For decades I have been writing and lecturing about the need for the US to cease its roll as the police force for the world…….it seems that whenever a maniacal dipstick threatens someone…..the world turns to the US to protect them from whatever perceived threat there is..and like the dutiful servants of man…we up and run head long into another war of sorts…..and who pays for all this adventurism? The American taxpayer…that is who!
The time is now to reconsider our roll as the world’s police force….it is time to tell the world that they need to handle their little squabbles among themselves….the US is struggling with amount debt and can NO longer afford the luxury of being the hero to the world, well at least half of it……
Other than my simple objection to our adventurism, is there any other reasons to stop being the world’s policeman? Why, yes there is! Below is a list by Michael Snyder for Black Listed News……a good list and excellent reasons to cease our law enforcement roll to the world…..
#1 Prior to the beginning of the “War on Terror” our national debt was under 6 trillion dollars. Today, it has more than doubled and currently sits at a whopping 14.3 trillion dollars.
#2 Today, the U.S. military is in nearly 130 different nations and it has a total of about 700 military bases around the globe. It costs approximately 100 billion dollars each year to maintain these military bases.
#3 U.S. military spending is greater than the military spending of China, Russia, Japan, India, and the rest of NATO combined.
#4 The United States already accounts for 46.5% of all military spending on the planet. China is next with only 6.6%.
#5 If Bill Gates gave every penny of his fortune to the U.S. government, it would only cover the U.S. budget deficit for 15 days.
#6 When you throw in all “off budget” items and other categories of “defense spending” not covered in the Pentagon budget you get a grand total ofsomewhere between $1.01 and $1.35 trillion spent on national defense in 2010.
#7 The U.S. government borrows an average of about 168 million more dollarsevery single hour.
#8 The Pentagon currently gobbles up 56 percent of all discretionary spending by the federal government.
#9 Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.
#10 The cost for the first week of airstrikes on Libya was 600 million dollars. Keep in mind that the leader of the opposition in Libya has admitted that his forces contain large numbers of the same “al-Qaeda fighters” that were shooting at American troops in Iraq. So we are going broke and we are helping al-Qaeda take power in Libya at the same time.
#11 The total price tag for each F-22 fighter jet is approximately $350 million.
#12 Over the past decade, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost U.S. taxpayers well over a trillion dollars.
#13 If you went out today and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you over 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.
#14 Since 2001, the total cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan breaks downto well over $3,600 for every man, woman and child in the United States.
#15 Just one day of the war in Afghanistan costs more money than it took to build the entire Pentagon.
#16 The United States government is now responsible for more than a thirdof all the government debt in the entire world.
We are going broke and part of the reason, although not the only reason, are our wars and our adventurism…..maybe the more that the people know, the more they will demand that we worry about this country first and the rest of the world second……wishful thinking, I know…..but we have got to start somewhere.
We can still be the World’s Policeman, just like the Pax Romana, but just like local law enforcement the beneficiaries got to pay for it, not just the US taxpayers. Excellent facts making your point.
Thanx Hansi………pay us protection money….I like It!
It is Culture and Far spread monotonous thoughts in everyone`s mind that the Western culture is supposed to be Superior and dominant that influences the daily opinions of world leaders that “going-west” is a good thing, ignoring what is to be considered in collateral damage and otherwise.I salute you to write an intriguing piece such as this.The factual information provided gives it a good reality touch.
Peace out 😛
Hi Mr.M….thanx for the comment and thanx for the props…..I try to give as many facts as I can….I refuse to be just another voice out there….I would like people to visit and to learn something in the process….please stop by again it is always good to have comments….
Dr. Chuq,
can you supply me with the link to this list so I can bookmark it?
Thanks
Larry, sorry for the delay…..
http://www.blacklistednews.com/16_Reasons_Why_The_United_States_Can_No_Longer_Afford_To_Be_The_Police_Of_The_World/14497/0/0/0/Y/M.html
There is almost no chance now that the US can survive intact. We have all of the USSR’s problems, and then some. I give it less than 5 years. There won’t be a 2016 Presidential election.
Hi Jolly always nice to hear from you…….I agree with you on the USSR thing…..but I feel that we are in dire straits and the system is resilient ……but only if the people get off their butts and drop the Wii and take back the country….without that the Banksters will retain control…..
In 1985, nearly every political analyst on Earth thought the Soviet system was a powerful monolith that would engulf us unless we maintained hypervigilant watch over it.
They were wrong. And people here are about to find out that our “superpower” status is window dressing.
Once again I agree……the whole American Exceptionalism thingy just is wrong….
Bullshit! YOU applied for the job of world policeman – in fact YOU (America) engineered it largely as an excuse to stick your noses in all over the world during your fight against your joint bogeymen – the USSR and communism.
AMERICA continually bleats about the costs etc., but most of the time, IF you backed others at the UN and otherwise stayed home, then everyone would be happier.
The only MAJOR involvement in a real war that the US wasn’t heavily involved in starting was WW2 and THEN you came in about 3 years too late and it cost us ALL (including America) an absolute fortune in money AND men and virtually destroyed Europe where you COULD have done something useful by means of solidarity AGAINST Hitler at the beginning.
I’d guess, though like everyone else I can’t prove it, that the CIA has started or engineered more wars on this planet than anyone else since the bloody Romans 2000 years ago.
If you look at many of the figures in your quoted section, they may be accurate (I don’t know and it doesn’t matter anyway), but they are TOTALLY unrelated, although they are designed to look as if they are cause and effect. As just ONE example of that – #s 7, 8 &9 – what’s the connection? As another example: WTF has the cost of a two-bit funny shaped building in the US got to do with the cost of the war in Afghanistan (except that the occupants have been more than a little complicit in a whole load of devious sh*t over there).
I don’t agree with most of the wars and never did, but that doesn’t mean that some aren’t necessary, like them or not. However, MOST of the world (particularly the people, rather than the politicians who pretend to represent them) would be DELIGHTED if the US would piss off back home and stay there because at least half of the places the US is involved only NEED policing at all because the US has stuck its nose in. The US is NOT doing the rest of us some kind of favour being the world’s policeman – it’s often bloody well interfering where it’s not wanted purely BECAUSE IT SUITS AMERICA!
Sorry, Chuq, but that’s how I feel and a whole lot of the rest of the world feels that way too!
Basically, I am just quoting and it shows, at least to me, what could have been done with the money we pissed away fighting wars of adventurism…..and yes, we applied, though I had NOTHING to do with it, to be the savior of the world now it is time for the rest of the world to stop turning to us to do their bidding…….I disagree….sure they hate our guts but the next time someone fires a gun in anger they will come back and seek assistance…there is one way to prove me wrong…..bring all troops home and wait to see who gets over their little hate thing…..the US needs to cash here…..so why not let us have it back…..
I will agree that it is someone other than the people that call the shots and that is my point….NO war has done anything constructive inb the last hundred years….and yes, the CIA is good at being bad….
I realise that we are (for entirely different reasons) saying largely the same thing, but it’s not that simple! YOU (again I mean America and not you personally, of course) actually CREATED a lot of the problems (in part at least) and NOW you have a moral obligation to help where you can.
I agree the money would have been better spent in other ways (as it would in the uK too), but to suggest that it’s the rest of the world’s fault and we’re all “running to Daddy” so to speak is just utter bullshit in my opinion – I’m sure that it’s what a lot of Americans believe, but it’s typical of the US that it thinks it’s so f*cking important – it IS in some ways, but only because it’s created so much sh*t for the rest of the world to try to clear up.
Most of the wars the UK has been involved in since WW2 – like Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest have been IN SUPPORT OF OUR ALLY THE US and they were mostly not instigated by us – we can’t bloody well afford it for one thing, so we wouldn’t even think of STARTING it alone. The Falklands was the only one that was OUR doing and the US (although it did help a bit) was more worried about its trade and other ties with South America than the UK’s problems and in that instance a BRITISH PROTECTORATE had been attacked and invaded without provocation!
In fact, MUCH of the trouble in the ME also has been largely caused or encouraged by the unwavering support the US has shown for Israel (MONEY again!!!) since without US support (both tacit and real) Israel would have done a deal years ago or ceased to exist! And THAT trouble (the Israeli thing) has occasioned many of the other troubles, hatreds and enmities across most of the Islamic world and beyond.
The US has, in MY opinion NEVER done anything militarily in recent years for even largely altruistic reasons. ALL your machinations have been carried out (sometimes – or perhaps often – erroneously) purely out of what various US administrations have seen as their best self interests.
Yes we are talking about the same things……the US gets its allies to go along with them and I am sure there is some sort of arm wringing….then we are are in agreement….the US needs to just focus on internal problems and let the world focus on theirs….pretty simple, huh?
I agree entirely – EXCEPT (that a bit like a “but” don’t you think?) we are in a world situation in large part created (and still manipulated), if not by direct intervention then by meddling, by US administrations for the last seventy or eighty years (maybe more) and that leaves a whole lot of us vulnerable through little fault of our own – all we did wrong was to trust a “friend”…
It is that exceptionalism thing again….we were WRONG and I apologize for the idiots that we elected to do our bidding…..
Oh, please don’t apologise – I don’t mean to imply in any way that you or ordinary Americans are to blame – it just gets me that so many of your fellow countrymen can’t see WHY so much of the world doesn’t fall at their feet. To most of us, money may be important, but it’s a long way from being the only or even the most important thing – and so-ooo many US citizens can’t see that…
America has in many ways done what a lot of modern Americans think they broke away from Britain to avoid – imperialist tyranny, which WE were very guilty of once – and then whilst bitching about British imperialism of the past, the US has done exacly the same thing (though using different tactics I agree). A century and more ago WE thought we were doing the rest of the world a favour by dominating much of it – and then it got to be a convoluted burden that we could no longer handle. Like us, and the Romans before and the Greeks before them and all the rest in between, including the USSR, there comes a point where it all becomes too complicated and unwieldy and unaffordable and then blows up in your face – I guess that’s perhaps where you may be coming to right now.
That, my friend, is really sad – not least because the US showed such promise once – if only she had become MORE civilised instead of LESS… 🙁
Oh I agree and there are times that I feel that I need to apologize for our ignorance….after all I vote and this is what I have gotten….now people can see why I get so verbal…..