Reader Response to ‘The Revolution in Egypt’

‘The Revolution in Egypt’ received a interesting and thought-provoking response by Palmetto Patriot, one of our occasional contributors at the Political Spectrum.  What he wrote may be read on the original story page.  Thanks for the input, Michael!

The tragedy of the Spanish Civil War is that fascism became an official system of government, and by the second year of the war it was pretty much Team Red Imperialist vs. Team Fascist Imperialist.  To his credit, Franco's regime stayed within Spain's borders, but Nazi Germany/Italy and the USSR, who all sent troops ("advisors/"volunteers") to their selected teams, sure as hell didn't honor boundaries in their tenures.  Many of the war crimes in Spain were committed by these foreign fighters (ex: Picasso's Guernica, conveying the aftermath of a German bombing).  The only difference between Red Internationalism and Fascism is that Fascism puts one people and nation above all others and subject to impose on all others, while Red Internationalism recognizes no other nations and only the rights of the working class (on the collective level, NOT the individual level) as we are all in "solidarity".  Many Communist countries have done their “internationalist duty” of bringing Communism to other countries, be it by funding political parties or committing “liberations” via military force (ex: Georgia 1921, Hungary 1956, Tibet 1950). Damn, now it seems like there's not much of a difference at all.

The tragedy in Spain is quite similar to the Chinese Civil War, which was fought between the armies of Mao, a totalitarian Communist, and Chiang, a totalitarian fascist.  I cannot support the Fascists because they resorted to insurgency and force of arms not to secede from, but to overthrow an existing democratically elected government.  Nonetheless, those who were fighting at the end of the war were not the same people who fought in the beginning.  By 1938-39 it became a matter of which side was less evil.

In regards to your statistic about how many countries U.S. troops are stationed in, that is very true.  While I am a Unionist and do support the occupation of the Axis countries defeated in World War II (case in point: the Holocaust, Nanking and Shanghai, and gassed Ethiopia), I agree with your opinion that we definitely don’t need troops in all those countries.  While some governments have actually invited or asked us to send troops to protect them from foreign aggressors (like Kuwait after being annexed by Iraq in 1990, and Belgium and Luxembourg, twice invaded and brutalized by Germany) many countries simply don’t need an American presence and, frankly, don’t deserve them.  Is the United States planning to colonize all those territories?  Either it is or it isn’t.  If there will be a formal annexation of foreign territory, I recommend at least having the decency to turn these annexed territories into full and formal states with two senators on Capitol Hill, rather than allow the indigenous peoples to remain imperial lackeys.

In the case of Egypt, I’m impressed with the President and the State Department for not intervening in this affair.  The Egyptian people deserve their chance at democracy and self determination and this may be their only one.  I was inspired by reading Congressman Ron Paul’s The Revolution, and since reading that book in early 2009 I’ve been kicking myself endlessly for not voting for him.  Any other reader responses or essay submissions are welcome.