Last Tuesday on “The Daily Show,” when Jon Stewart asked former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice if she approved of the general military precedent set by the Bush administration, she casually claimed, “I don’t actually believe in the word ‘precedent’ in international politics.” You heard it straight from a political scientist who helped lead the executive branch: Every global political situation is just so unique, so please don’t bother trying to do things like find patterns or study political science. When I’m all totally bummed out about American foreign policy, sometimes I look to history for perspective. A pattern, maybe? Mostly I remember how easy it is to forget things.

But now, Condoleezza has taken away everything from me. From us all, really. I’ll take one last look at some jumbled version of history before I just stop caring, at her behest.

Let’s see, I was born on the butt-end of the Cold War, with its big mortality-reminding bombs and dumb proxy wars and nations working out the political kinks of their respective industrial revolutions. But I think I remember the lesson the world was supposed to have gleaned from those cruel decades of uncertainty.

How the United States — not licked (as in Tom Sawyer punching people) the Soviets — but influenced the world in a way that caused the Soviet Union to peacefully lose the political and financial will to continue on: This is something to not be cynical about. It is an incredible victory. The United States pioneered the idea of international governments working together and helping each other not specifically based on the form a country’s government took (besides communism). We organized NATO, the UN, globally recognized bi-, multi- and uni-lateral relationships of all kinds, as well as nation-building through positive economic influence that paved the way for global trade — all arranged under the cheery threat of nuclear armageddon.

It cannot be said enough that America single-handedly fostered stability amidst the ridiculousness that was WWII and Cold War earth. We came out the other end having written the book on global diplomacy for a new era.

Ah, the patriotism I want so desperately to feel.

Enter NATO, which only acted as a deterrent during the Cold War. Bosnian War, ethnic cleansing, took them a few years but they got around to constructively bombing things.

Darn, they totally missed out on the Second Congo War where 5.4 million people died and more were perpetually displaced. Why yes, that does make that war the biggest loss of life since WWII, must have missed it. Don’t worry, the UN was there treating the situation sort of like small claims court. Bad Uganda! Give the DRC its 10 billion in resources back. No? Whatever.

One Muammar Gaddafi was the only African leader who had it together enough to mediate ceasefire between the warring factions.

Back in the interview, Condoleezza (prompted by Jon) tells a story about how Gaddafi had a “thing” for her. At some meeting where he had willingly had his WMDs dismantled in Oak Ridge, Tenn., he gave her a video playing a song he’d written for her, and she was making fun of it. There was just something sick about it. Something keenly dehumanizing.

Oversimplification seems to be the typical reaction to unnecessary death, and the information age didn’t happen so that we wouldn’t ask questions about things. Gaddafi, the leader of Africa’s most prosperous nation, was not perfect; but he achieved the highest standard of living in Libya. The life expectancy from birth in Libya under Gaddafi was 74.5 years, when it is still sadly 48.4 in Nigeria. Libya is 53rd in the world on the human development index, and Nigeria is 142nd. Maternal mortality is 39.6/100,000 births, and Nigeria’s is 608 out of the same number. Again I cite the UN Human Rights Council’s January report positively beaming about Libya’s overall situation as a mandate for investigation.

If NATO and the United States cared so much about human life, they would not bomb at all, based on the clear precedent set by the inevitable collateral damage of this technology in other operations. The fact remains that most of Africa and the Middle East is the only place left on Earth were human life can be so hypocritically valued and then destroyed for the most arbitrary reasons. Condoleezza can cling to the insane moral limbo of relativity and discredit the entire academic world and everything America has diplomatically achieved in the process; I’d rather cling to the past than embrace that precedent.

— Wiley Robinson is a junior in ecology and evolutionary biology. He can be reached at rrobin23@utk.edu.