America needs to stop propping up monarchs to preserve order and keep oil flowing. There seems to be no Arab regime in the Middle East or North Africa whose leaders are there by the choice of the people, except maybe the weak and dysfunctional governments in Lebanon and Iraq. Our policy should be friendship to all those who are friends of liberty. In the 19th century we supported the South American revolutions, the Greek Revolution, and the liberal revolts in Europe in 1848. After WWI we tried, unsuccessfully, to replace colonialism with self-determination of peoples. That means sometimes things are going to get messy and sometimes people who don’t like us are going to get elected. But as long as they have to get themselves re-elected we should tolerate them. What we should not tolerate are these brutal dictators who do not respect the rights or the lives of their people. It was Patrick Henry and the founding fathers of this country who first advocated revolution to assure government by the consent of the governed. And, let us not forget that if France had not come to our assistance we might be celebrating the birthday of a Queen rather than the 4th of July as our national holiday.
Saudi Arabia has now sent 1,200 troops to Bahrain, joined by 800 from the United Arab Emirates, to help the Sunni royal family of that island nation keep the Shiite population (70% of the nation) under control. But, will anyone send help to the freedom fighters in Libya. It is clear from the failure of the democracies to oppose Khaddafy in Libya that the message to the rulers of the Arab states has been keep power and fight your people because no one will come to help them or fight you. The lesson that will be learned by the young people of he Arab world is that the only enemy of oppression is radicalism as symbolized by Al Qaeda.
The Arab revolts are becoming not 1989 in eastern Europe but 1848 in central Europe. In that year liberal revolts against European monarchies failed eliciting moral support from America but no real support from anyone. The failure of those revolts meant that it took another 70 years until the monarchies fell and then with the rise of communism and fascism it was another 70 years before east and central Europe was free.
Twenty years ago in 1981 the Polish military under pressure from the Soviet Union crushed the Solidarity labor/freedom movement. Solidarity had received great support from Americans and other Europeans and was a truly popular movement in Poland. But, like Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 the freedom movements were crushed due to Soviet opposition. Clearly the western democracies were not prepared to risk a nuclear war with the USSR to free these small countries. They won their freedom only when the Soviet Union imploded.
In 1848 we had no resources to aid European democrats; in the Cold War era we could not risk a nuclear attack unleashed upon us – What is our excuse now in Libya? Khaddafy can pose no counter threat to the US. But to retain power he is willing to slaughter his own people. In the name of liberty they fight and they plead for help from the democracies. With some planes, perhaps drones we could help them. With the weapons we could provide they would fight and die themselves asking for none of our men and women to join them The democracies may soon become morally bankrupt – intervening only when no one asks (e.g. Iraq where we stood by when the Iraqi Shiites revolted against Saddam Hussein in 1991and then invaded twelve years later) or when we can save oil (Kuwait). Unless the democracies reclaim the banner of human rights (and history shows only the USA can lead that movement) the rest of the world may turn to China with its developing system of economic freedom tied to political one party control and civil order enforced by a peoples military. The regime that slaughtered its own people as they stood beside a replica of the Statue of Liberty may replace as the worlds leader the great nation that was symbolized by that Statue.
The UN Security Council urged on by the Arab League and France and Britain has now authorized assistance to the rebels. The US could have taken out Khaddafy two weeks ago possibly with drones – now it will be more difficult - if we decide to do so. Winston Churchill once said that America could always be counted on to do the right thing – after it had tried everything else. We may be proving that true again or worse we may be too late.
3-18-2011
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