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Former NATO Chief: The United States Should Be the World’s ‘Policeman’
Washington Free Beacon ^ | September 30, 2016

Posted on 09/30/2016 1:06:57 PM PDT by nuconvert

Anders Fogh Rasmussen was prime minister of Denmark from 2001 to 2009, and months later began serving as NATO secretary general until 2014. He is currently promoting his new book, The Will to Lead: America’s Indispensable Role in the Global Fight for Freedom. The Washington Free Beacon interviewed Mr. Rasmussen during a visit this week to Washington D.C.

-excerpt-

WFB: The central theme of your book is the exceptional importance of U.S. leadership. But what would you say to the American who says, “Let the world deal with its own problems. Keep us out of it?”

Rasmussen: I would tell the Smith family in Peoria: the overall headline would be that it’s in your self-interest to be the global leader. I would suggest three things. First, if you do not attack the enemy on their soil, they will attack you on your soil. You saw that on Sept. 11, 2001. Go overseas and fight the enemy. Secondly, I would say that prevention is less expensive than a cure. So it’s very important for the U.S. to address conflicts while they are still small and manageable. The U.S. should not do what it did in the 1920s and 1930s and let world problems grow to a point that resolving those problems costs a huge amount of blood and treasure. Third, it is in the U.S. interest to preserve the world order that the U.S. itself created after the Second World War.

It’s a fact that America prospers when the world is at peace and free trade flows across borders. And that’s what came out of President Truman’s framework after the Second World War. He created institutions that have served an unprecedented era of peace. And right now that order is under attack from Putin, from terrorists, from rogue states everywhere.

(Excerpt) Read more at freebeacon.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: nationalsecurity; us; usa
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1 posted on 09/30/2016 1:06:58 PM PDT by nuconvert
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To: nuconvert

If not us, there will be someone else.

China
Russia


2 posted on 09/30/2016 1:11:32 PM PDT by DoughtyOne (41 days: Until Presdient Pre-elect becomes President Elect Donald J. Trump. Help is on the way!)
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To: nuconvert

Involved? Absolutely
World’s cops? Get lost

Odd, they scream and yell about us getting their business, vilify us, and hate us...when faced with the prospect of not having us pick up the tab, they have a tantrum.


3 posted on 09/30/2016 1:12:15 PM PDT by Mjreagan
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To: nuconvert; All
I know very little about the former NATO chief. But I suspect that person probably meant to be understood in the following way. From the title of this thread ...
Former NATO Chief: The United States Should Be the World’s [free] ‘Policeman’

Corrections welcome.

4 posted on 09/30/2016 1:15:49 PM PDT by Amendment10
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To: nuconvert

Had an English roommate in graduate school back in the mid 80’s.

I asked him why they criticized the US but not Russia?

He said, we live next to Russia. If the US isn’t going to lead, we sure as heck aren’t going to.


5 posted on 09/30/2016 1:19:44 PM PDT by DannyTN
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To: Mjreagan

We can take duty or shirk duty but we are the world’s policeman whether we like it or not. Doesn’t mean we have to stick our nose into everything, but if something endangers our security we should act, no matter where the problem originates. Isolationism is not an option when weapons can strike anywhere.


6 posted on 09/30/2016 1:23:02 PM PDT by SaxxonWoods (Ride To The Sound Of The Guns)
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To: nuconvert
Why? We're deplorable and need fundamental change. Who wants THAT in a policeman?

-PJ

7 posted on 09/30/2016 1:25:00 PM PDT by Political Junkie Too (If you are the Posterity of We the People, then you are a Natural Born Citizen.)
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To: SaxxonWoods

We might have different definitions of ‘world’s policemen’ because I have no interest in isolationism.


8 posted on 09/30/2016 1:25:19 PM PDT by Mjreagan
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To: nuconvert

Why? So Denmark can spend money on free goodies for their smug population of wimps?

No more American blood for European comfort!


9 posted on 09/30/2016 1:28:26 PM PDT by VanDeKoik
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To: nuconvert

Couple trillion a year? Who should the bill be sent to?


10 posted on 09/30/2016 1:30:12 PM PDT by Lent
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To: nuconvert
A rather naive analogy, IMHO. Policemen exist to support the law, whether to prevent or to solve crime. No world "policeman" has that guidance, and if you look to the usual sources for it, the UN notably, you find only chaos and self-interest. And so that "world policeman" will always be subject to the accusation of advancement of self-interest whether he actually is, and frankly in international affairs if you aren't advancing your country's interest you're advancing somebody else's.

That role is most successfully filled when the "policeman" is advancing his country's interest, and here I cite every successful empire from Rome to the British. When he is suckered into behaving otherwise, the empire falls. We're being suckered by globalists and NWO fantasists, and they aren't worth the blood they're costing. This is not an argument for isolation, it's an argument for clearly identifying what is in America's interest and pursuing that, not some silly fictive Greater Good.

11 posted on 09/30/2016 1:31:19 PM PDT by Billthedrill
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To: Amendment10

Doesn’t this NATO Chief understand that Policemen get paid for their service?


12 posted on 09/30/2016 1:33:19 PM PDT by 353FMG (AMERICA MATTERS)
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To: nuconvert

Exceptional effective policeman are clean, honest and lead by example.
Ignoring founding father’s advice cautioning America to “avoid foreign entanglements”, has been disasterous for countries we interfered in, and our own country in so many ways.
Our “world police” war actions since 2003 have damaged six country’s social, political and economic order, killed TENS of THOUSANDS of innocents, displaced MILLIONS,and resulted in creating angry Islamic refugee hordes now distablizing NATO allies.

This must stop.


13 posted on 09/30/2016 1:33:58 PM PDT by MarchonDC09122009 (When is our next march on DC? When have we had enough?)
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To: nuconvert

Police Commissioner Obama is on the Take


14 posted on 09/30/2016 1:37:34 PM PDT by butlerweave
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To: nuconvert

Yeah but who does the world call when it needs a cop?


15 posted on 09/30/2016 1:57:19 PM PDT by jmacusa ("Dats all I can stands 'cuz I can't stands no more!''-- Popeye The Sailorman.)
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To: nuconvert

The World’s Policeman?

Only if the rest of the world pays the bill for their security. Why do we donate our treasure and our warrior’s lives to an ungrateful world???

Let them start paying the interest on our debt and receive no more charity from us in the form of “foreign aid.”.

That would be a start.


16 posted on 09/30/2016 2:18:19 PM PDT by BatGuano (You don't think I'd go into combat with loose change in my pocket, do ya?)
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To: nuconvert

I guess he hasn’t heard about the current persecution of police officers in America.


17 posted on 09/30/2016 2:18:50 PM PDT by airborne (I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey playoffs season!)
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To: SaxxonWoods

“We can take duty or shirk duty but we are the world’s policeman whether we like it or not. Doesn’t mean we have to stick our nose into everything, but if something endangers our security we should act, no matter where the problem originates. Isolationism is not an option when weapons can strike anywhere.”

True, but these worthless freeloading European Countries ( and the Asian Countries too) need to start paying us the full cost of protecting them. And that includes ponying up their soldiers when there’s a fight somewhere, because I’d be for letting them get their asses kicked by Russia (or China) if they think our protection comes for free any longer.


18 posted on 09/30/2016 2:36:26 PM PDT by vette6387
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To: nuconvert

How disparate are the USA’s NATO dues compared to these euro-pikers? They are too busy funding their socialist idiocy to want to pay their fair share.


19 posted on 09/30/2016 2:49:48 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?.)
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To: nuconvert

How disparate are the USA’s NATO dues compared to these euro-pikers? They are too busy funding their socialist idiocy to want to pay their fair share.


20 posted on 09/30/2016 2:49:53 PM PDT by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?.)
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