Stop the Violence?

History is our greatest teacher; it is perhaps our only true teacher. Yet, we seem to reject its indelible lessons. We look at the goings-on in Libya, and we are confused, mostly because we refuse to see through history's prism.

Libya's Muammar Khadaffi has been in power for the last forty years. Of course, he should leave. Forty years is too long for even a good dictator to rule. But if Khadaffi wants to hold onto power in Libya, history says there is nothing wrong with that. If he wants to hire mercenaries from other countries (in this case, Chad and Mali) to help him, history says there is nothing wrong with that. And if the rebellious Libyans want to enlist the help of a foreign power to help them - say England or the U.S. - history tells us there is nothing wrong with that, either.

King George III of England ruled the American colonies prior to the American Revolution. When the Americans rebelled against his rule, he hired Hessian mercenaries to help him subdue his colonial subjects. The colonials, in turn, enlisted the aid of France (and Spain and the Netherlands) to help them overthrow the king.

Khadaffi, like so many rulers before him, is fighting to hold onto power. He is within his rights. So, too, are we within our right to help the rebels if we wish. America goes lame, however, when its president gets on the world's biggest megaphone and declares to Khadaffi, "The violence must stop."

So far, Khadaffi has done nothing so horrific as what America's forces did on 3-2-11 when they bombed nine Afghan boys gathering firewood outside of their village. All of the boys were killed. America's General Petraeus, commander of all forces in Afghanistan, apologized, saying, "We thought they were insurgents."

If I come from a small town, like I come from, you would know that nine boys might be all of the boys (of that age group) that village had. And America says, "Sorry about that."

Over the past ten years, America has killed many thousands of men, women, and children - perhaps as many as all of the other nations of the world (excluding Sudan) combined.

Today, America is running guns into Mexico - some twisted ATF strategy ("Letting guns walk") - designed to fashion a trail to the narco-terrorists. All we have truly accomplished is to up the body count of innocents in Mexico.

We have a trigger happy army in Afghanistan lobbing bombs at anything that moves. We have another army in Iraq poised to do more of the same. American killer drones patrol the skies of four sovereign nations.

The other day, an American contractor in Pakistan killed two Pakistanis, shooting them both in the back. Obama declared the American should be granted diplomatic immunity, (though that American was no diplomat).

American wreaks violence on a scale Khadaffi can only dream about. When President Obama told Khadaffi, "The violence must stop," Khadaffi should have responded: "well stop."

History tells us that "stopping our own violence" may be the toughest task of all, especially when there is no on the block big enough to "make us."