Crapo: Not World’s Policeman

Libyans pose on the wreckage of a US F15 fighter jet after it crashed in an open field in the village of Bu Mariem, east of Benghazi, eastern Libya, earlier today, with both crew ejecting safely. The U.S. Africa Command said both crew members were safe after what was believed to be a mechanical failure of the Air Force F-15. The aircraft, based out of Royal Air Force Lakenheath, England, was flying out of Italy’s Aviano Air Base in support of Operation Odyssey Dawn.(AP Photo/Anja Niedringhaus)

The experience of long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are troubling, Crapo said. “We have not allowed our military to go in and in an effective, prompt way achieve their objectives. Instead, we’ve put ourselves in a position of nation building — of literally being in a position of having to rebuild two major nations. Not that I don’t have humanitarian concerns, but the United States cannot continue to be the world’s policeman and the source of economic development and reconstruction” — U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo , R-Idaho. More here .

Question: Should we be the world’s policeman when dictators like Gadhafi are brutalizing their own citizens?