The American Revolution was not the result of a passionate outcry of Patrick Henry, or James Otis. Constitutional liberty is no mushroom, springing up in a night. It is an oaken growth, slowly adding ring to ring, through many a summer’s heat and winter’s cold.
About a month ago, Washington Examiner columnist David Freddoso headlined a brief summary of the latest news from Libya with the words “Going Badly In Libya.” Today’s headline could be: “From Bad To Worse.”
As a Reuters report notes, it is now nine weeks since the Libyan rebels took up arms – and despite all the Western bombing runs on their behalf, they still seem no closer to ousting Colonel Gadhafi.
Worse, the Western taxpayers who are footing the bill for the bombing campaign (and wincing at each report of civilian casualties following those bombing runs) still have no idea who the Libyan rebels really are, or what agenda is motivating them to fight.
We don’t really know whether they are aspiring to that “constitutional liberty” that we hope is their goal, or to something else.
But France’s President Nicholas Sarkozy and Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron alike are keen to up the stakes. Both are edging towards putting troops on the ground to assist the rebels.
Today’s “advisers” will become tomorrow’s front-line combatants. And when that happens, there will be pressure on the US to intervene on the ground, alongside the French and British.
What a mistake.
If only someone could force Sarkozy and Cameron (and President Obama) to read those words from Senator George Frisbie Hoar quoted above.
Hoar’s words might help Sarkozy and Cameron spare their respective national armed forces any further involvement in the debacle that is the half-hearted Western effort to impose regime change in Libya.
If I could, I would have their eyes linger on Senator Hoar’s line about how “constitutional liberty” is like the growth of a tree, “slowly adding ring to ring, through many a summer’s heat and winter’s cold.”
That’s been the experience of the Western countries, and indeed every country that has achieved what Americans, Canadians, Australians etc. would recognize as “constitutional liberty.”
Adopting Senator Hoar’s analogy, the Libyan rebellion is like one of those mushrooms that mysteriously takes shape while the world sleeps, and appears fully-formed by day – only to vanish again just as quickly. Both the mushroom, and the rebellion, have little staying power.
We all want to see Libya become the kind of place where constitutional liberty reigns, where one-man-rule is something that exists only in history textbooks – and is mentioned as a warning to posterity.
But constitutional liberty cannot be imposed from outside, with military force. It must grow from the “popular sense” of a people, as Senator Hoar observed.
If we want to help the people of Libya develop this popular sense, then further bombing, followed up by military intervention, to prop up a doomed rebellion, is probably the worst way to accomplish this goal.
