Rebels Then and Now

The current US policy in the Middle East and particularly in Libya is interesting when compared to the historical context of the War Between the States.  The current US policy was stated by Obama to endorse freedom and self-determination for the rebels in Libya.  Qaddafi’s rule while a dictatorship was a stable recognized government.  The US implemented a no-fly zone to protect the rebels from attacks and “massacre” by Qaddafi’s military, condemning the violence of the government against it’s own people.  Compare this to the US troops attacking the Confederate States of America who simply exercised their right of secession to pursue freedom from tyrannical rule under a federal government’s overreaching agenda penal to their very way of life.  One is left to wonder if NATO would have enacted a no-fly zone over the states south of the Mason Dixon line to protect the peoples of the CSA as part of a “humanitarian” intervention.  Apparently the US then and now favors nation building as long as it is not from a portion of it’s own.