[ Home | Contents | Search | Post | Reply | Next | Previous | Up ]
From: HLEuuUcrub
Affiliation: MaUFNVRRdMNcHkAiYRj
Email: presidency@monaco-omm.com
Date: March 28, 2012
Time: 10:38 PM
Yes, well, Katz. I'm not sure that the collapse of Communist reeimgs in Europe really count as revolutions, but then this shouldn't be an argument about taxonomy. I suspect what's changed from the historical parallels has been the technology of warfare. Ghaddafi unleashed aircraft and tanks on popular demonstrations. These weren't available tools of violence in the historical examples. A regime that has and is prepared to use modern military technology against an unarmed population places itself in a special place. This is, after all, the charge against the Israeli regime in Lebanon and Gaza. Eliminating Ghaddafi's advantage in technology has been the essence of the intervention. If he has popular support, he'll win the civil war, unless the intervention rules change. Oops, perhaps the last should have gone to the roundtable discussion. At any event, it's clear that, as with Howard's reluctant intervention in Timor, public opinion has driven military action here, unlike the carefully prepared wars in Iraq and Afghanistan where public opinion was manufactured.