Remember the Cold War had a few heat islands like Korea, Viet Nam, Nicaragua, Angola... lots of people, including Americans, got killed in the Cold War. Not to mention the fact that we made allegiances with a lot of really sleazy people, allegiances that often involved us keeping them in power in spite of their people’s wishes, which laid the ground work for Islamist take over of some countries, which lead us directly to 9-11 and the War on Terror. So yeah, the Cold War was bad for us.
And if you think propping up people like the Shah, Marcos, and Pinochet had us being the “unquestioned light in the world keeping the darkness at bay” you’re seriously confused. At many points in the Cold War is was our brand of darkness vs their brand of darkness.
Maybe, but I subscribe to the notion that the U.S. has been an unquestionable force for good in this world. Just the fact that there even was a Cold War proves that. How much easier/cheaper would it have been to tell Western Europe, "Good luck, let us know how it all turns out!"? Talk about a strategic blunder of epic proportion...