U.S. can't police world...........anymore.

With Syria on Pres. Obama's mind . There is one big question on my mind as well . "how long can America act as the world police?" There is no way that  United States military is now bombing 6 different countries?  U.S. aircraft are conducting air strikes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and now Somalia.  There is a U.S. military base in over half of the countries on the planet and U.S. military spending is over 7 times larger than the military spending of any other nation on earth. The facts are Today, the United States has become the police of the world.  The U.S. military has a total of over 700 military bases in 130 countries around the world. Total military spending by the U.S. government is nearly equal to the combined military spending of the rest of the globe.  Meanwhile, the federal government is literally drowning in debt. Last year Gov. Brian Schweitzer told Montana Democrats  it’s time for Americans to stand up and say they won’t be the world’s police anymore and they won’t become involved in more wars like those in Iraq and Afghanistan. “We’ve destroyed a lot of lives,” he said. “We’ve made a lot of money for the military-industrial complex. We need people to stand up. We need people to stand up and say, ‘We will defend this country, but we’re not going to go off to war and be police for the world.’ It’s time to stand up, stand up for this country now and stand up for us first.” The audience rose and applauded. The truth is that we cannot afford to be the police of the world and the Pentagon wastes so much money that it is almost incomprehensible.  Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once publicly admitted that the Pentagon lost track of 2.3 trillion dollars and cannot tell us how it was spent.  Just imagine how your boss would react if you lost track of just 2.3 thousand dollars.  So why wasn't there more of an uproar about losing track of 2.3 trillion dollars?  Have we become so accustomed to military waste that we don't even care anymore? For half a century Americans were told that policing the world was a strategic and moral imperative: we were "saving the world from communism," and defending our own national security. On this pretext Washington overthrew democratically elected governments, installed and financed some of the most bloodthirsty regimes in world history, went to war in Vietnam, and even supported genocide -- from Indonesia to Guatemala -- when our leaders found it politically convenient to do so. This brings into focus a major problem that U.S. media, some politicians, and many Americans seem confused about: Which of the many foreign policy issues and crises currently in the news are crucial to the security and well-being of the United States and require presidential action? The US needs a greatly reduced role in world affairs. Let the world police itself and bring out service men and women home to US soil. America has enough problems and debt as it is. Sorry to sound selfish, but America should focus on our own first. Make sure are own house is in order first. America simply can't afford to be the Sole Policemen of the World, especially with other Developed Nations around the World that can afford to defend themselves. And work with us in coalitions to make the World safer. Its time we demand that the rest of the Developed World play its part in their own National Security and making the World a safer place. 

NOTES & COMMENTS:

Here is some reasons why the American way is unsustainable .

#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 of somewhere 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 dollars every 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 down to 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 third of all the government debt in the entire world.