Posted on 03/04/2011 5:03:02 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Several factors catalyzed the Arab spring. But the Bush Doctrine set the premise.
Voices around the world, from Europe to America to Libya, are calling for U.S. intervention to help bring down Moammar Qaddafi. Yet for bringing down Saddam Hussein, the U.S. has been denounced variously for aggression, deception, arrogance, and imperialism.
A strange moral inversion, considering that Saddam’s evil was an order of magnitude beyond Qaddafi’s. Qaddafi is a capricious killer; Saddam was systematic. Qaddafi was too unstable and crazy to begin to match the Baathist apparatus: a comprehensive national system of terror, torture, and mass murder, gassing entire villages to create what author Kanan Makiya called a Republic of Fear.
Moreover, that systemized brutality made Saddam immovable in a way that Qaddafi is not. Barely armed Libyans have already seized half the country on their own. Yet in Iraq, there was no chance of putting an end to the regime without the terrible swift sword (it took all of three weeks) of the United States.
No matter the hypocritical double standard. Now that revolutions are sweeping the Middle East and everyone is a convert to George W. Bush’s freedom agenda, it’s not just Iraq that has slid into the memory hole. Also forgotten is the once proudly proclaimed “realism” of years one and two of President Obama’s foreign policy — the “smart power” antidote to Bush’s alleged misty-eyed idealism.
It began on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s first Asia trip, when she publicly played down human-rights concerns in China...............
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...
While the dust is settling they will set their traps while asking us for more money. Count on it.
Mr. Obama has no foreign policy.
Apparently John McCain is all ready to see to it that we open our already empty wallets with even more aid to Egypt.
*just shaking my head in disbelief*
Hillary wants us not to cut her budget so that she has more walking around money, too.
What is it about us being more than broke that they don't get?
You know, I could really get to hate these people given half a chance.
Same difference.
Mr. Obama would rather play golf.
Under a secular Western style government, they are required to become resourceful on their own, as well as advance Capitalism in order to prosper. They simply do not understand how this can work. Instead, they are ruled by fear and threats from a military or Theocratic Oligarchy.
Looking at every one of these countries, they all follow the same pattern. When they take down their current dictator, they quickly install another. They are just not comfortable under Dumbocracy. And their idea of “Freedom”, is having more than one Mosque to attend.
You are correct.
How quickly is forgotten the “moderate” Pakistani muslim governor who recently got assassinated because he publicly came out against stoning as a means of punishment for various crimes.
Any muslim espousing anything other than hard line Sharia law in these countries does not have long to live.
We need U.S. troops pulled out of the Middle East completely and repositioned on the U.S./Mexican border.
And we need Obama impeached for consorting with U.S. enemy #1 Felipe Calderon on the grounds of the U.S. White House while U.S. border patrol agents are forced by our own perverse federal government to shoot beanbags at Mexican cartel criminals who then return fire with AK-47’s they were gifted with by our own imbecilic BATF agents.
And we need idiots like Krauthammer and all the rest of the NWO country club apologists he appears on Fox News every night with, including BO’R to just shut the hell up and get the hell out of town.
None of them have any skin in the game and they run their phony mouths and do as they are told because Fox pays them lots of money to be good marionettes. Get wise America you are being lied to every minute of every day by these status quo network dummies.
It occurred to me that Obammy didn’t call for daffi to step down until the libyan protesters called out to Bush for help.
Interesting timing, isn’t it?
Those with sufficient operating brain cells understand Bush’s call for freedom provided some roots for the events in the ME and No. Africa.
However, the American sheeple — if they happen to lift their glazed eyes above the screens of their iPads or whatever their latest toy and view what actually is happening — will praise 0bama as the giver of freedom to the world. The MSM will instruct them so.
Sorry... I’m in a more cynical mood than usual today.
AND out of Germany.. AND out of the UK.
“were Egypt to be as politically developed in, say, a year as Iraq is today, we would think it a great success.”
I wouldn’t count on it Dr. Krauthammer. In human history at least 75% if not 90% of the time revolutions end with a greater tyranny in power than that they overthrew.
He’s stewing over the hypocrisy of O, Hillary, & the Left. What else is new???
“the notion that Muslims were not capable of democracy was so quickly embraced by the left I was stunned.”
There are a heck of a lot of us on the RIGHT who believe that nations dominated by the dictatorship-glorifying-ideology of Islam, are not READY for liberty, and the freedom of a democratic republic. Even in our own history it took a very long time to move from limited monarchy to the representative democracy we have now. Arguably European monarchies too had more protections for their subjects 500 years ago... than most Arab countries have today.
There’s no racial element of this—which you’re right, the Left may have—rather its a cultural/religious/ideological issue. When vast majorities of a religion firmly believe (as they are taught)that execution is the proper remedy for leaving that religion (as polling indicates the vast majority of Muslims believe), freedom as we know it just is not possible—and makes “democracy” (majority rule) frankly dangerous for the minority.
A little known fact is the number of Christians that have FLED Iraq since its “democratization.” They actually felt SAFER from Islamists under the police state of Saddam than they do now. Something like HALF of the population of ancient Christian communities (over a million) have LEFT UNDER our watch...and these are groups which go back to New Testament times.
I think the long term effects of the Bush doctrine are yet to be seen. I will be surprised however if dictatorships do not dominate Islamic countries for generations to come.
After all Mohammed himself—and all his successors—were military dictators, and Islamic theocracy is an essential to the ideology of Islam.
“Sadly, that is not true. His policy is vague and loose, but overall it is consistent. It is to apologize frequently, betray our loyal allies, compromise our sovereignty and generally make America weaker. Every now and then he will put on a show to give the appearance of action, but its just an illusion.”
Very well put. You summed up Hussein’s foreign policy quite correctly.
“I thought it would take 10 years for the American Public to reevaluate GWB and his contribution to the establishment of democracy and freedom in the Middle East and elsewhere.”
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Indeed.
Though, you can read, even here on FR what a “waste” and misadventure the WOT was (is).
Bluntly stated, the American military, at the direction of President Bush, ran al Qaeda’s murderous asses into the ground.
Islam is a virulent pathology however, and the pressure needs to be unrelenting.
The revolutions in France and Russia led to Bonapartism and Bolshevism, respectively. In times of unrest, those who are better armed, more organized and more ruthless tend to prevail. In Egypt the Islamists are organized and the comparatively secular democrats are not. It may well come down to a struggle between the army and the Brotherhood. Although the army would probably win such a showdown, democracy would not be a winner in either case. In Jordan, those calling for a constitutional monarchy are Islamists, not secular democrats. In Bahrain the fight is between Shiites and Sunnis, not Jeffersonians and monarchists, with significant meddling by Iran.
Let's wait for the results before we start praising W's nation building and advocacy for democracy in the Middle East.
I didn’t say a word about nation-building. I specifically, and intentionally referred to hammering al Qaeda.
With the pathology that is Islam as the dominant, and deeply-entrenched cultural and societal force in these countries, nation-building would be, at the very best, a difficult uphill battle. I was never a fan of using our military as a civilizing police force.
Sadly ,...Obama is letting them rebuild themselves...
We have always been an imperial power. It is just that for almost a century and a half we concentrated on the conquest of North America. As late as 1896, some Americans—e.g. Teddy Roosevelt—were still talking about the annexation of Canada. If Polk had had his way, we would own the Yucatan now.
You may have a point there, interesting.
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