THE image of the US in the West is that it is the guardian of human values and that the only hope for the world is that the US will continue to act as the world's policeman with the help of NATO and of the UK.

Those who take this view both in the US and here badly wanted Hillary Clinton to win and are shocked by the victory of Donald Trump, who to their minds seeks to tarnish that 'policeman' image while Hillary would have continued to burnish it.

But that self admiring image is completely at odds with the views of the world as a whole. International opinion polling reveals that by a large majority the world thinks that the US is not the world's policeman but the greatest threat to world peace. If you are, say, an Iraqi and remember that the US inspired sanctions against your country were responsible for the deaths of half a million children (as a representative of the US administration admitted but said it was worth it) and that the US inspired invasion killed several hundred thousand more Iraqis, then you will inevitably see the US as a threat to world peace.

Admission of the truth will enable us to see the defeat of Clinton in a different light: she whole-heartedly represents all that the world as a whole fears about the US. She, of course supported the invasion of Iraq and so far as I know has never ever apologised for that decision. Trump on the other hand may be a noxious character, but he claims not to have supported the Iraq invasion, has a streak of old fashioned isolationism and neither sees the US as the world's policeman nor wants to revive the Cold War as Hillary was set to do

Malcolm Pittock

James Avenue

Bolton