General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Question: Why would the U.S. overthrow secular governments in the Middle East [View all]pampango
(24,692 posts)His rule was apparently quite 'intolerable' as far as his people were concerned. I doubt that Tunisia was on the pnac list, as well. As far as I know, Ben Ali was friendly to the US so I suppose he was 'ours' too and yet his people found his rule to be 'intolerable' as well.
My view is that the people in Egypt and Tunisia don't care that their dictators were not on the pnac list. And the people in Libya and Syria don't care that their dictators were on the list. And the French and Russian people didn't care that their kings/tsars existed before there was a pnac list. When you are governed by a repressive dictator who arrests, tortures and 'disappears' your friends and family, you are not all that concerned with who is friends and enemies are.
Fortunately most of humanity does not live under repressive dictators anymore. Progress has been made over the centuries. I am sure you are not saying that people should accept rule by repressive regimes because that's the way it had been historically. (Now that sounds like an attitude that would go over well at pnac.) None of us want to see the world regress back to a situation where repressive kings/tsars/dictators are the rule not the exception.