Jose Ramos-Horta just posted an excellent piece over at Huffington Post which shows that those who are claiming that the Arab Spring was a mistake-or at least the it was a mistake for the President to support it-are simply being opportunistic and just plain wrong.
"I share the civilized world's revulsion at the destruction being wreaked by anti-US demonstrators in the Middle East over the past two days, and in particular the savagery of the Libyan extremist militants murdering the US Ambassador. I also feel deeply for the Libyans, Egyptians and others in the Middle East whose hard-won hopes for democracy and a better life are being set backwards by the violence in their midst."
"I echo the words of others that there is simply no justification. The Libyans would be still fighting a vicious civil war, slaughtering each other as the Syrians are today, if it weren't for the strong support from the US and others in the West that helped to bring about a speedy end of the Gaddafi regime."
"But the tragedy of Benghazi and riots in Yemen do not signal the end of the Arab Spring. Nor is it an indication of any "failed policies," any more than it is justification for the shameful practice of political candidates in the US attempting to make points from a US Ambassador's death."
"Setting aside the armchair generals who would throw the US into full-on war in the Middle East, there are limits to what the US can do in any given region and situation to influence the course of events and outcome. The current US administration has used that limited capability prudently and effectively, with well thought out strategies."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jose-ramoshorta/benghazi-was-not-the-begi_b_1885149.html
Very good point. There are limits to what we can do. The Romney campaign has tried to score political points of this tragedy, at one point going to the absurd level of claiming that if Romney were President, the attacks wouldn't have happened.
No doubt, this in part is due to the Romney team's obsession with 1980. From such a lens, no doubt this seems like manna from Heaven for them-ie, another Iranian hostage situation, etc.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-dreams-of-1980/2012/09/14/abc7cadc-fe58-11e1-8adc-499661afe377_blog.html#comments
They never seem to take any pause that they are always seeing bad news are beneficial to them. On the other hand, good news-Bernanke's new shock and awe program-they dread.
Mr. Ramos-Horta knows a little something about young, fledgling democracies who come through a time of terrible social unrest and violence. He was the President in East Timor in 1996. He makes the excellent point that brand new democracies often have a hard time of things early-and of course this leaves an opening for reactionaries to turn the clock back.
This is what is happening in Libya, Egypt, and Yemen right now. Extremist clerics see opportunity and are doing everything to fan the flames-that were of course ignited by some miserable American bigots like Steve Klein, the Florida Pastor Terry Jones, and the filmmaker Nakoula
Yet as Americans though we were pioneers in democracy and still are an inspiration so so many went through our own growing pains.
"It has been more than 200 years since America won its independence -- long enough to forget that fragile countries coming out from under decades of oppression have a long walk to real democracy. Incidents and explosions happen along the way. It was not that long ago that Boris Yeltsin, Russia's first democratically elected President, was firing cannons into the Russian Parliament. My country, East Timor (Timor-Leste), exploded in violence with angry mobs burning homes and shooting in the streets in 2006, four years after becoming a new democracy. Iraq is still spilling blood on that road."
"Like Iraq, Libya and Egypt have the added challenge of extremists and Al-Qaeda remnants in their midst, who do not intend to go quietly into history. And these must be separated out from the demonstrators. In Libya the mobs were used as a cover for deliberate, targeted murder -- in the hopes, no doubt, of further inflaming the situation and destabilizing the country."
It's very important to separate the violent extremists who are perpetuating deliberate, targeted, murder from the demonstrators and teh people in general. Many people in Libya expressed their sorrow for what happened this week.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jtes/12-photos-of-benghazi-citizens-apologizing-to-amer
If you haven't seem them you should check these photos out-they are very heartwarming. They show the Libyan people at their best. There are signs that say things like "Sorry People of America, this is not the Behaviour of our Islam and Prophet"
Interestingly, they spell "Prophet" as "Profit"-it took me awhile to figure it out.
There's an attractive, elegant woman wearing a Burqua with a sign that reads "RIP Christopher Stevens."
In a way the problem in every country is the same. It's always the Right wing reactionaries in every country that try to goad us into turning back the clock. That's happened in our country since our historic election of 2008.
Now they've tried everything to convince us that this was some terrible mistake that the President has failed that hope and change are just a bad joke.
Now they are trying to claim that the Arab Spring was a mistake and that Obama should have somehow forced the people of Egypt to keep Mubarak against their will.
This whole incident was precipitated by some American Christan bigots. Yet Hillary Clinton is trying to make the Middle Eastern people understand that it's a mistake to judge us all by these misguided, bigoted souls. And so we should do when hearing about all the violence at the embassies this week.
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