Last week I was considering posting something about Egyptian Sandmonkey Signing Off, but blogosphere-wise I simply don’t have the street cred for that. But Atlas Shrugs does. (H/T Wake Up America). I am familiar with the Egyptian blogosphere only through VF/910’s participation in efforts to Free Kareem, an Egyptian blogger in prison for defaming Islam, and President Mubarak, but from that one example, you can see immediately that unlike from where I sit, blogging in the Middle East truly is a revolutionary act. From our safe vantage point, we have a duty to support and stand united with these folks on the front line of the battle. And as Wake Up America highlights, creating even the smallest illusion of acceptance of these terrorist regimes has real consquences:

Atlas: Where (sic) you shocked when Hoyer met with the Muslim Brotherhood?

SANDMONKEY: Let me tell you something. I was in Turkey a couple of weeks ago and I met a couple of Syrian activists. They one thing they told me that was really funny about the Pelosi visit. After Pelosi came to Syria two things happened. People on Syrian TV were saying, “We forced the Americans to knock on the Damascus gate!” Sort of like an admission that we messed things up in Iraq so much that America had to come and beg for their help.

But the day after Pelosi’s visits there were immediate arrests of Syrian activists. That was the fruit she yielded. “Oh the Americans came over and they said they have a different foreign policy and they’re more interested in placating Bashar’s ego.” And he went out and got [arrested] everyone he wanted because he knew he had an ally in Washington that wouldn’t pressure him as much.

ATLAS: Isn’t that disgusting?

SANDMONKEY: Yeah, but what are you going to do?

ATLAS: We have to educate the American people. You think the American people know this?

SANDMONKEY: No, but do they even care at this point? I don’t think they are interested in the discussion any more. There are people that have made up their mind, they think we need to placate the dictators because America is wrong and everyone else is always right. That’s how they operate. (Emphasis in the original)

To quote one of the surrenderist’s favorite speakers, Gandhi:

Non-cooperation with evil is as much a duty as cooperation with good.

It seems like the only quote they know of Gandhi’s is the one about an eye for an eye. But remember, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and we have willfully blinded ourselves to the very real fact that the recognition of dictatorial states costs the freedom, and even lives of the very people we claim to support.  Recognition of these regimes undermines the very people who the defeatists say should be standing up and doing the heavy lifting of freedom themselves.

Think about that the next time you hear a politican say we need to “dialogue” with one of these states, and ask the question, “whose blood is paying for this photo-op?”