The World Without US

I was a bit apprehensive about this film since it seemed to be such "one of a kind" so I had a look at their website before ordering. The trailer I saw really got my interest, the premise seemed to be so interesting and so timely for our nation. It reminded me a lot of another film, called "Why we fight?" (very popular about 2 years ago) trying to answer the same question, what is the purpose of the US meddling in the entire world? While "Why we fight" was a bit of a disappointment, this film really delivered on the promise. After the first twenty minutes you figure that the director is working an angle on the debate, but what I really liked is that he is building a really logical, coherent argument that I could follow from one end to another. And he surely supports it with footage from around the world.

I also liked the fact that it was more than an intellectual exercise. The film had some very touching personal stories that I didn't expect in a "geo-political" documentary. It made it one of those films that you still think about the second day after you saw it. As a minus, I wish the film makers also investigated some other regions also, say, South America or Africa... but I guess there is only so much time...

First, this IS NOT a U.S. criticism film . It's just one that describes our current standing in all parts of the world and then asks, "What if we weren't there? What might occur if brought home our soldiers, sailors and airmen and closed down all these bases and outposts in all of the 90+ countries in the world?" This documentary was an quite an eye-opener for myself because I had never seen an almost fully encompassed story regarding what U.S. foreign policy have and has done; haven't done and the decisions made by multiple presidential administrations regarding our foreign policy and our sole superpower status and authority.

It also asks very many questions about our allies regarding what burden they carry or not, regarding maintaining peace and stability in the world. This is a question that each American citizen needs to understand completely. This point I cannot emphasize enough.

There are also numerous interviews from allied nations and some non-aligned nations regarding how they view us and what impact we currently make and some these interviews discuss the "What if the U.S. wasn't here?" question. These interviews are very sobering to say the least.

These are my words/opinion and are tangentially related to this film. In these last 12 years, since President George W. Bush (not his father, George H.W. Bush) and under President Barack Obama, with deficits soaring due to paying for two major wars and a number of other assisted military interventions in primarily the Middle East and North Africa and then with thousands (if not tens of thousands) Baby Boomer's retiring weekly (Full Disclosure: I'm considered a Boomer because I was born in 1964 however; I do not or ever have considered myself part of that generation and don't expect Social Security to be available to me until I'm 70 or older (if any, at all)), we are borrowing one dollar of every three dollars spend on our American Credit Card.For a detailed breakdown of our budget(s), please visit:

http://nationalpriorities.org/ - Non-political with accurate data

These are but two of the reasons why we have came to have multi-trillion annual deficits. Our total national debt is encroaching on the $20 trillion mark that will occur in the few years, unless we do these two things simultaneously: 1) Raise additional revenue and not just from personal income taxes (corporations need to bear a much larger portion) and 2) A serious reduction in spending annually in both military and entitlements. There will be hard choices for both the Democrats and Republicans to make in the next four years.

I expected to see an objective look at what the rest of the world might actually do if the US military withdrew and left them in peace. Instead I got a triumphalist showcasing of all the USA's most successful military interventions, brought to us by a bunch of Ivory Tower foreign policy elites who would be scrubbing our floors if they didn't have fancy jobs in the State Department and university international studies departments.

I love how they skip right over US atrocities in Iraq to show how happy the Kuwaitis are that we protect them. I turned it off right there. I've seen enough American propaganda in my life. How about a movie that shows all the children around the world who have been killed by US bombing missions?

There is a certain determinism in the lives of people and nations. The World Without The US host an interesting premise but fails in delivery of scenarios which might accompany the collapse of the US's foreign presence.

The ability of the US to continue embark upon endless foreign adventures such as the wars now pending is extremely questionable. It all boils down to a question of personnel, money and equipment. Eventually with multiple foreign adventures that bring in nothing but cause an outflow of cash, you'll run out of money or people or both, assuming of course that the determination to continue in the course of foreign adventures does fail beforehand.

The World Without the US does not consider the question of exhaustion of human and financial resources. The author of this video a foreign immigrant does not consider the difficulty the US government faces in recruiting and maintaining members of the Armed Forces or the lack of money to continue these costly adventures. How many years would the author be willing to serve to help man foreign adventures?

Excellent Pro- America propaganda. I really liked where this piece of pro-American foreign policy propaganda included N.Korean pro-communist propaganda to point an accusing finger at N.Korea. Yeah, N.Korea is insane...but Irony is amusing. Makes some "interesting" and potentially convincing points...if it wasn't leaving out some HUGE inconvenient plot holes. lol.

Although, one of the central points, of how others refuse to take responsibility for themselves, is valid.

Still, leaving out how we put Saddam in power, including flag waving "we love Israel" with no reason for WHY given, and saying that we had left Egypt abandoned and impoverished...when in actuality we have been giving Egypt BILLIONS in pay-off money...to a regime that was awful. All while the theme was the US CARES about oppressed peoples.