How will it result in danger to our country? He's not saying shut the military down (Obama is working on that). He just wants a reduction in our bases in over 100 countries.

 

Because anything less than keeping the war machine turning at full speed is dangerous to our country. (sarcasm intended) This is the crap that Im talking about that people have been brainwashed with. If they are such a threat to our country why the **** don't we just nuke the mother****ers? People just take what they see as tv as 100% truth as if everything is dangerous. Everyone is so worried about the dangers outside of the country and totally forget about the danger within. I don't know if you noticed but this war is not ending any time soon and if anything it is bringing the U.S. down economically and socially. Im done discussing it I cant believe Ive typed this much because 90% of this will fall on deaf ears.

 

What does the USA get for being a "world leader" ?

The 2 main things I see :
It has made the US a target with extremists.
It has cost the US a lot in sending money to other countries, due to being in this position ( money we have never had ).

 

I guess it's a glass half full/half empty kinda thing. With out a doubt the world will always have it's fair share of trouble makers. I guess I like knowing that being the leader means everyone else is behind us.

As far as costing alot of money, I can't/won't argue that point. But isn't that a direct result of a government gone wild? I know I have not personally sent any of my money to places like Pakastan. It's things like that, that makes us a world sucker, a real leader would would have slapped them down a long time ago (by putting strings on that money). There is a difference between being a world leader and a world sugar daddy. The problem is you can't back up the talk if the don't have the ability, like a strong military, and that does come with a cost.

 

Is everyone really behind us ?
What does this mean ?

Sorry I did not see where spending billions overseas got the US anything tangible.
The UN, we get to be the major supplier of money and troops ( to the tune of > 2X the #2 & #3 countries ).
Supplying economic aid to countries we get to be the world's dad by handing out allowance, and get nothing in return. A kid should at least me mowing the lawn, Pakistan and India thumb their nose at when it comes to helping find the extremists, or at least their military that the ruling part has no control of.
Countries quite regularly tell us **** off.

Gone wild or not, how much per year do we hand out in economic aid ?
I agree the US is the world's sucker, when it comes to this.
To get bases at the edge of Afghanistan we had to forgive the loans.
WTF, all these years of handing money out, and now you want rent for the operations base ?

I see a lot of getting sucker punched by having the title of world leader, but nothing good.
Russia and China could care less what we do, and push come to shove, they have proven they will overtly fight against us in political battles as well as real ones. Look at Iran, Europe and the US are the only ones that are pressing them, Russia and China are supporting them. When it comes down to it, Europe is heading back into recession, and can't risk having OPEC oil price be driven up with the loss of Iran. I think Europe won't have our back when things start to go to crap there.

I am just trying to get a good idea of what this world leader position by spending billions of dollars we don't have is getting us. So far I only see it as interest that is due to China, and a eroding dollar, as what China won't buy we have to buy ourselves via the treasury, which is getting it from ?

 

As has already been pointed out in this thread, the world is a dangerous place and we are a stabilizing force in it. If the Soviet Union had been the only superpower they would have been the stabilizing force, just a communist one. If we start moving out of areas they will become less stable. Walking away from allies who need our support is not a good way of helping them. We did it in the past with Pakistan and a result was Pakistanis who now hate the US because they saw us as abandoning them. One of the biggest reasons Israel has not been kicked into the sea is our stand next to them. Israel is a strong country to begin with, but with us having their back it only makes them stronger. We have downsized after every major engagement and as a result we have had to enlarge our military to fight the despots that have risen to power, every superpower has.

 

These are questions, not a critique. I am trying to figure out if I an informed or misinformed. Bear with me, I still do not see how defending the US is the same as trying to be king kong ( keep in mind the old B&W movie, the little planes got him )

Are we stabilizing the world or are we creating the problems that destabilize it ?

- bin Laden's hate towards the US hit full stride when the US invaded Iraq in 1990. bin Laden was of the thought that this is was a violation of Muslim ground. This is what kicked him into overdrive against the US.
Prior to that, he was cool with the US being involved with the fight against Russia, as it was a Afgan - Russia and a US - Russia fight. He was there helping his Muslim brothers.
Had the US just stayed out of it, or done the bare minimum in helping the Mulsims of Afghanistan, and got out of the area, what would have happened ?

Come 1992, the actions started to happen, with bombing of hotels where US soldiers were to be staying. They were not there, but all the same we were the target. The soldiers reason for being there, they were en route to Muslim territory in Africa.

Then the down hill run starts with the 1993 bombing of the WTC and after.

Had the US not being trying to "stabilize" the middle east, and mind our own business or at the most supplied the ME with the required items to push Iraq back into their own country, would the remainder still had happened ?

The push to bankrupt the US by having us fight the Muslims on multiple front was not formed until after 2011.

One could go as far back as Iran in 1958, had we not been there trying to "stabilize" Iran ( and by this I mean put in charge someone that was willing to do business with the US on our terms ) what would have happened ?
Iran might not be in the place it is today

How about if the UN ( mostly Christians "stabilizing" the world post WW-II ) had not gotten involved in cutting up the territory and creating Israel in 1948 ?
How about the UK messing around after WW-I in the ME with Palestine ?

I keep seeing where the west is getting involved in battles that have been going on for 2,000 years. As if the UK or the US could wave a pen and make 2,000 years of hate and fighting go away over night.

This is just how my opinion was formed. Had the US ( or British ) not being trying to "stabilize" the world in these long standing feuds, what would the outcome be.

As I see it, we might be better off had we not decided to build bases all over the globe and have huge navy fleets to stabilize things ( that are none of our business, it is a 2,000 year war going on, the US as a country was ~ 170 years old at the time of our telling others what to do ).

 

I think that in Bin Ladden's case, or any of the muslim extremests, it's any excuse will do. If you keep going back in history almost every othe group in the world has crossed swords with the muslims. One of the main reasons that the U.S. Navy was formed was to combat muslim pirates that were attacking our trading ships. This too could be a reason that they/he hated us so much.

Being a big power in the world gives us the ability to do what we did with him, turn him into worm food. On the other hand places like Spain and France have little choice in how to handle someone like him, short of rolling over on their backs and peeing themselves like a scared puppy. Just the fact that we can and will take out someone like Bin Ladden is in it's self a deterent to others that may want to try. It's not a complete solution so the ones that insist on trying will be smacked down like playing whach-a-mole, which serves as an object lesson.

As for the Unites Nations, I think that John Bolton had it right when he said something like "you could take away the top 10 floors and it would operate better" or something like that. The U.N. has become the world's most expensive joke, and should be closed. Also they should be responsible for at least paying NYC for all their traffic & parking violations. But let's don't get started on the U.N. here.

 

It is not any reasons, it was a specific reason, the west treading on "Muslim ground" and attacking other Muslims. It was the job of other Muslims to take care of this on their terms.

I cannot say with anything other than speculation and conjecture if it would be the same or not had we not pissed bin Laden off in 1990.

I just look at the aftermath of bin Laden in 1990, Iran in 1958 ( which makes it impossible for them to have a verified fair election ) to build an opinion.

Again this is not a critique of the posts to date, I am trying to figure out why being a world leader today is a good thing, other than spending a ton of money overseas and fighting a losing battle with the extremists and how defending is the same thing as having way too many overseas bases and a Navy the size of the next 11 countries ( which 8 of them are allies ).

The last election in Japan, the incumbent party lost due to a pledge to get the US base off of Japan's ground. Our own ally does not want our military presence there.

Found where this was a money making event of semi independent states ( and 1 fully independent ), not a religious battle as it appears today.
bin Laden could care less about the money, it is an extremist thing with him.
How much was the bounty on his head ? Something stupid like $ 10M ? Not a single taker, where had this been the Barbary coast scenario, they would have left the US alone ( US fed spent 20% of the budget on paying blackmail to leave the ships alone ).

Has not worked yet. Dying in the war against the west ( started in 1990 ) is an honor to them, not a deterrent. This did not reduce the bombings in Iraq as a lesson. Think it increased a bit after his death.

To the US it is ( or should be ). The 2005 deceleration from the extremists to lure the US into a war against Muslims on multiple fronts to bankrupt the country and cause collapse is starting to show fruit for them.
The wack-a-mole game is exactly what the group planned for the war against the west. From the state of the balance sheet for the fed, it is working very well.

I was talking about the UN intervention half a century + ago, not the current one. This was the UN ( Christians ) drawing lines in the sand ( literally ) for what group can be where with Muslims and Jewish.

Again none of this is a critique, I am trying to understand why defending only is a bad thing.
To date all I see is it is good to be the 800 pound gorilla, just for the reason of it is good.

 

Actually we pissed of Bin Laden when we accepted the request by Saudi Arabia to help them defend their kingdom. It wasn't the invasion of Iraq. It was helping other Muslims in the Saudi kingdom.

Edited to add: We are having issues with the war on terrorism because we are fighting a religious war in a secular manner. Those who are terrorists are religious radicals. They don't care if they die in the name of their religion, because they are rewarded in their afterlife. If you want to see the number of frontal assaults drop dramatically we need to fight their religious war in a religious manner. Basically make it so they cannot, according to their beliefs, go to heaven. One military group I know of rubs their bullets with bacon grease. If that were to make it out then the religious radicals would not want to fight, because they won't be able to get into heaven if they are shot. The same with burying a person with pork they will not be able to go to heaven if they have anything to do with pigs on them. We really do not need to rub our bullets with pork, but if the rumor gets out and is believable that we do, that is enough. Not allowing the other side to give their people killed in action, a proper Muslim burial is another way to fight them in a religious manner. They have no problem desecrating our service member's bodies and publicly treating them in a manner inconsistent with our beliefs we need to fight them the same way. Heck we have a hell of a special effect department in Hollywood, we could "video" us making it so these fighters can not go to heaven then "accidentally" releasing the video to the other side. All that has to be done is make the other side believe they will not receive the promised rewards of their heaven by dieing for their cause and you will see the number of people willing to die for their cause drop dramatically.

 

OK, so right reason, wrong case that caused the reason.
I got lucky in the why he got pissed off.

That will never happen, you saw the outrage at what those Marines were doing. I do not think we would ever try to level the playing field by doing this.
You are correct, it would have an impact on the fighting to the death that happens today. If someone that is an extremists thinks he might not get his reward in the after life, they might think twice about doing something.

This is almost a fighting the last war, use case going on.