SirP: You seem to have missed the fact that the most powerful country in the world began as mobs of angry, mostly uneducated peasants tearing down their own institutions of governance. And yet, they made a functioning state.
You mean, a handful of affluent, classically educated, influential businessmen instigated and funded a revolt against the token forces stationed in a fairly unimportant, geographically isolated backwater, then formed a coalition of independent countries that imploded less than a decade later, was hastily rallied, and then imploded
again barely half a century later, before finally gaining prominence in the twentieth century by virtue of not razing itself and its industrial infrastructure to the ground about every other decade like Europe did.
How many times have I been over this in this thread, now?
Also, nice job generalizing all Arabs as a bunch of backwards, Koran-spouting goatherds with no possible comprehension of principles of governance. Perhaps you'd like to share how establishing a functioning state is the white man's burden?
A poor state run by a dictatorship will have piss-poor education, and a culture that thus disregards useful education. People raised in such an environment cannot produce a functioning democratic state. Those handful who are naturally brilliant or cunning will just take power for themselves, and then get their heads blown off by some borderline retarded thug, who seizes the reins of power and runs the country further into the ground. See: pretty much every third world country, and many former "second world" countries now classified as "first world" with the fall of the Soviet Union. Also, the Soviet Union, though that wound up a "success" story in the end, as did
Cuba (although there, Castro was backed by the CIA up until the point where he did effectively the same thing that turned them against Batista in the first place...).
Ho yes, silly me, it's in Africa, so obviously we're talking about backward half monkey Muslims that will obviously choose to be leaden by a religious leader. Said leader will obviously promulgate law such as "women flogging are mandatory on Sundays" because that what Muslims do.
Us, being 15 years old leaving in our moms basement are not affected by that in anyway (thank to our awesome military) and will get back to playing cod once the media stop speaking about it.
Ok.
People only care because it's exciting. It's a voyeuristic spectator sport. Once the flames die down and things go to the "boring" work of trying to piece together a new country out of nothing no one will pay any attention to it.
On topic, do you think we can hope for prosecution for the bastards that supported Kadhafi in France? (I won't even ask for in the US at this point.)
Really, the level of impunity that have European for their actions in Africa is amazing.
For? Supporting an unpopular regime? It's not like a two-bit dictator from an irrelevant shithole was protecting government officials in a
vastly more powerful and relevant country, so it's not as though his fall from grace leaves them hanging in the wind.
So, Sir P, assume for a second that the vast majority of a countries populace wants this significant change, to the point where they are willing to accept the possibility of death to accomplish it. The dictators have no intent of giving up on power, and will instead likely pass it to an even more insane and tyrannical heir, like in Libya. What would you suggest the revolutionaries do if not exactly what their doing now?
Like I said, I don't care who wins. I just don't like the general attitude that the
violent revolutionaries are some kind of saints for what they're doing. I also don't like seeing states go up like tinderboxes in general, whether it's justified or not. Even some place like China I wouldn't like to see go up flames, because at least the government they have now, horrible it may be, is better than the unknown, demonstrably violent quality revolution brings to the table.