Although, like most Americans, I don’t want to see innocent
people slaughtered, I also like a
story where the good guys win and evil is vanquished. I guess that’s why I’m a big fan of John Wayne. So, like many of you, I’m torn over the introduction of
American military forces into Libya.
While I certainly think Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi
should be deposed and put in front of a firing squad, (his human rights violations and terrorist activities surely
have earned him that) I’ve come to the conclusion that we are wrong to
intervene in what is in actuality, a civil war.
I know I’m going to get flak from conservatives and liberals
alike who say we can’t let the innocent suffer. I now find myself at odds with the political pundits that I most frequently agree with. But I have to ask, where do we draw the line? Where were we in Darfur and in the
Congo? In Uganda and in Rwanda? Fidel Castro has murdered
thousands if not tens of thousands of Cubans in his quest for the Marxist
utopia that he envisioned. Should we invade Cuba?
Josef Stalin murdered or starved more than 40 million Soviet
citizens (not to mention starting WWII.)
Should we have invaded the Soviet Union and started a nuclear war? The worst mass murderer in history was Mao
Tse-Tung. That lovable little panda was responsible for
the death of more than 70 million Chinese who just couldn’t see the benefits of Marxism/Leninism. (And those are just the ones we know about.) So, should we have launched an attack on
the Chicoms? If you thought Viet
Nam was a quagmire, a land war against a country with a population of three
billion would have been a nightmare.
Syria and Iran systematically kill anyone who opposes their
tyrannical regimes. Should we now go to war against them?
We also are becoming aware (although some of us have known
for awhile) that Al Qaeda is taking part in the revolt and its forces are
playing a larger and larger role in the Libyan uprising. If Gadhafi goes, he will just be replaced with another
tyrannical regime. And one that hates us even
more!
As much as I would like us to destroy evil in the world, I’ve come
to the realization that we can’t.
We cannot continue to expend our treasure and, more importantly, the
blood of our best and brightest.
In the end, we are still hated and despised, and we create more enemies for ourselves.
We cannot create democracies just because we want to. We cannot re-create the Garden of Eden on earth no matter how well-intentioned we are. And we certainly cannot put on a blue uniform and badge and become the policeman of the world.
I’m
not an isolationist, but unless there is a direct threat to our national
security, we have no business sticking our nose (and our missiles) in another
country’s affairs. If history has
shown us anything, it’s that it spells disaster.
And history doesn’t lie.