"Frank" wrote in message
...
Perhaps so, but what he did was show it _could_ work, and at great risk to
himself. Certainly nothing to hold in comtempt. And the lessons have been
used elsewhere. Romania comes to mind, certainly Ceacesceu (sp?) wasn't
much interested in world opinion.

Did you see what they did to Ceacesceu and his wife? That wasn't exactly
Ghandi-esque, and it certainly doesn't qualify as "non-violent".

This is part of my point. In today's world of instant communication
Stalin,
Pol Pot, Saddam should have a much harder time concealing this sort of
thing from the world.

But Saddam was able to conceal this exact sort of thing from the world.
Thousands upon thousands of people were rounded up and executed after the
1991 war. Journalists were everywhere, and some of them even reported (or
at least tried to report) what was going on. The news was ignored by the
rest of the world.