Standing By and Waiting For a Dictator to Win

      While the west is watching its leaders smile for the cameras as though all is well, blood is being spilled by civilians seeking their right to have a democracy.  While we hang back and wonder about what’s right and ponder correctness, kids are being pounded by missiles from a tyrant’s warplanes.  While a nation struggles to shake itself from the grasp of a delusional rambling nutcase, leaders of those nations that can help his victims say to themselves, it may not be so bad to allow torture, repression and dictatorship.
 

      People of an entire country are crying out for assistance now and a chance to have the playing field leveled somewhat, and yet leaders of those nations that can help say… well maybe.  At a time when the campaign to truly win hearts and minds in the Middle East is turning in the favor of the western countries once so vilified we see hesitation fear and reticence.  At a time when democracy is not being called a capitalist tool, but suddenly a way forward for the masses, we are wondering whether or not democracy is the right thing for all nations.

      If our goal is to help the spread of democracy across the world why do we hesitate now?  We do not need to and should not invade, as we do not need to spread ourselves deeper into war.  Nor should we try and force our corporations upon any new nations.  We can accomplish this goal of at least trying to help them by utilizing our technology to take out the warplanes of a madman who, until he began mobilizing them, was losing the fight.

      This time, when there is no lie about weapons of mass destruction, uranium purchasing, fuel rods, alignments with Al Qaeda or threats to our national security being spread loosely about, we can see the problem, the reason and cause.  The President of the United States of America is not lying to us in fact it is American civilians that are pushing him to do something more than is currently being done as with the BP oil spill last summer.

      When America was in the process of our own revolution against the British monarchy, France and Spain helped us financially through the use of funding and some other help.  Some Native American tribes like the Oneida and Tuscarora also helped out.  They were not colonialists and could have turned their backs on us, but they did not.  At a time when we called for their aid so we could be free help came.

      For decades we have been trying to convince people in the Middle East we are a nation with a foreign policy guided first by the will to help spread freedom, liberty and democracy.  They saw us lie to go into Iraq and as a result end up staying in Afghanistan longer than would have been needed had we not gone into the former.  They saw American talk as empty rhetoric meant to prop up a false image only concerned with money.  They saw us as people that would support ruthless and cruel dictators and corrupt leaders so our corporations could reap more profits from oil revenues on their lands. 

      That was what the propaganda from groups like Al Qaeda consisted of - that democracy and freedom were not what America was about.  Their propaganda claimed all that talk from us was lies.  That all the heroes protecting freedom in our history, media and movies was propaganda meant to trick people about our true intentions.

      If we sit by now and watch when we could have helped in front of all their eyes we will have proved the terrorists exactly right.  If we do nothing we will have shown we are not spread out all across the globe to help foster democracy.  If we do nothing we truly have lost all credibility and have no real reason to have forces stationed all over the globe to protect democracy. 

      We don’t need to be involved in an invasion nor should we.  NATO or the UN can destabilize Gadhafi’s military through strategic airstrikes, take out his air capability and level the playing field for the rebels.  We can still draw down forces in places all across the world and pull back from Libya soon after helping.  If ever there was a time for NATO and the UN to get involved this is it.  But the west cannot validate Al Qaeda not when the opportunity to counter their rhetoric has presented itself.

      Further, the US military has troops and bases spread out all across the globe and now, and while our generals play golf on taxpayer funded million dollar US military golf courses overseas, we are acting afraid to take out some airplanes.  We have overseas bases so large some need nine bus routes to get around on them, (http://hnn.us/articles/3097.html) yet just tonight a retired admiral suggested taking out Gadhafi’s air capabilities would require locating his planes and all his SAMs and that would be difficult.  So we know where Iran’s underground nuclear facilities are and the Daily Show can find, through Google, satellite images of Dick Cheney’s house and the US military cannot locate Gadhafi’s war planes out in the middle of the desert?

       There are more than four times their air capability taking into account just the numbers of US Navy and Air Force fighters sans the Marines and Army – then there are all the capabilities of our NATO allies.  We could easily use strikes from battleships.  Now pundits are trying to tell us the Libyan air attacks aren’t working and its ground attacks are.  But that’s not what reporters on the ground are saying.  Every morning the latest news is about Libyan Air Forces pounding rebels.  The smell of rotting and burned corpses is beginning to cling to our leaders clothes.  Our credibility regarding our stance on the spread of democracy is eroding further as we wait.

      If we can use targeted strikes from the air in Pakistan we can go in and then come out of Libya and cripple if not take out their air capability in the process.  We can show we will do this without forcing our corporations on them.  The time is now to act.  The time is now to be more American than we have ever been.  The time is now to back up what we really stand for and show what kind of leaders we have.

      To read about my inspiration for this article go to www.lawsuitagainstuconn.com