasn't learned the lesson, or that any kind of political dissent is dissipated or ineffective. Personally I take humility over pride any time of the day.