The biggest thing about the difference between Russia and the United States is the end goal of their actions. Putin is ensuring his power base, while the US is trying to stop terrorism. I don't like what they are doing but this is what the NSA thinks what works to stop terrorism. If you look at both President Obama and President Bush they did close to the same things regarding national security. It may be a faulty assumption, but this leads me to believe that there are things that these programs protect the western world from. The people who work for the CIA and NSA aren't idiots and they definitely have committed some horrible actions, but they wouldn't being continuing these missions if they were futile.
I would like to live in a world without religious extremism, but it has and will always exist. They utilize the poverty and illiteracy of certain places in the middle east to make teenagers believe suicide bombing is the way to get to heaven. Humanity is facing many existential crises and this is the way we are currently handling one. It is definitely not an optimal solution, but it doesn't matter if we can't solve our ever increasing CO2 emissions and the many other problems resulting from greenhouse gases.
Everything the US does is to maintain their global position of power. The end goal is obedience to the US and control over as many natural resource and territories as possible. Either directly through military force, or preferably through subversion, coercion and integration.
This is not unique to the US, it is what empires do, and the US is now the biggest empire ever created. We have and continue to cooperate with, fund, and protect some of the most brutal regimes the world has ever seen.
Ours is not a noble mission with just wars to free the slaves of the world and introduce democracy. The only way democracy is acceptable is if the American candidate is electable. If the natives happen to make the wrong choice, coups happen, sanctions happen, directly military action happens.
These are not conspiracies, extreme leftist propaganda or the ramblings of Americas enemies, they are historic facts.
Are there other bad regimes in the world? Of course. Have their been regimes worse than the US? That depends. If you only want to talk about life in main land US, of course much much worse than that. If you include what regimes supported by the US has done it is hard to say yes or no.
I would like to live in a world without religious extremism, but it has and will always exist. They utilize the poverty and illiteracy of certain places in the middle east to make teenagers believe suicide bombing is the way to get to heaven. Humanity is facing many existential crises and this is the way we are currently handling one. It is definitely not an optimal solution, but it doesn't matter if we can't solve our ever increasing CO2 emissions and the many other problems resulting from greenhouse gases.