The Fog of Revolution

by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society Apart from celebratory statements applauding what looks like to us democratic “people’s revolutions” against tyrannous autocrats, the uprisings sweeping across the Muslim Middle East have created great uncertainty for policy-makers as they try to calculate a response. Share This

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Foreign Policy Charity Should Start at Home

Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The outbreak of protests and rebellion throughout the Middle East have quickly generated an orthodox narrative: When people suffering under brutal autocrats and dictators have finally risen up to satisfy the innate human longing for freedom and democracy, we should support these aspirations on moral grounds. Share This

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The Secularist Delusion

by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The dubious received wisdom rationalizing our current intervention in Libya was crystallized in Senator John Kerry’s recent essay for The Wall Street Journal. For Kerry, the rebels in Libya are the same as those in Egypt, “peacefully demanding freedom and dignity.” Share This

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Foreign Policy as Wishful Thinking

by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The current military intervention in Libya by the West has been marketed with the claim that its purpose, as French President Sarkozy put it, is “to protect the civilian population from the murderous madness of a regime that has forfeited all claim to legitimacy.” Behind this humanitarian… Continue reading Foreign Policy as Wishful Thinking

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Should We Intervene in Libya?

by Victor Davis Hanson National Review Online There are plenty of good arguments for imposing a no-fly zone in Libya. Without Libyan-government air strikes, the rebels might have a better chance of carving out permanent zones of resistance. Share This

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Is an Egyptian “Democracy” a Good Thing?

by Raymond Ibrahim Hudson New York That democracy equates freedom is axiomatic in the West. Say the word “democracy” and images of a free, pluralistic, and secular society come to mind. Share This

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Show the World?

Exactly what will the people of the Middle East do? by Victor Davis Hanson NRO’s The Corner By summertime, we will begin to see a new clarity in the Middle East. The old narratives — that American support for authoritarians undermined democratic awakenings; that Iraq was a catastrophe; that we need to reach out to totalitarian… Continue reading Show the World?

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Dumbing Democracy Down

by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society Many in the west are interpreting the demonstrations in Egypt against Hosni Mubarak as populist expressions of “aspirations for a democratic future,” as a spokesman for British Prime Minister David Cameron put it. Share This

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Not a Time for Wishful Thinking about Egypt

by Bruce S. Thornton Advancing a Free Society The fall of Egyptian strongman Hosni Mubarak has occasioned all manner of democracy happy-talk in the West. Share This

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Clueless on Cario

by Victor Davis Hanson PJ Media My Three-week Victory, Your Seven-year Mess It is difficult trying to figure out what the left’s position is on democracy and the Middle East. Here’s a brief effort. Share This

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