Epstein Secrets

but even his direct successors were much more selective as to which tasks they were willing to take on to defend liberty after US withdrawal from Vietnam. Ronald Reagan, whose fans credit him with having disarmed the "Evil Empire," sent Marines into Lebanon, and brought them home again after 241 sol

ople "earlier than just about any other country." This is not quite true: As late as January 12, two days before Tunisian strongman Zein al-Abidine Ben Ali fell, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted -- twice -- that the United States was "not taking sides." It would be nearly impossible, conside

exing its muscles, with increases in military spending and a harder-line in border disputes with a range of neighbors, including India, Japan, and Vietnam. As a result, the United States is seeking to make common cause with China's nervous neighbors -- bolstering alliances with its traditional Asian al

re demanding to be rid of him. The senior commanders of the armed forces cast him aside, and he joined his fellow despot, Tunisia's Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who had fallen a month earlier. From Cairo, the awakening became a pan-Arab affair, catching fire in Yemen and Bahrain. As a monarchy, the latter

gether. To be sure, Egypt's Mubarak and Tunisia's Ben Ali neither ran police states on the terrifying scale

autocrats who have overseen GDP growth rates of 10 percent annually over the past three decades? It is in places like China, Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam where good dictators have produced economic miracles. These in turn have led to the creation of wide-ranging personal freedoms, even as these leaders