The tactics the Soviets used were more dangerous that all the money and guns the US ever threw at anything. Go watch his videos. You have no idea what you are poo-pooing. It's not about guns and money, it's about dissolving the fabric of a society from the inside over a generation or two before you create a crisis and move in. The soviets not only had offensive plans, they were enacting them. The Soviets were invading South Vietnam and South Korea, using the northern counterparts to each to provide the muscle. The Soviets were attempting to conquer the world with a poison ideology. Why? Because that's what they did. The Soviet Union was 1984's Eurasia, but they had no Oceania to prevent their expanse.
I'm not saying the United States never backed the wrong people or got involved with something we should have avoided altogether. I am not denying that evil was done by our government and military. But the evil done by the Soviet regime far out-weighs that, and even the fact that the US supported the Tzar's cannot negate this imbalance. Further, the potential for evil the soviets represented post WWII adds even to the rest. They were a massive threat to the world, far greater than we were.
By the time Russian tanks rolled into the capital of a newly conquered nation, that nation had been under invasion for at least a full generation. Soviet expansion worked in the following way: The KGB would send agents to bribe or persuade educators, politicians, media personalities, anyone of influence to spread socialist propaganda. Any who refuse, any idealists who really believe din a socialist or any who vocally oppose soviet ideals are carefully noted and tracked over 15 or 20 years. The idealists because they will oppose the realities of the socialism that will come, the rest because they opposed it from the start and will continue to do so. Any opportunity is taken to devolve political discourse into shouting matches is taken. This is not hard as people have strong tendencies towards it anyway. Once things have progressed far enough, a crisis is instigated and soviet forces roll in welcomed as saviors while simultaneously rounding up and executing everyone on their list as they are all potential dissidents or insurgents. This is gone into in much greater detail in the interview and lecture given by Yuri Bezmenov. This is essentially how North Vietnam became communist, how can you say that the Soviets had no hostile intentions. I'd say that is pretty damned hostile. It is in this light that I say the Soviets always represented a greater danger in the world than the United States did.
This is not revisionist. This is information to the contrary and it doesn't even come from US intelligence. It comes from one of the men who did it. He was a KGB station cheif in India. This has been publicly available for at least 25 years now.
I repeat: The evil perpetrated by the Soviets outweighs the evil perpetrated by the United States, but I will not speculate on the narrowness of the margin.
As far as faked intelligence, David Kay, the very man who finally said Iraq likely did not have WMD's said also that invading Iraq was the proper course of action because Hussein had weapons programs ready to be started up on short notice. Also I cannot find a record of David Kay admitting Iraq likely did not have WMD's before the invasion. What was found would be consistent with Saddam hastily moving stockpiles over the border into Syria. It cannot be disputed that we still do not know conclusively whether or not Iraq had any stockpiles of chemical weapons. Even if the circumstantial evidence indicates he did not, Saddam still had the pieces to start weapons programs as soon as the UN stopped looking for them. US soldiers found executed nuclear scientists at various places around Iraq. The only reason I can think of to kill nuclear scientists is that if captured, they would confirm the pretense upon which your country had been invaded.
I can understand the points you make, but more arms, defense spending and a more belligerent foreign policy still did not make the US more dangerous than the USSR. There is a whole side to the history of this issue that has been ignored. Money and guns simply do not settle the issue.
There has been this meme going around that the evil United States has been just ruining the day for all the other countries of the world, if it weren't for the US we'd have a utopia. It's just not true.