I’m well aware. (Probably any American who can name East Timor, let alone is aware of our participation in their genocide, is more likely than not to be familiar with our history.)

What you said doesn’t discount that we are better with free democracies, regardless of whether we see that through. Democracies tend to raise the per capita income across the population, which, in concert with free markets, gives our multinational corporations new markets to sell shit to.

Sometimes we have other more pressing concerns, like oil in Iran/Iraq (a democracy destroyed and created, respectively); global shipping / colonialism in our support of Israel in conflicts with Egypt over the Suez; abandoning our Kurdish allies to keep Turkey happy enough to keep military assets there.

Geopolitics doesn’t always do one thing or another, even if it were perfectly rational. And no foreign policy is that.