Prague Spring Redux

Events occur at their own pace and often outpace plans. In 1956, the yearning for freedom infected Hungary, then, after the flame was brutally dimmed, it reappeared in that year of revolution 1968, when youth in the West railed against their own free society confusing license with liberty and war against Communism in Vietnam while Czechoslovakians tried to crawl out of the suppression of their Marxist masters. In both uprisings against the Red tyranny, the US was restrained in backing those who followed our ideas of liberty which inspired their futile risk, and for too many, ultimately, the very sacrifice of their lives. In 1956, Eisenhower was loathe to cause World War III by intervening, or even displaying too much support to the brave boys of Budapest. In 1968, Johnson had a full enough plate in Vietnam and street riots here to expend US blood or treasure on a doomed enterprise. Why did Poland triumph over the Red menace a generation later? Why did the Berlin Wall fall? Liberty may not be man's natural condition but it is surely man's natural yearning. The thugs and tanks of Tiananmen Square did not squash that aspiration in the Chinese heart. President Obama has a moral obligation to stand with freedom seekers against oppressors in Iran and can not fall back to a leftist default position of non-interference simply because America deposed a Soviet sympathizer after World War II and installed a leader more friendly to the West, the Shah, who used his SAVAK to dampen what he saw as Red sympathizers or rising Muslim fanatics. I watched an Iranian girl, sixteen according to reports, named Neda yield her life in pursuit of liberty. I saw the moment of bewilderment in her eyes as she left this mortal coil and entered universal consciousness. While her heart no longer beats in her body, the rhythm of freedom signalled by her martyrdom will continue to pound in the billions of chests of decent people everywhere, those who are free and will not relinquish freedom and those who seek liberty and are willing to shed their blood to gain it, Neda will like Nathan Hale live forever in those who seek the fruits of the tree of liberty.