It will all end in tears........ours!

My goodness, our Dear Janet is on thin ice today in her article about O wanting to keep our of the Libya fray. Like so many others, Janet calls upon the founding fathers to justify her position that America should be the promoter and savior of human rights, freedoms and democracy around the world. I seriously doubt that our esteemed founding fathers intended to propel future generations of Yanks into military action against all the human rights violators around the globe. Our lads formulated some romantic and ideal phrases about governance in their efforts to justify rebellion against the throne. According to Janet, these phrases were not only meant to soothe our collective revolutionary conscience, but also to prescribe future congressional behavior.

I do not regret having severed our umbilical cord to English throne, Neither do I believe the best way to preserve democracy throughout the world is to ferment, foster and materially aid revolutionaries seeking to overthrow their dictatorial, corrupt or megalomaniacal leaders. Efforts to this effect are to me examples of cultural imperialism by Americans who possess a rather botched culture, are not imperial and who have almost zero understanding of other peoples and their cultures. We really need to stop this sophomoric silliness of exporting the principles of our founding fathers and cramming them into whatever context suits our purposes. Yes, there are rare times when we need to act, but policing the world is beyond our mandate.

Or am I wrong and O and co are intervening not on the basis of human principles, but a need for oil. After all, we just witnessed some nasty object lessons on the subject of why nuclear power will not become the energy of the future and we remain highly dependent upon and addicted to Middle Eastern oil. If Gadaffi with all his Libyan oil threatens to upset the apple cart like Saddam did in Iraq, then we must act quickly and decisively; in principle that is.

Our intervention in Libya will end in tears. Ours. The new regime will suck on our resources until we tire of offering them and will then come at us like harpies because we stopped feeding them. Their leaders will emerge in an aura of humanitarian and democratic proclamations that will endure until the public finds out how much aid and oil money they are channeling into their own pockets. That's the nature of the beast as I have learned from being there and having felt confounded in my inability to understand their mercurial and often rough behavior. The Libyans are, an Egyptian once explained to me, Bedouin tribesmen whose recent history is one of wandering desert trade routes while seeking water during the day and warmth at night. They can be hospitable and generous one moment and short and cruel the next.