By Will Moriarty | Webmaster
Many Americans have been very excited about the recent revolutionary spirit in the Middle East. They have recognized it as very similar to how the United States was able to replace tyranny with democracy, which has led to a large amount of support from the American people. Unfortunately, this has come from the American government as well. Though our vocal and symbolic support is admirable, U.S. or NATO military support and political involvement in countries fighting for democracy is unnecessary and has been empirically proven to cause future conflict.
The United States is very fond of occupying other countries under the guise of something else. The government justifies it by saying the conflicted nations are not capable of accomplishing anything on their own, but that does not mean we have to be the ones to help them. If a country needs political guidance, they should be aided by another country in the area. Other countries are willing to help. The Turkish premier, Recep Tayyip Erdoganhad, has recently been pushing to be a source of guidance for countries like Tunisia and Egypt. With an established constitutional democracy, Turkey seems to be qualified for the job. If the conflicts become violent, we should not send an unnecessary amount of military force to help out like we did with Libya. If there are human rights abuses occurring, the U.N. should send peacekeeping troops. U.S. involvement on any level is unnecessary.
Our involvement is also more damaging. Whenever the U.S. has gotten politically involved with revolutions in other countries, the new leadership we help establish either turns against us or is extremely corrupt. We supported a coup against the democratically elected president of Guatemala and replaced him with an oppressive military regime, who committed numerous human rights violations for over ten years. Similar situations happened all throughout Central America during the Cold War. Our political support in the Middle East has not been too successful, either. We endorsed many oppressive governments in the area, and our support of Israel is viewed pretty negatively as well. With the combination of our proven inability to establish strong democratic nations in addition to our current economic state, any further effort by the U.S. to help would damage both domestic and foreign stability.
Many are probably thinking, “Qaddafi was just killed. How is U.S. presence not beneficial?” The false confidence this recent event gives us has the potential to encourage more international involvement. To understand why this is not a good thing, look at the event in comparison to other revolutions. In Egypt, the leader stepped down; in Tunisia, the leading party stepped down; in Libya, the leading party was virtually slaughtered. Any excess military force will only cause more problems.
