United States is called to help, yet then is dismissed as trying to be the police of the world.

Why is it, that I see people complaining that the United States is trying to be the police of the world. And that it should mind its own business constantly? As much as I WOULD like this to happen. And I am American. I also know, that too many countries totally depend on the US.

Bush is going on his "Asian" tour at the moment. Many Asian countries are concerned about North Korea, and also China, and they want to know that the US is still strong on its committment towards them due to the recent Election.

After North Korea pulls any funny business, South Korean protesters will protest outside the US Embassy calling for action.

And you know, as well as I, that if Iran did in fact set off a nuclear weapon at someone (which I doubt would happen) the United States would be blamed some way some how.

I don't like the United States being the "police man" of the world. But the question is: What if the United States wasn't here? Is France and the Netherlands going to take its place?

Until a UN army is made, there needs to be some country "patrolling". I personally wish the EU could get its act together so they can start doing it!

Ah Retanoid. You have found the deepest problem with being the world Super Power.

We are anything and everything to everyone. If there is a tsunami in the South Pacific who goes? We do, with our aircraft carrier. Who donates? Our people, out of PRIVATE MONEY. When a plague breaks out, who helps? We do. When ethnic cleansing is going on, and the UN or NATO decides they should do something, who leads them? We do. When the UN needs funding? the US. When the UN decides to enforce a UN resolution who do they call? The US. In fact, the US had little intention of going to Gulf War 1 to fight Saddam. The UN wanted to go, the whole world wanted to go. Who went? We did of course.

But then when it comes to issues of our economic stability (oil) it turns into blood for oil. when it comes to our cultural protection we are told we need to keep our borders open for humanitarian reasons (HA, what country thinks they will exist with such ignorant policy?) When we go to help our allies (Israel) be with economic aid or political man power they say the Jews control us. When we topple dictators the people kill us and say we murder their people. When we give more international aid then the whole world combined, we are called stingy because it is not a large portion of the GDP.

Our armies, our money, our people are a god send to the whole world when they need them. When it comes to our issues that do not concern the world, we are a totalitarian "think we own the world" baby killing monster.

We land in Normandy and we are heroes for saving France. We land in Iraq we are spreading imperialistic strengths upon the world, suppressing the peoples.

We can't win. Eventually we will fall, and the world will be thrown into an era of chaos and wars.

The reason we are accused of trying to be the worlds policeman, or war mongers, or whatever, is the way we sometimes go about it. We give the appearance of being bumbling giants causing as many problems as we solve. I love my country, make no mistake, but there are times I wish we'd go about our affairs in a less, well, clumsy manner.

We support democracy and attempt to export it. Yet we support despots in several countries for the sake of our interests. If we are going to hold others responsible for behaviour contrary to our stated ideals, we must hold everyone, including ourselves, responsible for behaviour contrary to those ideals. That means no more support for despots, no more looking the otherway when our socalled allies do wrong.

We fight wars to retain our freedoms, or to free other people who are oppressed. That is a laudable, if unpleasant, thing. I would hope that most everyone would agree with that. It's when we give the appearance of fighting a war for our own interests that the problems begin.

In short, appearances of doing evil will often outweigh any good actually being done, whether actual evil is being done or not. In the geopolitical world, appearance far outweighs actual reality.

very well put Seagull. We are clumsy, and we do not support our own ideologies in the right manor, we throw down dictators while letting their neighboring dictator stand. It is all about our own interest, which we have a right to protect, but the biggest thing that does put us in the spotlight of being wrong is trying to spread our democracy. The example I always use is the Congo, which has elections so we stay out, even though over the past 10 years 2 million have died directly related to war. But we get what we want from them, and Iraq had they done what ever they where asked to do Saddam would still be in power. Looking out for our interest and our way of life is fine, but when we make it into a big ethical deal, and then do something unethical .. well then we look like dumbasses. We take down Iraq and then the terrorist kill more people then Saddam would have in the same period of time.

The main problem is the people behind the scenes in Washington that control the agenda and the direction of every foreign policy move made by the US. If these people were pushed away and we had the US only focusing on peace then we could let waring sides thresh things out. But the big and bigger money crowd want all actions related to making more money for them and their friends at the expense of the US middle class.