Egypt and the neocons’ dilemma
I’ve got a new article up at PJ, on the dilemma the situation in Egypt presents for neocons and anyone who loves liberty.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
I’ve got a new article up at PJ, on the dilemma the situation in Egypt presents for neocons and anyone who loves liberty.
Yep, it’s a dilemma that our current multi-cultural thinking has no solutions for. But perhaps that is the problem in our thinking. We think there is always an insoluble issue when dealing with non-democratic societies that are neutral or at least not currently hostile to us. But you cannot go wrong by always standing up for our ideals (and being confident and proud of those ideals). We may need to turn the column up or down depending on circumstances, but the message should always be clear. Public diplomacy is important and is non trivial.
For example, a female diplomat (like Sec. Clinton) should never wear a head covering in a Muslim country unless visiting a religious place. She should also use the traditional statement “the United States has a position” rather than “the Obama Administration has a position”. Visits by non-governmental figures from a country like Egypt should always be treated with the respect they deserve, not ignored or run out the back door like the Dali Lama.
The US has a huge unseen advantage in that Americans are generally seen as honest people, particularly in business. The role of US business in standing tall and avoiding most bribery and government conniving speaks volumes.
If we are consistent, then our need in any particular circumstance to avoid violence or cooperate with a Mubarek will be seen for the necessary action, not as a whole hearted conspiracy with a strongman.
We should be pushing the founding Fathers, the Declaration and the Constitution. That is what we have to offer.
We should be saying, out loud and all the time, that it is the best.
And then step away.
No aid; no help; no nothing unless you are on that train. Otherwise, build your own stuff. If people do not want to be free, we can’t make them free.
If they do want to be free, they need to get serious about the conditions required for that. We can help with those. It’s much more than one man one vote once or twice whatever.
I think we should start getting serious about it at home first.
The SINGLE GREATEST THING we can do for freedom and prosperity everywhere is to take the Constitution back, live it, get prosperous and get going. When we are strong, the word prospers. When we are weak the world suffers.
The foregoing are meritorious points. But we need a little realpolitik, too.
Going into Iraq was sound:
-It rid the planet of a major thorn in its side, Saddam.
-Iraq has oil; it can sustain its people; it can develop.
-Having a pro-US footprint in the oil-rich heart of Islam is a good thing.
Doing something in/for Egypt is not a good idea.
-Egypt is asset-poor, now and forever. Can’t feed itself. Utterly depends on the Canal, tourism, maybe still cotton. Makes for not much.
-Egypt worked only when it could use others-US, Russkies, Israel-to its advantage, in hyena-like style.
Our only strategic interest in Egypt is to prevent an Islamist takeover. The MB has been working away diligently and will continue to make gains; in the military, the only place that matters.
A financially poor military can’t do much, though, except to Egyptians. Maybe the Wahhabis will send them money, maybe not. Egypt must buy its military hardware somewhere. If not from us, I doubt the Russkies or the Chicomms are going to give them bargain prices just to be nice.
The USA just can’t do much. Not today, not next year, regardless of events. Never mind what we should do to encourage the Rule of Law there; we just can’t do it.
Liberty, safety, and social stability does not rest upon democracy; it rests upon the rule of law. I’m positive everyone who posts here knows the USA was not founded as a democracy, but rather as a republic. (If we can keep it as Ben Franklin noted.) I think that is an important point to stress. Democracy without the structure of a republic form of governance is simply the rule of the mob.
The following quote is incomprehensible to most liberals and probably 95% of Egyptians.
“And when the last law was struck down, and the Devil turned around on you, where would you hide Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man’s laws, not God’s. And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand up right in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I would give the Devil the benefit of the law, for my own safety’s sake.”
— Thomas Moore (Man for All Seasons)
Parker:
It drives me up the wall when I hear people prattling on about the virtues of “democracy”. Even George W. Bush was repeatedly guilty of that.
The Founders knew very well that democracy was mob rule and would lead to ruin, and they sought to avoid it. Sadly, the republic they created has steadily been whittled away over the years, and now we do in fact have a nearly pure democracy, with entirely predictable results.
rickl,
I know how you feel. The republic is slowly slipping away (and has been for a long time). Both parties, but especially the democrats, are guilty of usurping powers not delegated by the Constitution. A man or a woman who wants to live free knows the government that governs least governs best.
It is at the ballot box that we must regain what has been lost. Meanwhile, each of us must teach our children and grandchildren well. We have to win the battle of ideas. It will be a difficult struggle.
BTW, there are things I like about Dubya. I think he is a decent, well intentioned man. He would be a good and reliable neighbor. 🙂 But I disagreed with him many, many times. Yet, I will always, with much pride and admiration, remember him standing with members of the NYFD amidst the WTC rubble in the days after 9/11 and saying, “I hear you, the rest of the world can hear you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon.”
What’s the sudden rush in Egypt (there are no WMD, Mubarak has been a reliable partner to America for over 3 decades), other than perhaps to aid an islamist takeover? When the Obama Democrats are in a big hurry to do just about anything of consequence (especially spend money), beware – evidence is mounting that they are at best incompetent, but more likely engaging in an insidious long-term Democratic Party power play. Obama (election coming, time to go to church) himself has done everything possible to aid America’s detractors and enemies, while degrading the security and welfare of loyal allies. It should be obvious to everyone by now that Obama is a radical left-wing, internationalist ideologue, a moslem-communist posing as a Christian Democrat; an authentic trojan horse usurper of the office of the POTUS. The Clintons are only slightly behind him in culpability, ditto for Pelosi, Kerry and company…
There will be no taking the country back, Rickl.
The rot has spread too deep for too long. American style republican democracy is dead. All that remains is to find out what will replace it. I suppose we could get lucky and break up peacefully, but I’m not counting on it. What everyone this blog should count on for the short term is this:
A lower standard of living here and world-wide, the continuation and extension of this depression (yes, I said it, no matter what “mainstream” ass kissing economists might say), turmoil world-wide and at least one more war in the mid east, most likely involving US forces and Lord knows who else. I predict the major parties will both be split by 2016 if not before, and that the US dollar will no longer be the world’s reserve currency unless we somehow manage to stablize it rather than print the gazoodle out of it. I forsee a more impotent America unless we fight some wars directly for reasources and win said wars. Lastly, I see the globalist project stall as it runs in to peak resource constraints that cause unrest world wide. There will be no more expansions of free trade.
The next ten years will see the death knell of traditional libertarianism as applied to economics, I predict the economies of the US and most other “western” and “major” countries will get much more command oriented leading to open corporate fascism in some cases.
The US is going to start to break apart politically and economically. You can already see this in terms of the polarizations among the bases of the two parties even as the leaders of both the Dems and Repubs try to be as centrist as they dare at least in regards to foreign and economic policy. After all, both are agreeing to cuts. The respective bases will not be satisfied either way. I predict religious groups of all types will get more powerful as they tend to have large families and with the current drought of ANY type of jobs many people will move back together. Divorced families will suffer worse. Laws on child support , already draconian will get more so as the silly system tries to pretend it can get blood out of turnips. Eventually, it will collapse of its own weight, as will the idea of public schools. More homeschooling will occur, but of course there will be less of a popular culture of any type, esp. popular political culture.
A Chinese curse is “may you live in interesting times”. Well, we live in interesting times indeed.
Brad,
“Rot begins in the head of the fish.”
IMO, we are facing an extremely difficult time in the days ahead. In the not too distant future a day may well come when the dollar is no longer the global reserve currency. When that occurs Americans will rue the day the ‘ruling class’ decided to inflate away the public debit dilemma. This has been tried before and the results are never pretty.
Everywhere one cares to look one sees debt piled upon debt. Municipalities, states, the feds, and all too many individuals are deeply in debt. For the last 20+ years our economy has been propped up by easy credit. Easy credit will prove to be our demise. When we go down, they all go down.