Rebellion Without Truth

 Where is the love

You said you'd give to me

Soon as you were free

Will it ever be

--Where is the Love,

Robert Flack

No one knows what it's like

To be the bad man

To be the sad man

--Behind Blue Eyes, The Who

Rebellion without truth is like spring in a bleak, arid desert

--Khalil Gibran

Nuclear arms in the Middle East

Israel is attacking the Iraqis

The Syrians are mad at the Lebanese

And Baghdad do whatever she please

Looks like another threat to world peace

For the envoy

--The Envoy, Warren Zevon

_____________________

Ever avant-garde in simple matters, Ranger questioned the wisdom of hopping on the bandwagon of manufactured joy surrounding the so-called Arab Spring way back when it first sprung.

He asked in his April Fool's Day post (Reverse English) if the U.S. largesse in the form of 200 Abrams M1 main battle tanks to then- Egyptian President Morsi was such a great idea. Now we know the Egyptian military used those fine examples of speed, shock and firepower to depose the now so-yesterday Mr. Morsi.  We enabled the military to execute a coup versus a democratically-elected leader, leading us to say there is some element of hypocrisy or failure or both in that action.

We at RAW ask, as always, "Where is the rationale in such an action -- did the gift increase or decrease the chance for peace in the region? Did the weapons increase the ability of Egypt to develop into a democracy?" Leaders in erupting nations are likely to be given the old heave-ho overnight, so why encourage malcontents (i.e., most of the animated population) to vie for control over such goodies?

Must the United States always play the dupe, sending materiel goodies down the chute to the merest facsimile of a leader? Yet now we stand before Syria wringing our hands over the same question. Most "sensible people" seem to be saying, "Just send a little", as though somehow tossing some candy into the ring will allow the best man to emerge victorious. We have heard it all before: Assad (substitute your leader of choice) is a baaad man. We don't like bad men (we wear the White Hat, after all), so he just has to go.

Or do we just support everyone and hang our hats on hope and change?

Never mind that the nation over which he rules might be chock full of bad men in defilade, patiently awaiting their turn in the spotlight. We can only do what we can do, which is throwing some of the products of lucrative military contracts at a problem. Hard ware just compounds the problem.

One definition of insanity is repeating the same action in a similar situation yet expecting a different outcome. "Oh, but Saddam and Assad are different men," those on the supply-side claim. No -- they are all wolves in sheep's clothing ... but we do love us some lambs, no ... the meek, and all that?

At the risk of stating the obvious, tanks are offensive weapons for warfare, and are not designed for police functions like breaking up crowds, so why would we supply them to (Egypt / Libya / Iraq / Afghanistan)? Not only is the gift to a supposedly burgeoning democracy misguided, but they cost a fair bit, money that a nation under sequestration can ill-afford to fritter away. What does the U.S. gain from attempting prop up these corrupt regimes?

When our own nation teeters on the brink of insolvency, we cannot afford to play these games.