Mountain Views News          Saturday, February 19, 2011

12

LEFT TURN/RIGHT TURN

 Mountain Views News Saturday, February 19, 2011 

GREG Welborn

Egypt’s Future Is Today


HOWARD Hays

 As I See It

 
As protesters took to the streets in Egypt, the 
odds overwhelmingly favored bloodshed and 
chaos. The reality, at least as of this writing, is 
almost a miracle. We don’t know yet Egypt’s 
future, but we do know that those who are 
ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. At 
this particular point in time, it is largely the U.S. 
which will demonstrate whether the lessons of 
history give Egypt its 1979 or its 1989 moment.

As some of you remember, 1979 was the year 
when Iran’s dictator fell, only to be replaced by 
the mad Mullahs who now subject the country 
and its people to more misery than the Shah ever 
imposed. 1989, on the spectrum’s other end, is 
the year when the dictators of Eastern Europe 
fell, the Berlin wall came down, and freedom and 
democracy came to people who had know neither 
for a generation. Both historical moments owe 
their outcome largely to the actions taken by the 
U.S., and Egypt today equally depends on what 
we do in the days, weeks, months to come.

1979 represents one of the saddest moments 
in American foreign policy. As a dictator was 
toppled, the U.S. remained mute on the subject 
of whom we preferred to rule the country. We 
pretended that there was moral and geopolitical 
equivalency between the fledgling democrats 
who had barely survived under the Shah’s 
oppression and the repressive theocrats who 
had become strong and well organized in exile. 
Lending no support to those who truly would 
have brought peace and dignity to the country, 
we allowed the Ayatollah’s to take control. The 
error of that decision lives with us to this day.

1989 represents a shining moment in American 
foreign policy – the capstone in a 44 year history 
of successful U.S. policies designed to thwart and 
eventually topple communist tyrannies. This 
history is important to understand. After WWII, 
Western Europe was free from Nazis but in ruin 
and unstable. It faced external and internal 
threats from communists. Russia quickly gobbled 
up Eastern Europe, attempted to capture several 
other countries and fielded an army of covert 
agents, sympathizers and committed members 
throughout Western Europe. The communist 
parties in France and Italy were bigger than their 
democratic rivals, well organized and ruthless 
in their pursuits. There, as in Egypt, the smart 
money would have said that the communists 
would win.

The U.S. adopted the Truman Doctrine, declaring 
our goal of protecting democracy and freedom in 
the west and around the world. We countered 
external threats militarily and internal threats 
by supporting and funding democratic parties 
wherever possible. It was not a steady trajectory to 
victory by any measure, but most presidents from 
Truman to 
the first Bush supported the 
doctrine and our commitment 
remained – weaker at times 
and then stronger, but always 
present. We never gave up on 
our belief that the residents of 
Western Europe desired and 
were capable of representative 
democracy. Ultimately, 
freedom won, the wall fell, and Republicans and 
Democrats could take pride in what we helped 
bring to pass.

The same opportunity presents itself in the 
Middle East and most specifically at this time in 
Egypt. There are fledgling secular democratic 
parties; there are people who desire freedom and 
look to the U.S. for guidance, encouragement, 
and sometimes sustenance. These forces, which 
are our natural allies, face threats both external 
and internal. Iran has taken on the role of the 
old Soviet Union, seeking to dominate the 
region, impose its own radical and totalitarian 
control, and fielding an army of covert agents, 
sympathizers and committed members. 
Hezbollah and Hamas are nothing without the 
support from Iran.

Unfortunately, the current administration 
seems incapable of its own Trumanesque 
moment. So fearful appearing imperialistic, 
it can’t be humanitarian and take concrete 
actions to support freedom movements in Egypt 
or elsewhere in the Middle East. What we 
desperately need is a Freedom Doctrine, ideally 
comprised of the following succinct elements:

1. Concrete support for democratic reforms and 
movements in the Middle East.

2. Specific efforts to help nurture the rule of law, 
a free press, independent political parties, and a 
professional military.

3. Overt and covert assistance to those political 
parties which truly reflect a commitment to 
democratic ideals.

These aren’t complicated, and they don’t need to 
be. As Jose Maria Aznar, former Prime Minister 
of Spain, wrote, “the duty of democrats should 
be to do whatever is necessary for freedom to 
prevail”. Egypt’s future is being written today. If 
we have learned from history, the Middle East 
and the rest of the world will be a much better 
place.

About the author: Gregory J. Welborn is a 
freelance writer and has spoken to several civic 
and religious organizations on cultural and 
moral issues. He lives in the Los Angeles area 
with his wife and 3 children and is active in the 
community. He can be reached at gregwelborn@
earthlink.net.

“Reagan proved deficits don’t 
matter.” - Dick Cheney

 

 Ronald Reagan campaigned 
in 1980 describing the $60 
billion budget deficit under 
President Jimmy Carter as 
“criminal”. He then more than tripled that deficit 
barely halfway into his first term. By the time 
Reagan left, the United States had devolved from 
being the world’s biggest creditor nation to its 
biggest debtor.

 

 The national debt, $930 billion when Reagan 
took office, had never reached a trillion in our 
history. That mark was surpassed and more than 
doubled, reaching $2.6 trillion, by the end of 
Reagan’s second term.

 

 Unemployment stayed below 8% under 
President Carter. Within two years of Reagan’s 
election, it was over 10%. Before Reagan, a 
decent blue-collar income with union benefits 
was enough to own a home and raise a family. 
After Reagan, Americans struggled to do it 
on two incomes, while those enjoying union 
protections fell from over a fifth of the workforce 
to less than 7% today.

 

 There’s that eternal chicken-or-the-egg 
question; Republicans argue cutting the deficit 
is a necessary prerequisite for a strong economy, 
while Democrats maintain that once investments 
are made to encourage economic growth, the 
deficit will take care of itself.

 

 The Democrats’ argument is bolstered by 
the fact history has shown it to be true. The 
Republicans’ argument is harmed by the fact 
there’s no evidence to support it, and that their 
adherence to it seems to change with whatever 
talking points they’re handed on a given day. 
There’s also the question of whether they truly 
believe it themselves.

 

 David Stockman, Reagan’s Budget Director, 
later acknowledged they really didn’t buy into 
the “Laffer Curve”, that graph showing revenue 
lost through tax cuts eventually returning and 
increasing as a result of a stronger economy. 
They intentionally grew the deficit, he explained, 
in order to starve the social programs remaining 
as a legacy of Lyndon Johnson’s “Great Society”.

 

 Deficit fears became a big deal for Republicans 
as they warned against President Bill Clinton’s 
budget for 1994, which cut taxes for low-income 
Americans and small businesses, but raised them 
on the wealthiest 1.2% - thus denying it any 
Republican support. Deficits continued to be a 
concern as investments were made in education, 
environmental protection and children’s health. 
Republicans sought to change the subject, 
though, as Clinton left office with a $200 billion 
surplus, paying down the national debt, with the 
highest end-of-presidency approval since WWII. 

 

 Cheney’s statement above was recalled by 
Paul O’Neil, Treasury Secretary under George W. 
Bush, as he described a meeting that took place 
near the end of Bush’s second year in office. The 
first round of tax cuts enacted under Bush had 
already turned the surplus left by Clinton into 
a $158 billion deficit, exacerbated by a “war on 
terror” and ongoing fighting in Afghanistan. 
Preparations were being made for the invasion 
and occupation of Iraq. It was in this context that 
O’Neil questioned the wisdom of pushing for yet 
another round of tax cuts for multi-millionaires 
which would drive the nation further into debt.

 

 V.P. Cheney responded with the aforementioned 
dismissal of deficit concerns and then, in apparent 
reference to those sharing his tax bracket, added, 
“We won the (2002) midterms. This is our due.”

 

Last year, with 15 million Americans out of work, 
Republicans campaigned on job creation. Now 
that it’s apparent there were never programs 
behind the slogans, the focus has turned again to 
the deficit.

 

Attention is on the proposed budget for 2012, but 
soon we’ll return to the reality that we don’t have 
a budget for 2011 - and will continue to fund 
the government through a series of continuing 
resolutions, perhaps all the way to the 2012 
elections. In the meantime, Republicans will 
continue pontificating on $100 billion in cuts 
which have nothing to do with job creation, but 
everything to do with appeasing the corporate 
interests that bought them their seats. 

 

(They could take care of more than that $100 
billion right away by simply returning to the 
bookkeeping system employed under Bush, 
where costs for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan 
were kept off the books as “emergency 
appropriations”.)

 

If there were true concerns about the deficit, 
there wouldn’t have been the insistence on going 
$40 billion deeper in debt for a year’s extended 
tax breaks for the richest 2%; there wouldn’t be 
the resistance to President Obama’s wanting to 
cut $36.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies to oil and 
gas companies over the next ten years; there’d be 
support for House bills seeking to apply a .25% 
transaction tax on Wall Street trades, estimated 
to bring in $50 billion to $150 billion a year; 
there’d be support for saving additional billions 
by reforming agricultural subsidies, where three-
quarters of the funds go to the richest 10% of 
agri-businesses.

 

There’d be allowing Medicare to negotiate for 
lower drug prices, which Rep. Peter Welch (D-
VT) estimates would save $156 billion over ten 
years.

 

Instead, Republicans seek to knock out taxpayer 
support for Big Bird and Elmo on Sesame Street.

 

When the targets are funding for green jobs, 
science education, global warming initiatives, 
pollution enforcement, national parks, fisheries 
and waterways preservation and energy 
efficiency, their concern is not the deficit.

 

When a major goal is defunding Wall Street 
reforms enacted to prevent a recurrence of 
the 2008 meltdown, their concern is not the 
economy.

 

When cuts to education of $10 billion (a quarter 
the cost of the tax break for the richest 2%) are 
proposed that would take 26,000 jobs from 
elementary and secondary schools, affect 324,000 
special needs students and slash Pell Grants for 
1.5 million low income students, their concern is 
not the future of our country.

 

Such proposals show a deficit in understanding 
of history, economics and the interests of the 
people they’re supposed to be serving. As I see 
it, that’s the deficit that matters.