in 1801, barely 14 years after the constitution was signed, the President, Thomas Jefferson, sent an expeditionary force halfway across the world to wage war against the Barbary coast pirates. and Thomas Jefferson was as strong an opponent of federal power as you can find.
Jefferson did it because the choice was clear. Wage war or allow thugs and barbarians to ravage American shipping, and American interests because of perceived American weakness. Jefferson chose war and it was the right choice. That war sent a message about American strength and resolve and saved a whole heap of trouble.
President Bush is making the same choice for the same reasons.
Consolidation the American continent by the US could be considered aggressive expansionism but most thought it was a natural enough phenomenon to control the area coast to coast. Late in the 19th century when that job was done suddenly that wasn't good enough. We wanted to be a major power of the European model. We wanted to project force through the world. We built up our navy to compete. Then we grabbed Hawaii and picked a war with Spain in order to grab her holdings. We have been meddling in other's affairs ever since and have been at war ever since at the coast of millions of US casualties and tens of millions of foreigners. Not to mention the billions and billions of tax dollars.
So in order to play big shot instead of just being a peaceful bastion of freedom and prosperity we suffer the results of heavy taxation, government/corporate alliances, foreign enemies where they need not exist, the occasional draft, the surveillance state, increased police powers, foreign aid and a host of other evils. As the founders understood a standing army was a threat to freedom. And we certainly are a lot less free since 1898.
To sum up the problems we have today are what the CIA phrased as blow back. The unintended results of our actions. Absolutely no comparison to the Barbary pirate situation.
P.S. To prove the wisdom of the warning against a standing army presenting too big a temptation for politicians here's a Madelene Albright quote: "what's the point of having the world's most powerful military if you don't use it?"