A libertarian take

Submitted by Roger McKinney (United States), Sep 16, 2012 at 12:12

Except for Brian Kennedy, the responses in the symposium were short on specific action that the US should have taken during the Arab uprisings. Do we really want to go to war and have our troops bogged down in a hostile nation where even the women and children are enemies with bombs? Sounds like a repeat of Afghanistan, which is a reincarnation of VietNam.

The quagmires that we created in Iraq and Afghanistan after very successful launches of military action demonstrate that no one in Washington has learned a thing from VietNam. We should have left both countries as soon as the opposing governments were overthrown. Instead, we had to stay ten years and try to win the hearts and minds of people who hate us and get thousands of boys killed for no reason.

During the early parts of the Iraq/Afghan wars I read the English language version of Al Ahram online. Almost every week it published horrible lies about the conduct of our troops and the US's intentions. Al Ahram is state owned and the largest newspaper in Egypt. Clearly, Mubarak was stirring up hatred of the US at home while proclaiming his friendship in public. He turned Egyptians into the most anti-American people on the planet.

If a casual reader could see this, why couldn't the CIA or state dept? They could see it but they had blinded themselves by ideology. I have lived in the Middle East twice and have seen that the state dept is the most anti-American group of people in the world.

As a libertarian I can't go along with the war mongering from conservatives. The greatest conservative since WWII, Ronald Reagan, had a different policy: support with arms and guidance those that we like, but keep American troops out of the Middle East. Yes, he did lose 300 Marines in Lebanon, but he learned from that. The US should remove all embassies, aid and any other contact with all Muslim countries. CIA work should be done only by natives we can recruit and help from Israel. If we find groups we can support, then arm them to the teeth covertly, but keep American boys out of the mess.

As for the straight of Hormuz, the US gets very little oil from that region. Leave it to Europe to defend if they want to. If not, why should we care? Most of our oil comes from the US, Canada and Mexico.

The exception will be Iran. Israel has no choice but to attack at some point. Our response should depend upon how Iran responds. If they respond with terror attacks, no problem. We can deal with those as they come. But if they launch missiles at Israel we will have to respond in kind.

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