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US places No. 85 -- behind Libya
The 2010 Global Peace Index is an attempt to quantify which countries are the most secure and the least violent. New Zealand is No. 1, Iraq is last, and the US is in the middle. 
A New Zealand soldier with the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) walks during a patrol in Afghanistan's Bamiyan Province on July 8, 2008. New Zealand ranked as the world's most peaceful nation in the Global Peace Index, which weighs 23 factors. Shah Marai/AFP/file/Newscom
June 8, 2010 The world is slightly less peaceful than it was a year ago, in part as a consequence of the global recession. But falling military expenditures in the Middle East and shrinking access to small arms in sub-Saharan Africa are two bright spots in an assessment of the world’s broad trends in peace and violence. Those are among the findings of the 2010 Global Peace Index, the fourth edition of an annual attempt to objectively quantify peace in a large majority of the world’s countries. New Zealand ranks as the world’s most peaceful country, the survey finds, based on a list of factors ranging from military expenditures (high is bad) and participation in United Nations peacekeeping (high is good) to social unrest and incarceration rates (both are not good). Continued
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I checked the two pages of the full article, did not find any reference to the word "indigenous", and wonder what the indigenous people of the British-occupied, colonialist, ... NZ would have to say if anyone outside cared to listen and learn. I have not read or heard anything good about the white NZ'er treatment of the indigenous people there anyway, and have read about some very bad NZ'er ... treatment of these oppressed, ... people there since ancient times.
Those crimes might still keep NZ ahead of Canada, for it continues its extremely criminal, colonial, ... and, especially, corporatist-based genocide against the indigenous populations of the country. It's not as blatantly violent as in the past, including rather very recent past, as can be learned through Rev. Kevin Annett's website, www.hiddenfromhistory.org, f.e.; but it's very bad and happens across the whole country.
But I nevertheless doubt that the indigenous people in British-renamed, colonialized, ... NZ have good things to say about the colonialist, ... mini-empire there; except for the indigenous who become co-opted, as there are examples of in Canada, surely the U.S., and other countries.
Anyway, to be really certain requires serious investigative research and reporting, and I wonder if the "2010 Global Peace Index" is sufficiently of this quality.
I agree that the US is low on the list, but placing at 85 seems unjustly high for the US. And I don't know much about Libya, but believe it probably deserves to be further ahead of the US than by only one position. If a proper, thorough, thoroughly honest, and accurate accounting or analysis was done, then the US should be near the very bottom of the list, if not placed at the very bottom of it; in a list of over 190 countries, too. A hell of a lot of evil hiding of US criminality is hidden and kept hidden, and the UN doesn't include a lot of extreme US criminality in the analyses or reports.
A thorough study and completely honest and accurate evaluation might put a number of western countries in considerably lower positions than they appear on the "2010 Global Peace Index".
Hmmm, seeing that title again just brought something else to mind. The US, and its war allies, are at the bottom of the list, for, globally, they are the least respectful of international peace! And they continue the genocides in their own countries, as well as in others.
This is the one and only comment that I remember reading that shows very little baised opinions about anything or anyone by this aurthor.
The corruption level that exists in the United States Government alone, known and speculated corruption is under-estimated grossly by "The Government" alone. No one that's in or associated with "The Government" knows what the truth actually is, and there's no concern to know or speak any truth about the corruption that has taken over "The Government" over the past few decades.
Until the people of the United States decides that they've had enough crammed down their throats, having "The Government" give away our tax dollars to non deserving Companies, non deserving Countries, Program failures, "The Government" will continue to take this Country into bankruptcy, as well as a lack of leadership for others around the world.
There's an estimated 300 million people in the United States that know of these corrupt conditions, not all the actual corrupt issues themselves. Yet, "The Government", constisting of about 537 elected government officials, who can't see, can't understand, don't care, have no intent to serve the people, greedy, people who ignore their constituency, and could care less about their oath to this country and "WE the People".
"The Government" has earned the right to be ranked one place below dead last, and "The Government" deserves all the credit.