A (usually comedic) blog I like to follow in my spare time recently published a post talking about the latest events in Libya to ask why conservatives are so against the pro-democracy uprisings of the so-called Jasmine Revolution, when a conservative Republican government undertook multi-billion dollar invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan in order to “bring democracy” to those lands. An interesting question, no doubt, for someone stuck in the false dichotomy of conservatives and liberals. Wouldn’t this be a fiscal boon, with democracy flourishing in the Middle-East at no expense to U.S. coffers? For those of us living outside of the dichotomy, the answer becomes more obvious why these explosive events are so reviled by the power-brokers of the status quo.
I think an important piece of this blogger’s misunderstanding is the assumption that the Democrats are in favor of the events unfolding across several nations at this very moment. When one thinks that Obama and the Democratic Party are cheering on the citizens of Egypt, Libya, etc. the issue can become confused. Only after understanding the long-standing foreign policy of the U.S. government (regardless of party or ideology) for what it is, it is easy to see its fingerprints on dictators have been propped up time and again and democratic movements that have been actively targeted and destroyed. Isn’t it strange that virtually every new uprising in this movement is described as being within a U.S. ally? If our government were such a beacon of liberty, why are so many of our allies dictators with disgusting human-rights policies? The answer is, our government has had a big hand in creating these human-rights abuses and in securing the power these dictators grip.
Iran, under the suspicion alone of working towards nuclear weapons, is shackled in U.N. sanctions and is surrounded by U.S. client-states waiting to pounce. News that Libya has killed over 1,000 pro-democracy protestors is greeted with the news that the U.S. is “looking at” sanctions and “will be consulting broadly about these issues in the coming days.” Our government is dragging its feet as slowly as it can in an effort to give Gaddafi as much time as he needs to suppress this revolt. Even in the face of hundreds of innocents being killed.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, though advertised and sold as such, were never intended to bring democracy to the beaten masses of these countries. They were simply countries that needed to be forcefully brought back into alignment with U.S. interests. Both had important natural resources; governments that did not pay respect to our imperial agenda; and surrounded Iran, which I’m positive was anything but coincidence. The governments we introduced in those newly tamed countries are only democratic in name and are regularly listed as some of the most corrupt governments in the world. They are corrupt by design as they are simply tools of the U.S. government, colonies if you like.
So the Republican and Democratic parties are both furious as they watch decades of work go down the tubes and their hand-picked governments tumble across the Middle-East, it just happens that the Republicans are being more honest about it. The Democrats, always pretending to be a party of the people, must live in denial and cheer on the revolts through gritted teeth – jealous at the freedom the Republicans enjoy.
