Act Now

Submitted by Fred Baehr (United States), Feb 17, 2012 at 16:43

Egypt will need a lot of aid. We should withhold ours. The time for positive engagement is in the future. You must bring the dog to heal before rewarding him, or he will be a bad doggy. We can effect the future of Egypt one way or another. Aid to avowed enemies is counter-productive. We can be sure that our aid will not move them in our direction politically. So we should withhold aid in a legitimate effort to rid Egypt of the new Islamist regime. It is doubtful that a subsequent regime would be any more hostile to us, probable in fact, that they would be more democratically inclined, and less inclined to destabilize the region. The MB is an enemy of democracies everywhere, is philosophically and legalistically revolting to real liberal sensibilities regarding human rights in general, and openly espouses mayhem and murder as a function of their religion which is their only claim to legitimacy. As such the MB embodies just about everything liberal pluralists should deplore. If the US is to be a force for liberal democratic pluralism in this century we must use our power intelligently and refuse to aid religio-fascist organizations like the MB.

We should in fact do all we can to reduce our consumption of foreign oil. Petro-dollars are the ultimate source of the power of Islamists in the world. The US can effect the global market heavily. If we reduce the billions we pay them for commodities we could supply to ourselves their revenues will decline and with it their influence and their power to threaten us and our allies. A sufficient withdrawal of dollars from the global market would create a situation that would crash the price of oil and send the Ayatollahs and Saudi Princes and Putin and Chavez into bankruptcy. We could do it and doing so might even help our domestic economy in the short term and the long. We have a major diplomatic and economic opportunity before us and we should take it for our own good and for the good of democratic freedom everywhere. All we have to do is decide to use our own energy resources and stop buying theirs, and stop sending aid to people who say they want to destroy us.

Some will say we would thus lose our influence in countries where we want influence, but that seems extremely unlikely to me, given that we will have a few more dollars to give away and they will want a few more dollars. Some will say the destabilization I predict would be ruinous and cause untold human suffering, and I think that is very likely. But millions already suffer under hateful Islamist regimes, and the spread of insurrection already assures that more human misery is on the way with no end in sight, and leading only to greater suffering and oppression. Our policies must look at the big picture here, for we are facing a huge threat in the forces of the Islamists and the other neo-fascist regimes in the world. The least violent choice we have is to cripple our foes economically. We still possess overwhelming economic power. We have abundant energy reserves. We have a domestic work force second to none. And last but not least, we still have the moral veracity of our position as leader of the free world. But the problem with being the leader is that you must lead now and then.

I just can't see a better option. This country could be entirely energy independent if we would only choose to make it so. Doing so would put hundreds of thousands of men and women to work, invigorating our economy, thus increasing our power while at the same time impoverishing our enemies, reducing their power, and all of it short of the least desirable option for everybody: the military option.

Our enemies have announced themselves and we have every moral right, and possibly a moral imperative, to treat them as enemies and reduce their power to harm us. Regardless of the excruciating rationale of the progressive apologists in our midst, Islamism is a real and intractable enemy of democratic freedom everywhere. One has only to look at the fruits of their labors to see this truth. If we, as the obvious leader, decline to defend freedom, our inaction empowers the enemies of freedom, so by not acting we are acting in behalf of our enemy. Leadership has great rewards but also heavy burdens. Will we live up to them or will we sink into ignominy? We are free to choose, and free to lose, but we don't have to lose unless we choose to lose.

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