[Chad C. Mulligan]

You did notice that the Philippines were made independent after WW2, right? That Hawaii petitioned Congress for statehood, voluntarily, and was accepted in 1959. That Puerto Rico has done so also. (Thankfully we haven't been dumb enough to agree. There's a tiny minority there that wants independence, and I for one would happily give it to them, but the majority of Puerto Ricans will never vote for it.)

The Japanese territory where we still have bases is under the jurisdiction of Japan, is it not? We didn't annex anything into U.S. jurisdiction that I am aware of.

Texas fought a war for independence from Mexico before becoming a state....voluntarily.

Does Guam want independence? Does California desire to be "re-united" with Mexico? I don't think so. (OK, there are the La Raza racists, but nobody takes them seriously.) Yet EVERY eastern European country that was ever under the Tsarist and subsequently the Soviet yoke is fiercely defending the freedom from Russian tyranny that they gained 1991.

Moscow seriously claims the Ukraine is "Russian" despite having a different language, a different Orthodox Church, etc. Moscow is enforcing Russian civil law and Russian citizenship on the Ukrainian territory occupied in 2014, announcing to all and sundry that the occupied territory is now Russia, and is deporting ethnic Ukrainians wholesale.

Now THAT is annexation.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

The Texas war for independence had little to do with the Mexican American war and seizing California—and all those elections—Russia had election too in Donbas and Crimea too—how honest were they? How honest was the 1959 election in Hawaii?
No, America is no saint—few big nations are. Ask the people of Northern Ireland about “Free Elections”.