Lt. Colonel Oliver North introduces the slavering, bloodthirsty, modern-day Conquistadors that are such a threat to world peace today:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MLOjIKt7w...

As I've said, I'm a big Kipling fan; I think a lot of the mistakes we make we could avoid if our schoolboys were taught Kipling as rigorously as they're taught about Heather's Two Mommies.

I adapted one of his poems to, in my opinion, more accurately reflect his sentiment in the real world (originally entitled, "A Song of the White Men"):
------
A Song of Americans
Now, this is the cup the Americans drink
When they go to right a wrong,
And that is the cup of the old world's hate --
Cruel and strained and strong.
We have drunk that cup -- and a bitter, bitter cup
And tossed the dregs away.
But well for the world when Americans drink
To the dawn of the American's day!

Now, this is the road that the Americans tread
When they go to clean a land --
Iron underfoot and levin overhead
And the deep on either hand.

We have trod that road -- and a wet and windy road
Our chosen star for guide.
Oh, well for the world when Americans tread
Their highway side by side!

Now, this is the faith that Americans hold
When they build their homes afar --
"Freedom for ourselves and freedom for our sons
And, failing freedom, War. "
We have proved our faith -- bear witness to our faith,
Dear souls of freemen slain!
Oh, well for the world when the Americans join
To prove their faith again!
-----

This was the America of my young adulthood. As the Navy recruitment ad says, "A global force... for good".

When President Reagan, and President Bush, for that matter, flexed the American muscle, people around the world recognized that there was a moral code behind that flexing. They may not have agreed with it, but they knew they could count on it.
Under Clinton, whom the world knew held our military in contempt, the forces of oppression saw chinks in our armor, saw our military begin to be used for improper purposes, because the CinC didn't understand what a military is for.
Under Obama, not only did our enemies recognize that the CinC had no clue what our military was for, so did our allies. As this CinC alienated our allies and attempted to embrace our enemies, he, predictably, left us virtually friendless. Those few friends we have left are holding their figurative breath, waiting to see if whatever replaces the pseudo-American in the White House is going to resume the American global agenda, or continue trying to win the hearts and minds of the heartless and mindless.

A limey guest on Redeye, playing Chinese advocate, asserted that our "illegitimate" war in Iraq, 10 year occupation of Afghanistan, etc, could be blamed for this.

First, the Iraqi THEATER of the war was legitimate, except in the eyes of cowardly leftists; Congress authorized it. At the time we resumed the war with Iraq, we had planes flying a no-fly zone so Hussein couldn't murder his own people... as he had already done with WMDs. They... fired... on... our... warplanes. Period, end of argument, the war resumes.
Hussein was a brutal tyrant, with the ethics of a spoiled 12 year old. There was no way to negotiate with him to be a good boy. He was evil, and he liked being evil, and he was going to go on being evil; he liked it.
Among his evils was giving aid and comfort, training and supply, to Al Qaeda. Unfortunately, for him, he was a neighbor of Iran.

The mistake in Iraq was NOT in invading. When we invaded, when we blew through Iraq like crap through a tin horn, the world was stunned at seeing what a modern, professional army could do. And then Bush blew it, because he bought into the same bullshit that all post WWII generations want to buy into.
For that same reason, we wasted 10 years and many American lives (lives ruined by injury as well as death), some of them female to our eternal shame, trying to pacify Afghanistan.

When Hitler invaded Russia, the idiot ignored the lesson Napoleon offered from his invasion of Russia. When we invaded Afghanistan, we ignored the lessons of the Russians and the British.
One of the many wisdoms offered by Machiavelli is that, since you can only have one or the other, it is better to be feared than loved. I would say, it is best to be loved by GOOD people, and feared by BAD people.

Since WWII, modern Americans have bought this bullshit of 'winning hearts and minds'. They see the newsreels of Americans being greeted with open arms by Italians and Germans.
What you don't see is German troops being welcomed with open arms by some French and East Europeans. What you don't see is Americans being greeted with open arms by Japanese.
When those arms were opened to us, they were opened by people who had been through years and years of war and privation already. They'd have welcomed almost anybody who offered a promise of peace, and end to conflict and privation.
When we invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, we were not fighting Italians or Germans. We were not invading countries already ravaged by constant conflict and deprivation. We were not invading countries that had even a passing acquaintance with the Laws of War or western traditions and values.
So, we tried to be loved, rather than feared. We gave them their own governments, which they didn't want and whose form they couldn't quite understand, rather than appointing an American governor-general. Instead of acting superior, we acted as servants. Instead of dominating, which they could have understood, being used to such old-fashioned behavior (dating back tens of thousands of years), we confused them by kowtowing to their ridiculous cultural mores. Mores alien to the western values we hoped to instill; respect for the individual, the rule of law, not men.

On the other hand, what did Obama use our military for? Well, he created a "no fly" zone over pretty much all of Libya in order to protect the rebels from those flying trucks and palaces.
He sent in Seal Team Six to take out bin Ladin so he could declare the war over and leave Al Qaeda to metastasize. He left them to die in their bunks from infiltrators. He refused to allow them to try rescuing Americans in Benghazi.
And that is where the world began to think of us as a threat to peace rather than a force for peace. When the good guys know that, whatever else, you will *stomp* anyone who hurts your people, you become a predictable force for good. All the good guys need to know is to not hurt Americans, and the Americans will clear the bad guys off the planet for you.