Defending the Truth

What is wrong with the USA being the 'worlds policeman' anyway? I think in many ways our policies with nations abroad have made this world a safer place to live in.

I think that would be a great subject for a new thread!

The real source of "Anti-Americanism..." (I don't think it's fair to lump our neighbors such as Canada into this; I'd prefer to call it "anti-U.S.ism") is U.S. conduct at home and abroad.
The Murrah Federal building was bombed in objection to U.S. government domestic policy.
The World Trade Center was bombed (in 1993) in objection to U.S. government foreign policy.

The U.S. comes by its manifold enemies the old fashioned way.

IT EARNS THEM!
That might be a welcome change jaaa.
But the U.S. is NOT the world's policeman, and never was.
The U.S. is Earth's vigilante.
And it is a foolish, self-destructive posture.

Several problems that I see...

1) We shouldn't have to foot the bill to look after everyone else.

2) Our policies are really not that of a policeman (who is supposed to protect everyone equally). Our leaders choose their 'pet projects' while ignoring the plight of those that don't serve our interests.

3) We can be used as a 'bullying force' by our allies, putting the other side at great disadvantage in basic negotiation. This interferes with the autonomy of nations.

There are others, but those three popped to mind immediately.

Indeed, it would be foolishly self-defeating if we did.
If we spend $One $Dollar less than we need to field a U.S. military sufficient for full U.S. national defense, then we have failed.

BUT !!!

If we spend $One $Dollar more than we need to field a U.S. military sufficient for full U.S. national defense, then that $One $Dollar more was wasted.
Even Cold War military competition is a dilution of our prosperity.
To maintain highest U.S. standard of living, we need to divert only the minimum necessary to other expenditures, such as military.

This does not mean chiseling our disabled veterans from the life-long benefits they are rightly entitled to.

But it may mean not attempting to deploy Bush's Star Wars II pipe-dream before it's developed.
It is not yet developed.
But he's deploying it anyway.

The main reason is it is unconstitutional.

I personally do not want to pay taxes to be the world's police force. I also do not recall anybody appointing us as the world's police force.

Please show me where you think our policies, and especially our actions, have made the world a safer place to live.

First of all, I have a hard time with the term of 'the world's policeman'. Because to police, it would connotate defending international law, order, and humanity; when in fact U.S. policies have been directly counterproductive and sometimes directly opposite to all three of those causes. It is no wonder that when polled, Europeans and other of our 'allies' in this war vote strongly that the United States ranks as the number one threat to world peace and security; even above North Korea.

A term to more accurately describe U.S. foreign policy as the sole superpower would be jingoism.

We aren't a "rightful police force" because many Americans place our national self-confidence in a narrow chauvinistic claim of superiority of the American way instead of a mature affirmation of what America has to contribute to the world at the same time acknowledging the ugliest part of our condition.

Complete U.S. disregard for humanity in it's foreign policy is especially evident in both US past and present foreign policy of Latin America; where not only did the United States help and install brutal rightist military tyrants, but also directly supported and conducted terrorism to suppress democratically popular sentiments in the region (being leftist ideology, and national self-identity and not bidding to US imperial will).

And especially under the Bush administration, this policy has gone to new heights, in which it is in fact making us less safe as a nation. You kill one 'terrorist', and you create ten more from their families and friends. You torture, usually someone innocent, and you turn them into a terrorist yourself.

In theory that's the case, but in practice we exist as the world's mercenaries. We only work for ourselves, and if a nation is freed then it's entirely consequential. All of the oppressive dictators we've supported, the weapons we have sold, and the counterrevolutionary forces we've funded have seldom been to the nation's benefit, only to our own.

We're the dirty cop of the world.

I know.

I'm certainly no fan of UBL.
But in context, it's easy to at least understand what motivates the "great Satan" rhetoric.
To us there may not be a problem. But to the countless millions of victims of U.S. foreign policy, it's probably a seemingly legitimate term.