Originally Posted by Villages Kahuna

I don't agree. I don't think the U.S. can have it both ways. I don't think we can loudly endorse principles like personal freedom, the rule of law, democratic rule, religious freedom, women's rights, etc. and then endorse and support regimes who remain in power by violating all those principles. Hosni Mubarik is an example of that, as was the Shah and even Saddam Hussein. As a country, we either believe in those principles or we don't. I don't think you can say one thing and then support dictators who stand for the opposite and maintain any degree of political or moral leadership.

If, as you suggest, we insert ourselves into an Egyptian civil war in order to prop up a dictator who has acted as an "ally", then we'd better stop proclaiming all those principles that we say are so important to us. Let's be realistic, our alliance with Egypt and peace between that powerful country and Israel as well as the protection of the Suez Canal through which so much of the oil we use flows has been bought and paid for over thirty years with foreign aid payments, principally to provide the Mubarik administration with lots of advanced military equipment. Now a broad base of Egyptians are rising up to resist the jackboot of Mubarik repression and brutality. We could easily side with him and assist him in quashing the uprising, which he could almost certainly do with a predictable amount of dictatorial brutality.

But if that's the position we took, then what can we say about all our high-minded moral principles that in another breath we say are so dear to us?

I don't think you can have it both ways.