As rebel fighters take the capitol city of Tripoli, we should remember the dangers of meddling in foreign affairs. The Obama administration has called for Muammar Gaddafi to step down and allow the rebels to take control of the country. We have helped the rebels to overthrow Gaddafi's government with the assistance of NATO forces.

We should look back to the 1980s and Charlie Wilson's War in Afghanistan. At the time we were sworn enemies of the USSR and their communist ways and we saw the Taliban "freedom fighters" as the lesser of two evils. Skip ahead 30 years and we are embroiled in a never-ending conflict with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Even the Russians were our allies in WWII when we saw Hitler as a greater threat than the communists... and then spent the next 40 years fighting the communist Russians. Every time in history that we have tried to interfere in a foreign country's personal politics it ends up coming back to bite us.

The rebels in Libya are strict Muslims whose new government may simply exchange one dictatorship for another -- like what happened in  Iran in 1979 following our intervention in 1953.

When will we learn that we should leave other countries alone and let them handle their own problems?