America Chews Its Nails while France Acts

Last night I watched a debate on the Charlie Rose show. It was about whether America ought to help the Free Libya movement beat Qadhaffi.

In all fairness, three of the four debaters said, help by all means in the air and with weapons.

The fourth debater was a knot of psychic angst, chewing her nails and tugging at her heart strings about whether we ought to help, and finally saying, let’s wait.

Wait for what, was the unanimous reply from the others.

A pertinent question today, as France became the first nation to recognize the Free Libya movement as the legitimate Libyan government.

It is not often that Europe leads in the diplomatic arena, but France got it perfect this time. President Sarkozy is now poised to take back for France the moral leadership in Arab North Africa.

I cannot imagine a worse scenario than for America to sit in the wings and let the Free Libyans be massacred or made irrelevant by Qadhaffi. But, one should not be surprised that the indecisive fourth debater is a former State Department employee who now advises the White House.

How can America watch as a genuinely democratic movement is maimed at its birth in Libya. Tunisia was over before anyone blinked, but we watched until it was almost irrelevant to take sides in Egypt. And, now, we are trying to decide if it is in our national interest to aid people trying to take back their own government from a despot.

National interest is a cowardly way to say, let’s not bother, because it would be easy to supply weapons at Benghazi and it would be in support of the request of the entire Arab world, Free Libya included, to establish a no-fly zone, and it would put America squarely on the side of Right in the Arab world.

Does America stand for anything anymore? Does Democracy mean so little now that we are willing to let others defend it as we stand by indifferent? Were our words, spoken in Cairo by Obama himself, about young people making a move toward democracy in the Arab world simply meant to play well at home while we thumb our nose at those who are actually trying?

Free Libya is grassroots, home-grown non-extremist young democrats at work.

If France had treated the American Revolutionaries the way we are treating Free Libya, America would still be a British colony.