Thursday, February 3, 2011

Dear Mr. President,

Three cheers for democracy! The protestors stood up to Mubarak’s thugs yesterday, prevailed, and you actually condemned our “most stalwart ally in the Arab world” for the violence. Now that wasn’t so hard, was it? May the spirit of Cairo prevail and spread and an era of freedom, justice and democracy of some form begin for all courageous peoples who stand up against U.S.-backed tyrants. What impressed me most in the articles in the paper this morning was this statement: “… governments of an American-backed order in most of the region have lost their legitimacy, built on the idea that people would surrender their rights for the prospect of security and stability.” [my emphasis] It’s that last phrase that got my attention: people give up their rights, their freedoms, their identity, when fear prevails. It brings to mind the Patriot Act, illegal wiretaps and intercepted emails, acceptance of torture and rendition, suspension of habeas corpus, the morally repugnant drone strikes, and the overuse of “terrorist” to justify whatever the government wants to do. We’re sliding toward tyranny, Mr. President, and I don’t see you doing a lot to stop it. During your presidential campaign you called the war in Iraq unjustified, based on lies and deceit, but we still have 60,000 combat troops there; you vowed to shut down Guantanamo but it’s still open for business; you vowed to end torture but we still do it – it’s just outsourced now, “enemy combatants” are renditioned to countries (like Egypt) to be tortured while we “monitor” them. I could go on but I’m sure you get my drift. I grew up in a country where I didn’t need a passport to visit Canada, where I didn’t stand in long lines at the airport, take off my shoes and go through all that screening nonsense. (How many billions have we spent on this and how many terrorists caught? One screener admitted to me that he’d never heard of a single one.) The world’s full of dangers but the greatest danger is a government that takes away rights through the use of fear. I still haven’t heard you ask the right question yet, Mr. President, or give the right answer: why do “they” hate us? Look at Egypt. Look at Mubarak. Right there’s the answer. Loud and clear. We support dictators, not democracy. Other U.S. backed tyrants are beginning to worry as the unrest spreads from Tunisia and Yemen to Egypt and now on to Syria, Jordan, the Sudan, and Saudi Arabia. Three cheers for democracy! Three cheers for the people!