War to get rid of villain seldom ends problem

[dArKeR]

So Charles Taylor sings his version of "Don't Cry for Me, Monrovia," waving goodbye to Liberia and flying off into the Nigerian sunset. All is supposed to be fine now. The people greet peacekeepers enthusiastically. The rebels reopen the port. The villain is gone and the heroes can take over.

That scenario sells movies, books and foreign policies. Get the bad guy. There always seems to be one handy. Saddam Hussein currently fills that role. Osama bin Laden can be trotted out whenever necessary. In Africa, before Taylor, there was Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire. Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe waits in the wings. There was Slobodan Milosevic in the Balkans, Manuel Noriega in Panama, Ayatollah Khomeini in Iran, and, of course, the variety of communist leaders who wore the red-tinted black hat during the Cold War. Fidel Castro is the only one left from that cornucopia of villains. And before Stalin, there was, of course, Hitler and Mussolini and Tojo.

http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-pe.column17aug17,0,7221841.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines

http://darkerxdarker.tripod.com/

[PATRICK]

1. replacements

are ready on hand because not only does ther fertile ground for dictatorshipo remain, it is watered by the simple historical fact that one very often becomes the evil one fights. A circle is created, a cancer spreads. If Bush were to swiftly dump every current dictator his people would create much worse to replace them, people much harder to get rid of, people supported by the Bush Coup.

[samsingh]

2. historical records

history shows us that a worse villian can appear if the wrong approach (e.g. end justifies the means) is used to remove the first villian.