Zimbabwe & Mugabe have been in the news lately and it hasn't been good. There has been lots of speculation about what could be done, but I don't think there is much consensus. Some people are proposing economic boycotts, but it seems that Mugabe is doing a fine job of destroying their economy without any outside help. I read one suggestion that said someone should go in, take out Mugabe, install a new leader, and then get out. Ummm, isn't that what we tried in Iraq? Maybe somebody other than the US could do a better job of it. I doubt it.
An armed insurrection might be able to topple Mugabe, but something like that is liable to result in civil war. That might be what it will take to put things right, but it might just as easily end up with things as wrong as ever.
This is the sort of thing the communists used to try and do. Find a country where the mass of the people were unhappy with current government and start supplying them with weapons and ideology. There are still communist inspired guerilla wars going on all over the planet.
I suspect that the Zimbabwe culture cannot support a democracy. Democracy requires an educated population with some sophistication, or is that cunning and experience with duplicity?
Before we got involved in Iraq, I would have said go for it, go ahead and send in American troops and take out Mugabe. Now I am thinking we need to support the opposition with weapons, training and ideology. Put the opposition on an even playing field with the evil Mugabe, but if we do that much we dasn't dare back down. We have a history of leaving people in the lurch and that really stinks. Bay of Pigs, encouraging the Shites in Iraq to revolt after the first Gulf War. I am sure there are others.
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