Rebuttal of criticism of aiding the pro democracy rebels in Libya.

(copy of recent letter to a well intentioned critic of aiding the pro democracy rebels in Libya)

Hello [........],

I was surprised to see your letter in the [.........] newspaper. The wider vision is that the people in the Middle East have risen up against tyranny to demand democracy. I am sure we agree that Western democracies should be doing all that they can to support this. Experience shows that democratic governments do more to redistribute wealth among their own people on the whole than dictatorships.

Libya under Gaddafi is a police state, where dissent means torture and death. He has spent over 40 years building up security brigades to defend his regime. Libya obviously has oil wealth, which is not distributed to it's people as Gaddafi's government statistics claims (international bodies treat these as propaganda only). Even without these concerns, the ordinary people in Libya deserve the dignity of a truly representative government, as people in Western countries have.

For God's sake man, can you not see that if Gaddafi (the least trusted Middle Eastern leader) succeeds in  crushing pro democracy rebels with overwhelming military force, this is the green light for the Syrian, Algerian, Bahraini, Yemeni ....  regimes to do exactly the same, knowing the West will do nothing. The transformation in Egypt has only just begun, and there are powerful rivals to Mubarak waiting to recreate his regime under new management.

How is the looming war in Iran going to averted without a STRONG successful democratic movement in the Middle East, which will encourage the Iranian pro-democracy Green movement. Do you think Russians, Indians, Chinese ... will be content to see the wrongly demeaned Arabs take back control of their countries from internal colonization, and still be content to live with their governments who sometimes play lip service to democracy, while consistently stealing from their own people.


What happens if the pro democracy Arab Democratic Awakening fails? What will the threatened regimes do? They will embark on strengthening their secret police, and ruthlessly persecuting opposition. They will build up thier security brigades to make sure they have the resources to crush any future popular revolt. There are no second chances here. Ordinary people in the Middle East know they must act now, and we must support them. If you are comfortable with doing nothing, then ask yourself would you live in a police state?

War is a bastard for everyone, most of all children. We should be arming and training the pro democracy rebels to get this over with as quickly as possible. While making every generous move on our part, dependent on movement by the rebel government to do the things that make democracy work now (setup free media, create practical federal constitution, create a free judiciary ....).

Please see that the big picture is that there are no good choices only less terrible ones, we made our mistakes when the West derailed the whole region after the First World War, the people of the Middle East have had enough, it is time to heed their demands to us to help them defend their dignity.

God Bless You

John (see http://reasonandgoddemands.blogspot.com/)