The times they are a changin'

If you haven't been following the news from the middle east in the past few weeks, you've been missing history being made. For the big picture, I'll point you to the New York Times op-ed column Feb. 26 by David Brooks, "Why not here?" and the column Feb. 27 by Thomas Friedman, "The Tipping Points." Yep, the New York Times. (Registration is required to read the columns. It's free and I've never been spammed by them.)

On February 27, 1991, fourteen years ago, the current President Bush's father, President George H. W. Bush, announced to the world that "Kuwait is liberated, Iraq's army is defeated." That was to begin the political insurgency for democratic reform in the middle east, but democratic reform never took root. I believe it is because the U.S. and its coalition forces abandoned the Iraqis in their time of need. The dictatorial powers in the middle east saw that what the U.S. said and what the U.S. meant were two different things. President George H. W. Bush had his hands tied by commitments made with coalition members, Saudi Arabia chiefly among them, and the U.S. stood and watched as Saddam Hussein's forces attacked those who tried to rise up against him. His son made no such commitments.

There was a song popular in the 1960s that seems very appropriate right about now in the middle east. I've taken some liberties with the words. There needs to be an Arabic/Farsi version of this:

The Times They Are A-Changin'
Bob Dylan

Come gather 'round liberals
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come WP writers and NYT critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mullahs and imams
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.

---

Need I write anything about the recent events in Lebanon? Here's a link to a CBS report. I have no knowledge whether or not Dan Rather choked on the words upon reading the report though I do suspect he and ABC's anti-Bush policy pessimist Peter Jennings -- a Canadian/American and former resident of Lebanon -- are swallowing more than a few words these days.