From Global Cop to Global Problem Solver: Changing Course for America

Posted at dKos: Sun Sep 04, 2005 at 05:18:37 PM EDT

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the United States has operated as Global Cop. I believe that this is a noble job for a country to take on, and had we pursued it in ernest, it might have been a good path for the United States to take.

Unfortunately, the old addage: Absolute power corrupts absolutely, also applies to the United States, and our global police efforts have been more concerned with self interest than the interests of the people we, as Global Cop are protecting and serving.

Think about it… What is worse than a dirty cop? A cop who looks to pad his pockets at the expense of the people he serves is one of the most lowly characters in the realm of story telling. That is who we are today.

Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, extraordinary rendition, belligerent foreign policy, preventative war, illegal occupation… do good cops do that?

What is worse than us being a dirty cop is that we act as if we are not only infallible, but that our intentions are always noble. We are above reproach.

It must be maddening to many across the planet.

Global Cop: Future

It is predicted that in the near future, there will be major regional instability due to lack of resources. As populations grow and resources are used up, people will fight for things like fresh water and food.

Instead of trying to stop these things from happening, or acting now to mitigate the reprecussions of these regional conflicts, our leadership has decided to try to fan these flames, manage them, then profit from them.

We can look forward to a future with more forward deployments, more active conflicts and more death on a large scale. This death, or ‘collateral damage’,  again for selfish motives will further increase the angst against America, and if by some miracle, we are able to perpetuate our massive wealth advantage, we will face no shortage of desperate people coming after us.

Perpetual war is the future of the United States as Global Cop. I don’t think that the American people are interested in perpetual war.



United States as Global Problem Solver

I propose a new outlook on our foreign policy. Instead of trying to be Global Cop, and doing it badly (Rwanda, Darfur, Central America, Afghanistan, etc.) the United States should seek to become Global Problem Solver.

After all, we have played that role before, and those were some of our best appearances:

We gave the world the Constitution. A model for societies all over the planet to use as they threw off the yoke of oppresive tyranny and royal rule. There we were solving problems.

Fighting World War II was solving a problem, granted a bit late, but it was solving the global problem that the Axis had become.

The Marshall Plan solved the global problem of a devastated Europe and the political and economic vacuum that created.

These are pieces of history that are not only exalted here in the US, but throughout the world. People are genuinely thankful for these actions that the United States has taken, as well they should be; we helped people solve their problems.

There are many more instances of US as Global Problem Solver, and it is our actions in those situations, the help we have given people, that have given us our good name.

Many times, this help was not only beneficial to those that received it, but also beneficial to us.

Acting as Global Problem Solver allows the United States to pursue its own interests without pissing off the planet.

Solving the AIDS problem in Africa would be a nice start. How about solving the problem of lack of fresh water? We could solve the problem of energy and pollution by putting serious effort into renewable energy. There are millions of problems out there, how about solving them instead of making them worse and then profiting from them?