Once we took the high road.

During those decades the Saudis used their oil wealth to seed human societies with the most virulent totalitarian doctrine of governance -- a doctrine that serves as basis for a nihilistic terrorist philosophy and rationalization of conquest and genocide.

And with every step, the Saudis have paved their demonic path with generous donations to any peoples the United Nations designated needy. They did this while walking hand in hand with the United Kingdom and United States, which loudly wept for the world's downtrodden and thundered support for human rights.

And we call Iran, North Korea, and China evil. At least governments in those countries don't pretend to be what they aren't. At least they don't use human rights as a bludgeon. At least they don't insult reason by perverting every concept of decency. At least they don't mock God.^[1]

Once we took the high road in the Cold War. We contained the Soviet Union – one of history's most malevolent and murderous regimes— although today I'd be hard pressed to find many who could tell me why we bothered. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died fighting communists but now we have an avowed socialist as a presidential candidate who took his honeymoon in the Soviet Union and who would now like to try that nightmarish experiment again to the dismay of few Americans.

What harm is there in a little government coercion if it's for a good cause?

Back to our point. Now our diplomats and politicians bomb a tiny country that was our ally in WWII, finance al Qaida and ISIS, run guns to these terrorists while lying about our "War on Terror," grovel before the Saudis, grovel before the Israelis, pretend that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program, depose foreign leaders who pose no threat to us, dabble in "regime change" regardless of the cost in death and chaos, do their utmost to enrich a communist dictatorship in Asia, wage secret war on sovereign Syria and propagate lies about Assad's use of poison gas, abandon our men under fire, mouth nonsense about "responsibility to protect," meddle in the affairs of Ukraine, assist in the looting of Russia, strenuously defend borders thousands of miles from our own undefended borders, and negotiate trade deals that benefit all nations except the American one.

Commander in Chief.

They also can't identify the most elementary facts about plain-vanilla Islam that makes it and all Muslims a mortal threat to the West, push nation-destroying immigration on Americans, engineer welfare programs to attract parasitic immigrants to come to America from all over the world, and push the fatuous ideas that Russia is bent on military adventurism and otherwise a threat to the peace of the world.

Has any national elite ever been so reckless and dishonest? Is it any wonder that foreigners think America has become a joke?
Notes
^[1] "UK, KSA, USA: the most frightening axis of evil." By Pundita, 1/15/16.