To those people who never tire of bashing the Americans and claiming that they are warmongers, consider what would have happened if the United States had not intervened militarily in Korea in 1951?

There is no doubt that the regime of South Korea’s Syngman Rhee was hardly less odious, brutal or corrupt than the Communist regime of North Korea’s Kim il Sung. But South Korean people's power eventually threw off the Right wing dictatorship and South Korea has evolved into an economic powerhouse. Not so Communist North Korea. This country has now become a serious threat to world peace by it’s insistence that it will sell nuclear weapons to anybody with the cash. It has also demanded that it must receive aid from South Korea and Japan or it will consider the withholding of such aid to be an act of war.

That any country today can demand and receive Danegeld from free world countries is unacceptable, and it indelibly marks the Pyongyang regime as an international pariah. But how much worse would it have been if North Korea had taken all of South Korea? It would now be a hostile and threatening country with twice the resources and twice the population. Thank you again, USA. The free world owes you so much, but being an anti US ingrate has become a popular fashion statement these days.

I do not know why the US chosen the dubious honour of being the world’s policeman, I am just glad that somebody is attempting to fill that necessary role.

Redneck

Not all actions by the USA are bad but much of their foreign policy is the bully boy type.
To ensure that they have the means to be a bully boy they maintain a huge arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Along with about 2000 nuclear weapons they also have chemical and biological weapons.
The latest news is that they aim to spend another $6 billion on biological weapons research.

Soon the US president may have the authority to launch a pre emptive nuclear strike against a country "suspected" of planning an attack on the US with WMD's.
We have already seen that so called intelligence can be wrong or can be misinterpreted. I suppose that after a pre emtive nuclear strike that sites will be too radioactive for weapons inspectors to check if there ever was a threat from WMD's.

World Peace will only come about when we all start reducing the number of weapons in the world, with the money being made at present by the armament industry this is not likely to occur without a lot of public pressure.

To Mr peace.

The USA was bombed into WW2 and it's armed forces were clearly inadequate to the task of defending itself. It has no intention of repeating that mistake again.

Prior to 1941, US policy was one of Isolationism. It did not want to get involved in anybody else's war again. The Japanese attack upon Pearl Harbour showed how naive that policy was. The US is now pro active in world affairs and the world is a better place for it.

If not for the US, all of Europe might well have been over run by the Soviet Red Army. But the US stared down the Ivans long enough for Russia to come to it's senses and become a democracy with a free market economy. If not for the US, Saddam Hussein would now control 60% of total world oil production and that figure might well have been a lot higher if Saddam had taken Saudi Arabia as well.

Even today, it is the US leading the fight against Islamic terror on behalf of an ungrateful world. Personally, I wish the US would go back to Isolationism so I can watch the world go belly up again. Then I can watch all of America's legions of critics beg the Americans to help save them.

The US is the leader in deep space exploration and as far as I am concerned, the leaders of the human race to become a spacefaring civilisation. Their Centre for Disease Control destroyed the greatest human pathogen in history, Smallpox. While it's scientists have identified and suggested vaccines for new human pathogens from AIDS to Lassa Fever to Ebola, saving tens of millions of lives.

Measured against what the US has done for the human race, the constant anti US hysteria from people who should know better is an abomination to me.

Peace.. wouldnt it be interesting if the biological weapons you refer to being developed, were to simply 'disable the enemy without harming him' ? :)

I doubt that weapons development of harmful biological creepy crawly's would be acceptable to US citizens.

But then, I believe that in heaven the Lion will lay down with the Lamb :) (at least metaphorically speaking) so my opinions are a bit out of left 'optimistic' field.

I think there is common ground between you and Redneck, I'm sure he will acknowledge some of your points, but he also has valid ones, when the US has intervened in certain places, sure its been for self interest, but there are higher purposes at times when self interest and humanities interests co-incide.

Governments, as we all know, are a dynamic mixture of pressure groups and individuals with differing intensities of agenda's.
So, a fair analysis of US foreign policy would really need to examine which of these is coming to bear in certain world events and situations.

Australian intervention in East Timur was a mixture of self interest (Oil) 'obligation' (they helped us during last war) and noble humanitarianism (they were being slaughtered and displaced by Indonesian migration)

It would be a bit raw to just focus on the 'self interest' side of our efforts.

While any country has a nuclear capability there is no justification to deny any other country the same capability. We supposedly had an agreement for the reduction of nuclear weapons but both the USA and Russia are proposing to resume the development of new weapons! Is it any wonder that other countries are planning to do the same?

boaz, wether the public aproves of nasty creepy crawlies probably means very little to most governments and militarys (not to single anyone out), but i did notice in the latest edition of New Scientist that the US defense department requesitioned 1500 leters of anthrax. now im not going to jump to conclusions as to its use (the journal was speculating that it may be for the development of vaccines or other countermeasures or training), but it does give other countries a convienient excuse.

not to belittle the potential threat to the rest of the world, but the greatest damage nth korea will ever do is to its own people.