It is when "defense" means invasion and subjugation of other countries. All countries pose their military operations as "defense." Inquiring minds should ask if a country surrounded on sides by two oceans with two pacified neighbors has any real threats or merely opportunities for cheap labor, market access, and mineral rights abroad.

This has been going on for a very long time (read what Smedley Butler said in "War is a Racket"), but after the Iraq War, the credibility of the US should be somewhere in hell.