Ben Stein's posted a lovely mini-tribute to the wonderful men & women of the world's finest military, who keep America the Land of the Free. Peggy Noonan recounts the last days of producing the Declaration, and salutes America's leading historian today. William Bennett & John Cribb salute Abraham Lincoln's defense of what the Founders released on July 4, 1776.
The Washington Post's Robert McCartney presents heartwarming news about African-American student attitudes with President Obama in the Oval Office: they see 1776 at last coming true. Karl Rove salutes an elderly volunteer for medical service in Iraq.
John Thomson explains the extent of Venezuelan thug-tyrant Hugo Chavez's meddling in Honduran affairs, which led to what Hudson Institute scholar Jaime Darenblum calls a coup for democracy in the Honduras coup. Pat Buchanan asks why 44 is siding with the international left, to restore to power an anti-US leader.
Diplomat & Latin American expert Otto Reich sees digital dissent sprouting in Cuba, and wonders if Team Obama will ignore the stirrings. Reich reports:
After
50 years of living under the most repressive dictatorship in the
Western Hemisphere, the Cuban people are losing their fear and
beginning to push off the Communist boot from their collective neck.
Paradoxically, this is happening as a dark cloud of authoritarian
populism spreads throughout Latin America, financed by Hugo Chávez’s
petrodollars, undergirded by Castro’s intelligence and security
infrastructure, and propelled by years of incompetence and selfishness
on the part of political elites. Democratic change in Cuba, long deemed
an impossibility, could turn the tide and usher forth a rebirth of
freedom in the region.
An uncommon sound was heard throughout
three Cuban cities in early May of this year: pots and pans being
banged in protest over political and economic conditions on the island.
The protest was as unusual as the way in which it was organized: An
incipient movement of young bloggers used their limited access to the
Internet — the Cuban government severely restricts access to computers
and the Web — to call on the population to carry out the protest.
He adds:
....The Castro regime itself has recognized that it cannot extinguish what it calls “indisciplina laboral,” or rampant worker non-cooperation with the regime’s command-and-control apparatus. What’s more, after a grassroots campaign by activists throughout the island, more than 1.5 million Cubans of voting age refused to cooperate with the sham one-party, one-candidate “elections” organized by the government in January 2008 in order to “legitimize” the passing of presidential power from Fidel Castro to his younger (by almost five years) brother, Raúl. Never before had Cubans in such large numbers dared to defy the rigidly enforced order to vote. For the first time in half a century — because of this innovative campaign, carried out with fasts, public protests, workshops, Internet postings, leafleting, and programs on short-wave radio — citizens were galvanized into rejecting sham elections.
Ex-Reagan National Security Council staffer Raymond Tanter compares Iran 2009 with two recent Iran historical precedents: the successful 1978-79 revolution and the failed 1999 student uprising. Ralph Peters urges Team Obama to abandon nation-building in Afghanistan. The Washington Times reports that in Pakistan, the Taliban are buying children--as young as age 7--to use as suicide bombers. The WSJ editors flag Congress slow-rolling aid for Pakistan despite the government stepping up its fight against the Taliban & al-Qaeda, a posture long-sought by the US.
Anne Applebaum visits Morocco and sees peaceful protest and democratic governance, in stark contrast to the Hell inside Iran. Her money paragraph sums up nicely, but read the entire column:
[W]atching the extraordinary range of clothing and skin colors on the Moroccan streets, one takes away at least one thought: Transformation from authoritarianism to democracy is possible, even in an avowedly Islamic state, even with an ethnically mixed population, even with the presence of a jihadist fringe. More importantly: It is possible to acknowledge and discuss human rights violations in this culture, just as they can be discussed elsewhere. Just because much of the Arab world lacks the political will to change doesn't mean that change is always and forever impossible.
Bottom Line. Expect President Obama to stick to his "engagement conquers all" foreign policy for dealing with anti-US dictatorships. Morocco has evolved from what Natan Sharansky calls a "fear society" to what Sharansky calls a "free society"--the latter defined as one in which free protest of government policy in public is safe and permissible. Let us then celebrate Morocco's new-found independence as well as our own long-lived freedom. And as well, let us pray that soon Iranians too will celebrate a genuine Independence Day.
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