Policing the World

By Nick Manfredi

The United States of America has long stood as "the greatest country in the world." Is it still? Perhaps.

In our rise to the top of the globe, the U.S. picked up a stigma that has yet to leave us and has had yet to help us keep our high global standing. We are "Team America: World Police."

This self-indoctrinating national persona has been a factor into many a war: the War on Communism, the Cold War, the IndoChinese Wars, the Lebanese Civil War, the Iran-Iraq War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the War on Terror, the Iraq War, the War in Afghanistan, the Northwest Pakistan War — need I go on?

Our troops are among the greatest in the world. Our generals and lieutenants are the best and the brightest. But does this not give us reason to preserve these great minds of strategy? Should we not protect our troops? Our able bodied men and women who have chosen to devote a part of their lives to service, do they not deserve to serve under a more diplomatic, patient, selective commander in chief?

The answer is a resounding "yes!", "hooh-rah" and "Sempre fi" to a president with a more delicate trigger finger and much greater understanding of the value of the lives of every United States Air Force Pilot, Navy Seal, Army infantry soldier and few, proud Marines.

So who will it be? President Obama is often criticized for being a push over. He was berated by the Republicans for his attempts at a peaceful retrieval of a U.S. spy drone that was captured in Iran. However, during his administration, we have seen the taking down of Osama bin Laden as well as the fall of the 42 year old Libyan dictatorship. On the flip side, our president has ended the Iraq War, pulling out more troops than ever before, has plans to cut the defense budget by $350-600 billion and has a Nobel Peace Prize on his desk in the oval office.

On the opposing side, Republican front runner Mitt Romney promises to "reverse Obama-era defense spending cuts" and "begin reversing Obama-era cuts to missile defense and commit to a robust multilayered national ballistic-missile defense system to deter and defend against nuclear attacks on our homeland and our allies." Romney is afraid of the weakness of our defense under the Obama administration — this fear resting in the belief that American strength essentially equals world peace.

These two politicians present the central struggle of national security: too much versus too little. But beyond the lines dividing democrat and republican, beyond the politics, the Tea Party, the one percent or the 99 percent, there lies a bipartisan truth: the United States of America needs to focus on the health and well being of the United States of America.

We have slipped in the standing of the world, we have lost that special spark that is the true sentiment of the American dream. To regain it we must give our time, energy and focus to the beautiful for spacious skies and lands within our borders, the amber waves of grain in which American farmers struggle to stay afloat, the purple mountains whose majestic valleys should be utilized for clean wind energy.

We must mend the flaws within our own borders before we attempt to go and play police abroad. By maintaining our own nation, we will best provide for the future of our country and, therefore, the future of every country that will truly need our helping hand in the inevitable wars that lie ahead of us.

Nick Manfredi is a sophomore theatre and political science major.