Truths?

There were several articles in the paper the other day that discussed some of the thing we need to learn from what is happening in Egypt. One made the point that truth will always win out and that dictators can’t keep people suppressed. Oh, that it were true.

The fact is that history is overcrowded with countries that have suffered under one autocrat after another, for generations on end; despots who, in the name of this or that dynasty and this or that ideology have suppressed freedom and truth. Even in the case of most of the nations in history that have claimed to be democracies, the governments in question have used and abused their powers, limited the freedom of their people, manipulated the truth and denied basic rights. Even in the last 100 years the examples of elected governments running amok is long and sullied.

Hitler was elected and rose to power through manipulation of parliamentary procedure and Mussolini was elected to the Chamber of Deputies before leading a coup that installed him as Prime Minister, nominally the legal and selected leader of the country. For decades the various communist regimes held elections in which their leadership was elected by the people, and the list of ‘guaranteed’ rights under the Constitution of the USSR made the US Bill of Rights look cheap by comparison.

Many of the oppressive regimes currently oppressing their own people are in power based on manipulated elections. Whether Iran or Zimbabwe or Venezuela or a host of other nations, duly elected officials – in truly twisted elections – continue to abuse power and grind the people under their boots. But still they stand up and say that they are democracies. Even North Korea has an elected parliament.

So what are the real truths to be drawn from Egypt? And Tunisia?

1) The world is a dangerous place. After the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union there were many in the west who began to voice opinions that ‘everything had changed,’ that mankind had entered into a new era, that peace and prosperity would reign forever, and that mankind could now start enjoying an age of brotherhood and comity.

Those who felt otherwise and dared to voice their perspective that the Cold War had simply allowed us the perverse luxury of focusing on a single major problem and ignoring most of the others were labeled as cynics and worse yet, purveyors of ‘old think.’ However, the wishful thinking of those who believed that we were entering a utopian humanist age has yet to materialize into anything real. The world remains a very dangerous place, and perhaps less stable now then it was 30 years ago.

2) Democracy can be dangerous, particularly in either of the following cases: a democracy in a country with an enduring tradition of strong central rule – as in Russia (think of Putin) or Iran (the Shah, then Ayatollah Khomeini, then Ayatollah Khameni) – it lead to de facto dictators claiming to rule in the name of the people; or two, democracies in countries with constitutions that do not both provide for the rights of the individual and at the same time limit the scope of the government itself – this leads to denial of individual rights in the name of the people and the tyranny of the majority; where Algeria was headed in 1992 before the Army threw out the elected leaders, where Venezuela is right now, and Cuba.

3) Supporting democracies around the world is, all other things being equal, the right thing to do. And I fully support the effort to make Iraq a true, liberal democracy. But such efforts are both long and difficult. Nor should we be adamant that we would never reject the government of such democracies. US interests must come first. And if a duly elected government of some nascent democracy turns against the US and its interests the US must be prepared to seek US interests first and eschew support for democracies for democracy’s sake, to the detriment of our own interests.

4) The Internet and Facebook and Twitter and all the other social media do not and will never equal truth. Nor does 24-hour news coverage. Whatever is happening on the streets of Cairo, it is a certainty that there is more going on then meets the eye. It is also true that what people send around on e-mails and tweets and photos from cell-phone are, at best narrow, and often hasty, poorly thought out, views of very wide problems; more often they are biased and self-serving. They can be of great value in sharing news of a given event. But they should never be confused with truth.

5) All of which leads to one painful conclusion: despite hopes for being able to spend less on our security, the fact remains that the US safeguards democracy – liberal democracy – around the world. If we don’t do it, no one will. We also provide security for the global market place, for the international trade routes that make possible the improved standards of living world-wide. If we fail to protect those trade routes, others with less magnanimous and less gracious foreign policies will eventually take our place. And the world will be even less stable – and less pleasant. Investing in national security – the military, the intelligence community, and tailored support to key allies – is the primary – that is first and before all else - responsibility of our government because it is the primary guarantor of both our safety and our way of live. Other expenses must take a second seat to national security needs.

Four centuries ago Oliver Cromwell – himself a fairly brutal dictator – advised his army to ‘place your trust in God, but keep your powder dry.’ The advice remains as sound now as it did then. If there is one truth to be learned from what is going on in Egypt, that is it.