Instead of getting in their way, instead of trying to work out behind-the-scenes deals with other would-be tyrants and generals as we help ease out the hated current rulers of these kleptocratic Middle Eastern dictatorships, we should be helping these brave Middle Eastern and North African democracy activists to crush their tyrannical rulers and drive them out of power entirely.
America has fallen a long way from those heady days in the late 18th Century, when that celebrated American revolutionary tribune Tom Paine was declaring that America's revolution could become the inspiration for a new and better, more humane society around the world. "We have it in our power to begin the world over again. A situation, similar to the present, hath not happened since the days of Noah until now," he wrote.
Today, our leaders and government actively support tyranny (witness the provision, as part of America's military aid package to Egypt, of tear gas canisters used against the democracy activists in Liberation Square), urge delay when they find they cannot stop the tide of rebellion, and then exert economic, diplomatic and covert efforts to try to foil or water down efforts to establish a truly democratic government. Even our special envoy, supposedly sent to broker a deal to usher in democracy, former US Egypt ambassador Frank Wisner, turns out to be simply another crook on the take. His lawfirm in Washington, DC, Patton Boggs, is dictator Mubarak's legal agent in the US. It also represents the interests in the US of the Egyptian military.
Should the US succeed in its efforts to block these grass-roots rebellions by the young people of the Middle East we should not be surprised if at least some of them, instead of trying to emulate us, turn into our most bitter enemies.
It's what Tom Paine would have done.
DAVE LINDORFF is a founding member of ThisCantBehappening!, the new independent, collectively-owned, journalist-run, reader-backed online alternative newspaper. To read more original articles not available anywhere else, please go to: www.thiscantbehappening.net
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