Egyptians are still in the streets, Hosni Mubarak still sits in the Presidential palace, and US recriminations are flying thick. Depending upon who you ask, the US response has been terrible or a masterstroke of careful modulation. However, it’s damnably hard to parse our response while the event is still going on, but we insist on having such fun. It’s akin to doing a full analysis of Green Bay’s and Pittsburgh’s play a minute into the first quarter.
Egypt is the latest in a long string of uprisings since the end of WWII – under Republicans and Democrats alike. We prop up governments with terrible records while we sanctimoniously denounce them for being insimpatico with our core principles, demonstrated each time we gut a Constitutional amendment, waterboard someone, or hold them indefinitely without counsel or trial. Worse yet, we heavily arm all the factions and profess surprise that nations with thousands of years of animosity attack one another.
Do as we say, not as we do for we are The Sole Remaining Superpower™! And we wonder why, “the rest of the world hates America.”
The Cold War was the diplomatic equivalent of the mutually assured destruction (MAD) theory we employed for nuclear deterrence. They build a missile, we’ll build three. They create a client state and we’ll overthrow the one next door. It’s like we play chess against ourselves and still manage to lose.
And, the neo-con idea of spreading democracy like pixie dust from the Democracy Fairy is just stupid. You can’t bring democracy to a country that even the worst tyrants can barely hold together – at the point of the gun or, in John Bolton’s case, by bombing Iran (WTF?!).
We colude with dozens of equally bad guys around the world, each one a ticking flash mob of rebellion. Sooner or later the people rise up, slather the dictators with tar, and runs them out-of-town on a camel – leaving us holding the bag. Yippie, more members of the Hate America Club™!
Let’s stop with the dictators already. Do we really need to prop up the rapacious jugheads in Equitorial Guinea? Or, support them for that matter?
We need to stop selling high-tech weaponry to all the firebrand malcontents everywhere so that countries on either side of an imaginary line can’t pound the living crap out of each other.
For the faux countries like Iraq, built on the remnants of centuries of sectarian violence, let them break up, they’re easier to keep an eye on that way.
And, the places where we have legitimate strategic interests? It’s time to grab the leash. We’re good at overthrowing governments, let’s foment the skeevy bastards right out and start afresh. When the next generation is crowned, let’s work with someone a little less odious. And most of all, impress upon them that if they want to live on the American dole and act like asshats, we’ll act like true capitalists and turn off the money spigot.
Several Middle Eastern Crapweasels for Life™ are running scared enough to entertain leaving. Let’s take this a time to reevaluate how we do things.
Otherwise, we’ll always end up at the mercy of some Dick-Tater™ in some far away place.
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