U.S. should mind its own business

Much has been said recently of our need to intervene in Syria and how President Assad has his country on the brink of civil war. Once again, we are sticking our noses into other sovereign nations’ business, nations which pose no direct threat to us.

I’m pretty sure that Saddam Hussein murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people and I don’t hear an outpouring of support for what we did there. In fact, current sentiment seems to show that a majority of Americans regret our intervention there.

The “Arab spring” is not yielding the fruits that the West expected. Secretary of State Clinton is voicing her concern that the promise of reform and democracy are fading and that the people need to demand that their new leaders implement the “liberalization and openness” that the spring promised.

Additionally, Clinton is concerned that transitions in Egypt and elsewhere are faltering and at risk of being hijacked by extremists. I find this shocking that no one in our government saw this coming. Early on, the media reported that al-Qaida members were thought to be involved in these events and we ignored those signs. What other outcome could we expect?

Let’s think about this for a minute. When the elected government is faced with armed insurrection, is it not their obligation and right to put it down and to put it down forcefully? Have we not learned our lesson on this subject on multiple occasions, most recently in Iraq?

This is not to say that Hussein, Mubarak, or Assad are good human beings or nice people, but they do seem to serve a purpose in that region. One only needs to look at the current situation in Iran and the surging anti-West/anti-Israel rhetoric in Egypt to fully understand how meddling can lead to global instability.

Now is the time for us to start minding our own business and look at the internal events that are shaping our future.

Lee Goldberg

Vernon Hills