Thoughts from a Back Bencher!
Like a lot of Americans, I am perplexed with our government. There must be some rationale for joining the coalition to attack Libya, but I am just too damn stupid to know what it is.
I doubt there is a person in our country that doesn’t feel for the victims of Gaddafi in Libya, but we felt bad for literally thousands, maybe millions of other victims of dictators during the past 25 years when we didn’t take action. What is the difference with Libya?
So much in the news that warrants comment.
For those of us who are paying attention, we are witnessing a world changing series of events in North Africa and the Middle East. Long standing governments are being destabilized and their very existence threatened by citizens from within. Governments that haven’t necessarily been of a style we might prefer, but in control of their countries never-the-less.
The concepts of diplomacy and statesmanship have led our country into partnerships with other countries that are in no way similar to our own, but where we do share an interest beneficial to both parties. If we limited our treaty commitments to only countries sharing our personal views, we would have few partners so it has been and will be in the future necessary for us negotiate with kings and dictators who rule countries that do not grant their citizens even basic freedoms we cherish.
So now when those citizens challenge their unelected leaders to taste the freedom we take for granted, what should our government’s role be in the process?
Should we take sides and actively support one side or the other or should we silently watch and let the chips fall where they may and resume diplomatic relations with whoever is standing after the smoke clears? This is a dilemma we are struggling with in steadily increasing numbers.
Having said that, how would we feel if foreign governments that embrace a system different from our own decided to destabilize our own country and promote change to America consistent with their system?
I am no student of the History of Western Civilization, but I can remember times when people with strong feelings about their own beliefs felt compelled to “share” their beliefs with others in spite of the fact that those others had beliefs of their own already. The “sharing” of religious beliefs has been the source of much bloodshed for thousands of years. So should we be forcing our beliefs on others?
This is an important issue because it causes us to question our motives in dealing with every foreign country in the world.
The United States of America was founded by citizens who left their home lands to find a place where they could worship as they chose; citizens who demonstrated an independence that could not tolerate undue “taxation without representation.”
For more than two hundred years, Americans have embodied the freedom we gained from our own revolution.
In spite of the fact that our country represented the ideal form of government for people who cherished their individual freedoms, our form of government has not been successfully adopted by any other country in the world. The delicate balance of interests required for our government to survive this long has been guaranteed by our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.
But that took hard work and a firm belief in the individual freedoms that are the founding principles of our country.
So as time passed, many Americans came to the conclusion that our government’s job was to spread “our freedom” to everyone else in the world.
As painful as it might be, our country needs to step back and stop interfering with struggles taking place in other countries. We can root for freedom, but we cannot play a role in manipulating the evolution of change.
Mubarak was a despicable dictator for thirty years because it was in the best interest of Israel for him to stay in power. So should we support principles of freedom or support despots? We need to decide our role so we can be consistent. If we choose freedom over security then we need to know that.
If we determine that is it our job to “share” our view of freedom and Free the world from Kings and Dictators we better beef up our armies.
I don’t think there is a Diplomacy 101 class that will prepare you to deal with crises like we are having in Egypt, North Africa and the Islamic countries east to Saudi Arabia so it’s understandable that President Obama’s diplomatic A-Team are not All Stars; some wouldn’t even make varsity. I guess that since there weren’t any proven diplomats in the Clinton Administration there weren’t any Obama could bring back onto the current team except lightweights.
Like every President, Obama will be judged years later on how he and his team deal with this whole affair. I don’t think there is a right answer and a wrong answer when you have to make decisions in the moment with the information available at your disposal in that moment until time passes and in hind sight we can judge right and wrong. (It won’t keep us from second guessing him though.)
It’s unfortunate that our states-people are having to learn on the job that what we say matters on the world stage. If it weren’t so important in the politics of the world, it would be comical watching James Clapper and Leon Panetta fumble with their testimony before Congress.
They want so much to say that the Muslim Brotherhood is a harmless organization with only a few bad apple terrorists on their fringe because that fits their political goals, but the truth is the Muslim Brotherhood is a terrorist organization with a few harmless peaceniks on their fringe. How do Clapper and Panetta justify taking a paycheck for such incompetence.
If there wasn’t so much evidence that refutes their testimony we would normally accept their testimony as the gospel and that would be dangerous. Thank God that these guys are so obviously incompetent or creatively prevaricating that they have no credibility what-so-ever.
The Obama Team is not winning any points for diplomacy after their first two years in office and this Egypt crisis does not bode well for the next two years. I hope our country survives.
In the interest of full disclosure, I did not take that diplomacy class either but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
No Loss for Words 
Illegal Guns across the Border
by Steve DanaI watched the press conference yesterday where Presidents Obama and Calderone from Mexico talked about the substance of talks between our two countries.
They were proud of the fact that they had worked out some compromise that would allow Mexican truck drivers to cross the border with their cargo and deliver it to locations in the States. Currently, Mexican truckers are not allowed to deliver their cargo, they drop their loads at the border and American truck drivers pick them up and proceed to their destination.
I’m not sure how American truck drivers will feel about the loss of work, but the Teamsters must be okay with it since Obama is their guy and he wouldn’t sell their jobs down the river, would he?
Another issue talked about during the press conference was the issue of American guns illegally crossing the border into Mexico. I think it was a Mexican reporter that asked about what our country was planning to do to prevent those guns from entering Mexico since the drug cartels use the guns to fight the government.
I find it ironic that the Mexicans blame Americans for their problems since it is the insatiable appetite for drugs of Americans that drives the drug trade in their country. And now they blame us for not protecting their country from the lawless cartels by not preventing guns from entering Mexico.
How could we possibly argue with that logic?
So, our neighbors to the south are complaining about non-existent border security because it is harming Mexico? Wouldn’t that be even more ironic if the impetus for border security came from what is escaping from our country rather than from what is illegally coming in?
Everyone recognizes the fact that securing the border will be difficult, but now that the Mexicans are on board maybe we can get on with it.
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