Freedom Line Blog

The indispensable U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-VA, has put out a wonderfully strongly worded press release blasting the government of Tunisia for releasing a prime suspect in the Benghazi terrorist assault and, more importantly for our purposes, blasting the terrorist-coddling (my words, not his) Obama administration for not only failing to exert enough pressure on Tunisia to do otherwise, but for refusing to comment on this outrage and for refusing to cut off aid to Tunisia.

To quote Wolf on what happened:

Ali Harzi, a key suspect in the September 11 terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate and annex in Benghazi, was released by Tunisian authorities today.  I have every reason to believe that Harzi was involved in the attack, which took the lives of four Americans, including the U.S. ambassador, and resulted in the destruction of two U.S. facilities.  For months following the attack, the Tunisian government blocked the FBI from interviewing Harzi.  Now Harzi walks the streets of Tunisia a free man – facing no consequence for his role in the Benghazi attack.

Furthermore:

Last month, I asked the Obama Administration to cut off aid to Tunisia.  I am very disappointed to learn that the State Department is once again ducking this issue and today refusing to comment on Harzi’s release.

“The release of this key suspect, nearly four months to the day following the attack, further underscores the need for a House Select Committee to fully investigate the attack and the U.S. response in the days, weeks and months following.

Wolf is absolutely right that a special “Select Committee” is called for. Its first witness should be Hillary Clinton; its second witness should be John Brennan; its third witness should be the usually honorable Leon Panetta. Wolf said that next week he will reintroduce his resolution to form such a select committee. Meanwhile, the establishment media should interrupt its Nina Burleigh act on Barack Obama long enough to demand to know why Tunisia is still getting use of American taxpayer dollars, in light of (and in contradiction to) Obama’s multi-repeated promise that his “biggest priority right now is bringing [the attackers] to justice.”

Not even Jimmy Carter was so feckless when it came to upholding American honor, and protecting its assets and people, abroad.

The Arab Spring has changed shapes so many times in the year since it started — with the most recent development coming in the form of a Muslim Brotherhood bid for the presidency of Egypt — that it’s easy to forget the relatively small act that kicked it off: the self-immolation of Tunisian street vendor Mohammed Bouazizi, who took his own life in protest of state-sponsored oppression.

There’s at least one place outside of the Middle East where that example hasn’t been forgotten, however: Tibet. From a report in the Washington Post:

More than 33 Tibetans … have set themselves on fire in a recent wave of … acts of resistance against Chinese rule. The self-immolations are a reaction to what many Tibetans see as a systematic attempt to destroy their culture, silence their voices and erase their identity — a Chinese crackdown that has dramatically intensified since protests swept across the region in 2008.

…

In the spring of 2008, as the Beijing Olympics approached, Tibet was once again engulfed in protests and riots in which hundreds were killed and thousands were arrested. The response has been brutal, human rights groups say.

A program to resettle Tibet’s nomads into apartments or cinder-block houses and fence off their vast grasslands has gathered pace, the replacement of Tibetan by Chinese as a medium of instruction in schools has been expanded, and government control over Tibet’s Buddhist monasteries, the center of religious and cultural life, has been tightened.

The Post‘s report goes on to chronicle other horrors in detail (one Buddhist monk who set himself aflame in 2009 with a picture of the Dalai Lama and a Tibetan flag was shot to death by Chinese police). With that kind of merciless force — and the sheer scope of Chinese power — it is doubtful that Tibet will ever earn its freedom by any means other than Chinese fatigue or outside intervention, neither of which look to be anywhere on the horizon. Against such dire odds, the courage of resistant Tibetans is all the more remarkable — and the necessity of publicizing their plight all the more acute.

If you’re looking for proof that the situation in Libya is the worst in the North Africa, consider these statistics from United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon: 22,000 Libyans have fled across the border into Tunisia, and another 15,000 have crossed over into Egypt.

One of the appeals of American federalism is the ability of people to ‘vote with their feet’ when they don’t like the policies of a particular state.  In Libya, citizens are sending unmistakable signals that Muammar Gaddafi’s crackdown on dissent is a terror worth opposing.

H/T: My Way News