Catch 22. If the US is not involved, then most of the world says we aren't doing enough, and if we get involved then 1/2 the world (give or take) says we should stay out. No, the US has not been perfect (no country in history ever has been), and yes there are times we should've gotten involved when we didn't and visa-versa (even though there will always be some who will say the opposite in a given situation), but the US has done more to improve the world than any other country, and it has the best record in history as a superpower. There will ALWAYS be resentful and jealous people in this world, regardless of what a powerful nation does for good.
Actually, it is because America is so large and powerful that it is often looked to for help. Indeed, the failure of the League of Nations was because no state would enforce international rules, and it was the less powerful countries that supported a larger role for the US (and other superpowers of the time) in order to give some power to international law. By the way, when was the last time the US fought a nation that abided by the Geneva Convention?
I good point that I was about to add. If other countries were like the US, they would be democracies, and it has almost never happened that two democracies have fought, because when a people have the information and the voice, the chances for serious conflict are very substantially diminished!
Obviously you haven't studied int'l realtions. It is actually liberals (including European liberals) who stress this point about democracies, not the realists. And the reason most of these wars have occurred is not because the democracies are attacking the dictatorships/one party regimes simply to make them democracies (look at history for crying out loud), it is because not being autocratic leads to these states doing provacative and evil things. This was pretty clear, yet you read it completely the wrong way.
Oh, the guys who resent us due to THEIR country's reckless economic policies. No wonder a ton of nazis and, more recently, islamic fundamentalists chose that nation, more than any other in L. America, to settle in.
Great point. With regard to a slave revolt becoming a massacre, the biggest criticism of John Brown, despite the respect many have for him, is that he led large numbers of slaves to their death through an unwinnable revolt. The funny thing is that many of these countries have been nowhere to be seen during many major abuses recently. Europe did nothing about Yugoslavia (right in their own back yard), are doing nothing now about Colombia, they offered little help with Somalia, and France actually built Iraq's nuclear plant in the 80s and forged economic ties (such as oil) with Iraq (as did Russia and China) years ago despite Iraq's total non-compliance and the UN embargo. These states are the ones who have the financial incentives to avoid a regime change (the US is losing and WILL lose a great deal of money from this conflict). No doubt, canyonman is right that the biggest problem is with too much INACTION (the ordeal in Somalia led the US to be reluctant to help out in such areas as Rwanda, but Europe, Asia etc have never even tried to help). Inaction is what led to the failure of the League of Nations, and eventually the world will either take a stand against fundamentalism and brutal regimes or there will become a permanent bifurcated system between the free nations and brutal regimes, whose power and inevitable provocations, coupled with modern weapons, will make it impossible for them to be overthrown and will increase the likelihood of WW III. For those who think this is an exaggeration, note that fundamentalists like the Taliban and the fundamentalists in Iran must do what they can to fight off modernity and oppose free nations so that there people don't learn or have the chance to yearn for the same freedoms (although the people in Iran already know and want these freedoms). This is why the Taliban were, and Iran now is, the biggest state sponsors of terrorism!
It is true you must have solid, logical reasons for taking action. But international relations is not a domestic court of law, and there are times when actions must be taken without support of a world body. Int'l Relations inevitably involves politics (of a higher level than ever enter a domestic criminal court). If states wait only for numerous other nations (or a falulty world body) to investigate and determine that another state poses a danger every time, the state subject to danger might be destroyed in the process of waiting or, more importantly, might become the sacrifice of other nations who have self-serving agendas that don't lend themselves to the security and survival of said endangered state.