I don't think any of that is disagreeable, except giving fellow countrymen the benefit of the doubt. A random American is no more honest or trustworthy than the average Mexican or Norwegian or Indonesian. I give evidence the benefit of the doubt, because it removes doubt.
Anyway, the possible problem with your post is something like the war in Iraq. We attacked a country that had nothing to do with 9/11. That was objectively wrong. I'm no less patriotic for saying it's wrong and for wanted it to stop immediately. The person who figures hey, we're there, you're only patriotic if you cheer for us to "win" - whatever that meant - is a baffoon. I'm not saying you've suggested that.
Pretending that your country is more ethical or moral that than its actions suggest is not patriotism. It's simply silliness. Do you disagree?
I don't disagree.
Further, calling out its wrongs is not necessarily unpatriotic. Martin Luther King was not unpatriotic. He called us out for not living up to our founding creed. That's the deal. Our founding creed was something that had never existed in the world. We have often not lived up to it, because we are flawed human beings and it is a very high ideal, but its existence gave power to MLK's protests.
Hoping the soldier on the other side kills our soldier (which you did not say, but many people did during the Vietnam War and perhaps since) is unpatriotic. Saying "America sucks and Americans suck!" (which is how I read some of your assertions) is IMO unpatriotic.
"My country right or wrong" is often cited as simpleton patriotism. G.K. Chesterton wrote that it was something no true patriot would say.
But the original, spoken as a toast by Stephen Decatur, naval hero of the Barbary Wars and the War of 1812, included the idea of "may she always be in the right."
Two variants, somewhat different in meaning:
1. "Our country – In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, and always successful, right or wrong."
2. "Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations, may she always be in the right; but our country, right or wrong."
I'll stand by either of those.
Going to war cannot be objectively wrong, because there is no objective standard. In 20-20 hindsight, it seems that invading Iraq was probably wrong, or that it went in the wrong direction.
Sometimes, oftentimes, it is not clear what is best for our country. I thought back in 1991 that it would have been better for us to take out Saddam Hussein instead of leaving him in power to continue to oppress his own people and support lethal mischief in the region. (I still think so.) But we didn't do that, because the Arab members of the Gulf War coalition wouldn't have supported us in taking that action. It's not clear even now if leaving him in power was wise or foolish restraint.
Bush 43 had a lot of top advisors who had been key players in the Bush 41 administration. I suspect that some or many of them may have viewed that as a job left undone. Maybe that affected their judgment for the worse.
