No, I do not think that a role of world police should be taken by anybody, US in particular. It always hurts the feeling of other countries citizens or could make the countries act irresponsibly, since there is a big boy, taking care about everything. Also, US has a very poor record of respecting foreign sovereignty and made a lot of ugly mistakes. There is an intentional keeping focus or unilateral informing on foreign event in US media, keeping foreign affairs out of scope of the voters, justified by security reasons. And what is out of openness and visibility - commonly creates an environment for lawlessness. Just a situation with Guantanamo Bay or using tortures shows a lot. Or this amazing NED. More over - even if you live in Seattle, you will not see Vancouver weather on your TV Weather report. It is somewhere there in nowhere, you should not care.
From my side, I would ask Samantha's mom to share memories, that her daughter had after coming back from Soviet Union, that were probably left out of interviews in 80-s.