American Leaders Should Identify More With Libya and Muammar el-Qaddafi

There are important lessons to be learned

by Peter Stern

What is currently occurring in Libya is a culmination of a 40-year reign by leaders who do not live in the here and now realities of their citizens. For decades Colonel Qaddafi used Libya's oil wealth to entrench himself in riches and by building a nation in his own ill-conceived and self-involved perspective.

There are many lessons to be learned by our American leaders, that a nation's populous can and will only take so much. After years of political unrest, social decay and economic abuse, it is only a matter of time before citizens of any nation will be pressed into a deep, dark corner and may opt to turn to violence and revolution as the ultimate means of self-preservation and survival.

Our leaders cannot continue to push aside the needs of the majority of Americans. Domestic poverty should never become our primary objective. Currently the American populace has had enough of decades of abuse, including loss of jobs, the need for real health care, returning a quality education for our children, protecting our borders, eliminating the power of credit bureaus from which few Americans are spared and for our leaders to cut the greed and preferential treatment provided the wealthy and corporate elite.

There are many lessons to be learned from Libya's civil war, one being that with poor government management and severe abuse of the majority, chaos and/or revolution may occur anywhere --- even here at home.