Blogs For Victory

It went as far as it could. Two stories:

From Reuters:

The sentencing of a blogger to jail for criticizing Egypt’s army has drawn a chorus of objections from rights groups, who say the country’s ruling military council is drawing red lines around free speech.

Maikel Nabil, 26, was taken from his home in Cairo by five military officers early on March 28 and charged with insulting the military establishment and “spreading false information,” New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

Nabil’s lawyers were told the judge would rule on Tuesday but discovered he had already been sentenced in their absence on Sunday, HRW cited defense lawyer Adel Ramadan as saying…

From AFP:

Syrian security forces in at least two towns prevented medics from reaching wounded protesters when clashes erupted at anti-government demonstrations last week, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

The New York based rights group said the “inhumane” and “illegal” blocking of access to medical treatment occurred in the southern town of Daraa, the centre of a wave of protests against President Bashar al-Assad, and Harasta near Damascus…

So, what we’ve got is the end of free speech in Egypt coupled with the successful suppression of rebellion in Syria. Add in the stalemate in Libya and iron fist coming down in places like Bahrain and you have an end to it all. The people, frustrated by years of oppression and general misrule, rose up. The powers that be were forced back on their heels but then managed to gather their forces and counter-attack…now it is becoming clear that the rebels are being forced in to a box and will soon all be suppressed (or, in the case of places like Syria, dead). What happened?

An abject failure on the part of the United States to immediately cut loose from the tyrannical regimes and pledge our support to any genuinely democratic successor regimes. We dithered back and forth and made high-sounding statements and went 1/3 to war in Libya and then quit after a couple weeks. Now, other than Obama incompetence, why did we do this?

Back on March 16th I wrote that I was starting to smell a rat in Libya – a rat called “stability”; I think that rat is pretty much out in the open, now. The leadership of the world stood back appalled at what they saw…regular people demanding to rule themselves; and the leadership of the world became determined that this should not happen. After all, much easier to deal with tyrants. I don’t really blame Obama for this – he lacks any knowledge or experience of foreign affairs and thus was almost certainly led in to this by the bureaucracy at State and Defense. These are two organizations dedicated to preserving the global status quo for no other reason than they don’t like the messy business of people running their own affairs (do keep in mind that including Defense in the mix doesn’t imply a slur on our soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines…they are ok with messy business….but the bureaucrats – some of whom do have stars on their shoulders – don’t like it).

Maybe I’m wrong – perhaps the rebellion will re-ignite (and as food and fuel costs continue to rise this year, they might). But it seems pretty clear to me that neither the American nor any other government has any interest or desire to see a fundamental change. Curiously enough, in recent American history there have only been two men in charge of affairs who have wanted to shake things up – Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Both were slandered relentlessly and called morons and cowboys for their efforts…Reagan has long been proved right; in the fullness of time, Bush will, be proven right, too.