A History Lesson: Same As it Ever was? Not Exactly....

A thought: I'd like to think no dispassionate observer would disagree that the Cheney/Rove/Bush administration is anti-democratic and anti-freedom, at least at home.

But what got me to thinking is this: Even as we're welcoming the pro-West anti-Syria democratically-elected (if not Hezbollah-empowering) gummint in Lebanon, we are encouraging Israel to greatly destabilize it, at the least, to pointlessly attack a paper tiger, an inflated threat (something politicians have a weakness for, albeit radical right politicians significantly moreso).

And then there's the 51st and 52nd states, Afghanistan and the distinegrating Iraq. We don't truly liberate, we destroy. Remarkably, our -- or I should say, our leaders' -- efforts at nation-building do way more harm than good.

But I wonder whether or not what the current administration is doing -- ad nauseum, you could say, literally so -- is not part of a long pattern.

I mean, have we ever actually established a healthy anywhere? And when one would collapse into dictatorship, have we ever truly regretted it (unless of course it was a left-wing dictatorship)? And actaully could it normally, when paracticed properly, not be an attractive policy as it gives an opportunity to put a strongman happy to be corrupted by us and not faced with the nuisance of regular free elections? When we kicked out that democratically-elected Iranian president in the early 50s, we replaced him with a brand new monarchy and made no effort to reestablish the democratic state. And post-WWII, isn't remarkable how the major new or re-established democracies (Japan, Italy, Germany) had right-of-center governments?

And then there's Viet-Nam in the 60s....

One must wonder... maybe our committment to democracy was never terribly strong....