“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” – George Orwell

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“Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”  – George Orwell

By J.M. Hamilton (2-20-11)

It’s been awhile, but the arguments still hang in the air.  One of the resolutions for my collegiate debate team went something like this:  Resolved, the U.S. should not trade arms to non-democratic regimes.  The affirmative argued that the U.S. should not provide arms to dictatorships, which are by their very nature oppressive; the negative argued that by providing arms to military dictatorships and authoritarian regimes, the U.S. was able to influence these regimes and had a greater opportunity to bring about democratic reform.   The resolution came up in the eighties, as President Reagan turned the screws on the Soviets with amped up defense spending, and the cold war was rapidly coming to an unexpected conclusion.   At the time the world to this young and naïve Republican appeared bi-polar, comprised either of democratic governments, or right wing dictatorship headed toward democracy, versus communist and/or socialist/totalitarian regimes.  The ends appeared to justify the means, as, nearly, any regime that was a foe of godless communists bent on global domination, appeared to this debater worthy of U.S. military support.

The balance of the debate team, all of them liberals, thought I was mad, and that my case for supporting right wing dictatorships (the case for the negative) was “repugnant.”

Nearly a quarter of century later, and with hindsight being twenty-twenty, I couldn’t agree with my teammates more, that is to say, supporting military dictatorships and authoritarian regimes is, indeed, repugnant.  A practice that unfortunately, the U.S. did not abandon at the conclusion of the cold war… when America road tall, was the only superpower left standing, and for a couple of decades anyway, truly had an opportunity to push these regimes towards democracy, reform, and may have helped to shape democratic institutions and parties within these countries.

We can see the results of U.S. foreign policy in the current wave of democracy sweeping the member states of the Arab League.  For the last several decades the U.S., and Western Europe, have propped up dictatorships throughout the middle-east in the name of commercial “stability,” by providing billions in economic and military assistance and a steady stream of petrol dollars into the region.   In the case of Egypt, we know that the U.S. gave between 1.3 and 1.5 billion in military aid, annually.  Of course, there is nothing as unstable as authoritarian or totalitarian regime, if we believe Presidents Kennedy and Reagan, who both said that communism (i.e. authoritarian and totalitarian rule) was not the wave of the future, freedom is.

And it’s really that simple, man craves freedom.   As important to man’s inner core as air and water, political and economic freedom, for all educated citizens of the world, is an imperative.  Freedom is instinctual.   In the present day, for U.S. leadership not to have seen the uprising in the middle-east coming makes one wonder what other blind spots exist?  And now, instead being able to help shape events, the U.S. and the world must depend upon a military dictatorship, on the heels of Mubarak’s departure, to bring about the necessary reform. 

Omar Suleiman, Mr. Mubarak’s vice-presidential appointee (aka Mr. Torture!), now runs the show, and the Egyptian economy, which is also said to be dominated by military run monopolies (sounds a lot like Iran’s Revolutionairy Guard).  Per the N.Y. Times: “…Mr. Suleiman has outraged members of the anti-government protest movement by saying that he does not think it is time to lift the 30-year-old emergency law that has been used to suppress and imprison opposition leaders and that he does not think his country is yet ready for democracy.”  So this story and democratic revolution is still very much playing out.

Of course, if the U.S. really wants both economic and political stability in the region, it should support democracy and democratic movements.  Realpolitik would suggest backing dictatorships, but given demographics, the rising levels of education, and informational and social networks provided by the internet… true long term stability, economic and political, will come from democracy, not from authoritarian or even theocratic regimes.

The counter argument against democracy for the region offers up the same old bogey man, that of Muslim religious extremist, such as the Muslim Brotherhood.   This argument is specious at best, and at worst may only come to fruition, if democracy is not allowed to flower and take hold.  The fact that some of the arguments made in this piece are even remotely novel, or even contrarian to U.S. foreign policy, shows the extent to which the short term thinking of commercial interests dictate both U.S. foreign policy and political trajectory within the region.   Observe German President, Horst Koehler, who was forced to resign in 2010 over remarks he made demonstrating that German foreign policy and military support in Afghanistan was not backed by idealism for democratic reform (the line we are often fed in this country), but rather, commercial, trade and economic self-interest.  Shocking!  Truth spoken here, so fire the poor man.

Fortunately, in this instance, doing the right thing, supporting democracy in the region, is actually in the United States foreign policy, commercial and geo-political self- interest.   Military dictatorship is so passé.  Democracy is de rigueur.  

And the man of the hour for the middle-east… the catalyst, the spark, the dynamo who started the whole process?   Well that would be Chairmen of the Fed, Ben Bernanke, whose policy of QE2/devaluing the dollar, has lead to rising headline inflation, and a speculative bubble in commodities.  The Arab Leagues reluctant and nascent move towards democracy is fueled by hungry bellies.  Many years from now, history may state that Mr. Bernanke, directly and indirectly, contributed to the birth of Pan-Arab democracy.  Chinese and Iranian political leadership would do well to take note.


 Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2013