LIBERATION?

In addition to the turmoil of the middle east and North Africa, the Ivory Coast is at war with itself, and French "peace-keepers" are protecting the airport in Abidjan. With these situations, as well as very vocal dissatisfaction in the West over the situations in Burma and Tibet, to name but two, what do you think of the idea that the West is now entering a phase of history in which other nations will be liberated, if necessary by western military power? Do you think that this should happen? What do you think the results might be?

So that no one thinks i intend to ambush them, i think we are in a phase of social history when a lot of people in the West think these things are our business. I also think it is a really bad idea. For example, the protesters in Bahrain, many of them (and arguably most of them, with a very plausible argument) want a religiously conservative state which will effectively segregate women and make them not second class citizens, but no citizens at all, just the chattel of their husbands or fathers. Tibet, before the Chinese invasion, was a feudal country not unlike Europe in the 10th century, except that Europeans a thousand years ago probably lived much better than Tibetans did in the 1950s. The "government in exile" of Tibet is no democratic institution--it's members were all appointed by the Dalai Lama, and if they were to return and take over power again, the Tibetan people would proabably be once agains be hag-ridden by tens of thousands of useless mouths to feed in the monasteries. For whatever one may allege about the Chinese, they've brought to Tibet novelties like roads, hospitals and schools.

So, i think such an attitude is developing in the West, and i think it's a really, really bad idea, and comes of a shallow understanding of other nations, or no understanding at all.

Your thoughts?