"History Lesson"

First, I would like to wish all of my readers a Happy Valentine's Day; remember to tell your loved ones how much they mean to you!

Do you remember World History Class in high school, loaded with dates and speeches and battles: it was a plethora of information jammed into a couple of semesters. It was my good fortune to have a very good history teacher that made class exciting and fun. I was hooked on history!

History is the subject of today's blog; specifically, the French Revolution. I won't try to cover the entire event, just hit the highlights. The French Revolution took place between 1789 through 1799. The Republic was proclaimed in September of 1792. King Louis XVI was executed the next year (the folks were upset). Between 1793 and 1794 France had what is fondly known as the "Reign of Terror"; not quite the "tea party" as some of my friends on the left would like to believe. Maximilien Robespierre encouraged his fellow revolutionaries or enrages (enraged ones) to take to the streets to exact judgment on the former ruling class. The estimates of somewhere between 16,000 and 40,000 people were killed in the name of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality! Not exactly like the revolution we had here. All of this murder finally led to the rise of a fellow named Napoleon Bonaparte, and I'm sure most of us remember him. It took a while to retrieve a democracy from a violent revolution; especially when the participants have instigators inciting an already angry populace.

The Middle-East is developing into an area of massive global unrest; not just Egypt, also Jordan, Yemen, Iran and Syria, among many others. The world is confronted with numerous violent voices throughout the entire mid-east region that are happy to "stir up the pot". The "Muslim Brotherhood", "Hammas" and the "PLO" are just some who want the Middle-East to explode into violence to fit their own disruptive purposes. The common enemy has already been identified by these radical inciters: ISRAEL! Israel is the hated state by all of these organizations, and Israel's destruction is foremost in their doctrine. These folks are the "Robespierre" of the Middle-East. With the departure of Mubarak in Egypt, it will be important not to allow those who disrupt to turn a movement of democratic freedom into a violent stage for regional violence that can spread like a cancer.

The United States must be very careful about endorsing voices in the forum of Egyptian reorganization. Calling a group like the "Muslim Brotherhood" secular and diverse is an exercise in bad judgment. If we were writing a new constitution in America, would we consult the "Ku Klux Klan" or the "New Black Panthers"? Our State Department needs to do a much better job in their research of these organizations; obviously, there is a plethora of information out there. America doesn't need this movement to fail. We could end up with a modern NAPOLEON BONAPARTE!