# How do you remove an evil tyrant? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 10, 2006, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074 "2006-04-10T14:22:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 1:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/21 "2006-04-11T01:32:06Z")
If the tyrant is weak, he may be removed through popular revolt, sometimes even peacefully. This doesn’t always solve the “meet the new boss” problem, though. The Iranians got rid of the Shah and wound up with the Ayatollah If the tyrant is strong I don’t see any way other than a foreign invasion. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/22 "2006-04-11T01:51:51Z")
Kidnapping has been tried. In Somalia the US special forces kidnapped some high ranking Somalian leaders. Extradition also works. Assassination is always popular. Stalin was supposedly assassinated with warfarin. Assassins can be people on the inside who are bribed or encouraged to turn against the dictator, or an outside assassin. Assassinations can also look like natural deaths or intentional assassinations. Encouraging a popular revolt by sanctions, propaganda, green beret training of insurgents, funding insurgents, etc. Trick the tyrant into starting a war, then overthrow him. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/23 "2006-04-11T01:54:15Z")
[QUOTE=Capt] No, that’s not my intention to justify war in any way. I just think that given the collective intelligence of SDMB, we would have known a better way to deal with this? Or are you telling me that humanity have no hope at all? [/QUOTE] Its not so bad. Democratic reform is on the march globally. Tyrants are going to keep falling over the next few decades due to things like the internet, satellite dishes and an international community that somewhat gives a damn about human rights. Hell, just 30 years ago almost all of Latin america was dictatorships, now it is almost all liberal democracies. Same with Southeast Asia. And as we speak there is alot of groundbased support for democracy & human rights in the middle east. ---
**Author:** ![Capt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Capt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/24 "2006-04-11T02:43:11Z")
XaMcQ got it right. The question I should have asked is: how do we remove tyranny. And please remember the focus here is to reduce suffering. Any options involve wars are not going to work. Assassinations might be quick. But like so many of you point out, you might just get another worse tyrant. This should only be tried if civil war can be prevented. Revolts almost guarantee civil war. So, any other suggestions? [QUOTE=E-Sabbath] The first question, really, is ‘who are you, what do you have, and what is your relationship with said Tyrant?’ [/QUOTE] Let’s just take the extreme cases. Either you have nothing, or you have more power than the tyrant. ---
**Author:** ![Capt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f07891/32.png) [@Capt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capt)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/25 "2006-04-11T02:55:20Z")
[QUOTE=Wesley Clark] Its not so bad. Democratic reform is on the march globally. Tyrants are going to keep falling over the next few decades due to things like the internet, satellite dishes and an international community that somewhat gives a damn about human rights. Hell, just 30 years ago almost all of Latin america was dictatorships, now it is almost all liberal democracies. Same with Southeast Asia. And as we speak there is alot of groundbased support for democracy & human rights in the middle east. [/QUOTE] So, what would you suggest that we could actively do to help this alone? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/26 "2006-04-11T03:25:35Z")
[QUOTE=Capt] So, what would you suggest that we could actively do to help this alone? [/QUOTE] As individuals or as nations? Encourage your gov. to promote democracy globally Encourage people all over the world to have access to freedom of information via the internet, cell phones and whatever else comes along Encourage economic stability in poor countries (liberal democracy isn’t really that great if everyone is desperately poor) You’ll probably find more answers here [http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=1](http://www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=1) ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/27 "2006-04-11T18:02:37Z")
I believe what you are looking for is some kind of Revolution. With a Revolution, not only do you dispose the tyrant, but you replace him with a new form of government representing the new (hopefully better) ideology. How you do that is to start with the support of the people. Simply killing off a tyrant in a coup simply creates a power vacuum that will be filled by the next strongman in line. ---
**Author:** ![Uzi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/91b2a8/32.png) [@Uzi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uzi)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/28 "2006-04-11T21:06:15Z")
[QUOTE=Capt] Especially if you want to minimize the suffering of the people? [/QUOTE] If you are an external force: A quick and massive military campaign followed by long term occupation on a scale large enough to prevent the majority of insurgent activity. During the time of occupation you spend large amounts of money on secular education and improving infrastructure. Eventually (15-20 years later), the population will be educated, more prosperous and far enough removed from its tribalistic and fanatical roots to embrace liberal democratic ideals such that no ‘strong man’ can take power again. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/29 "2006-04-11T21:33:41Z")
[QUOTE=Jonathan Chance] To that end I would postulate that one of the most important factors is the growth of an established and reliable middle class. People who begin to command economic power and acheive it in such a way that those under it can aspire to join it. In other words, give the people something to lose and see how well they work at keeping it (and expanding it). [/QUOTE] But how does one government arrange that for a foreign dictatorship? ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/30 "2006-04-11T21:45:40Z")
Good movies. A tyrant cannot gain or keep power without some support of their people (and a military, which is ultimately made up of people.) People who are truly repressed _and_ can see clearly what the rest of the world is like won’t put up with it for too long. Eventually they will stop believing and the dictatorship will just shrivel up. This is the heart of what happened in Russia, and is happening in China, and indeed has happened throughout the world. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2006, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/31 "2006-04-11T21:53:58Z")
Fortunately, an evil tyrant always has a weakness – he’s put too much of his power into a magic ring and lost it, or something – so there’s always a way. Unless the tyrant has read the following: [http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html](http://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html) ---
**Author:** ![New\_Iskander](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/db5fbb/32.png) [@New\_Iskander](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/New_Iskander)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/32 "2006-04-12T17:03:04Z")
[QUOTE=What Exit?] 1. You have to approach regime change in Iran as a UN coalition. 2. You have to somehow get Russia in the Coalition [/QUOTE] A cinch. Those Russians will do anything to get Alaska back. Make it ‘Putin’s Folly’. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/33 "2006-04-12T19:26:56Z")
[QUOTE=even sven] Good movies. A tyrant cannot gain or keep power without some support of their people (and a military, which is ultimately made up of people.) People who are truly repressed _and_ can see clearly what the rest of the world is like won’t put up with it for too long. Eventually they will stop believing and the dictatorship will just shrivel up. This is the heart of what happened in Russia, and is happening in China, and indeed has happened throughout the world. [/QUOTE] I’ve read several N. Korean defectors said if the people in N. Korea had any idea what the rest of the world was actually like (instead of the propaganda they are fed) they would all revolt and put their lives at risk in an instant. ---
**Author:** ![OneCentStamp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/13edae/32.png) [@OneCentStamp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OneCentStamp)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/34 "2006-04-12T19:43:06Z")
Wait four years. If that doesn’t work, wait another four. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2006, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/35 "2006-04-12T19:45:16Z")
Bribery. Impose sanctions on the government, but give cash to the people you hope will overthrow them. Do it carefully, with a minimum of incentive for corruption, which means stop western companies and governments bending the rules for their economies’ sakes: stop them from propping up dictators and their cronies - e.g. Oil For Food, United Fruit, etc. Give scads of visible incentive (West Berlin taunting East Berlin by having oranges in the stores). Get allies of the same culture on your side, and encourage their public and vocal input and participation. Give them financial incentives to participate. Eventually, airdrop wads of greenbacks, food, and medical supplies on impoverished areas. (In the case of NK, also tons of leaflets in the requisite language showing happy fatties having fun in the west.) Let the recipients feel that you’re part of the “resistance”, working against tyranny. The population, given the delights of greed, rather than uniting against a common foreign enemy, would unite against the tyrant who keeps them poor and miserable, and tell them to fuck off. Particularly good if the local army refuses to support the tyrant (Serbia). On a less obvious scale, this is what did for Soviet Communism. I swear this policy would be cheaper than a war, and I know it would be far less destructive. ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/36 "2006-04-13T04:15:20Z")
[QUOTE=OneCentStamp] Wait four years. If that doesn’t work, wait another four. 😃 [/QUOTE] Campaign for opposition party. Win November elections. New majority holds impeachment hearings. Then holds new impeachment hearing for the Veep. Then holds new impeachment hearings for the … … … continue fugue state until next election. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/37 "2006-04-13T04:47:25Z")
Seriously though, I firmly believe that Satyagraha is the only true way to remove tyrants. Unless that power is tapped, as others have stated, evil merely replaces evil. It has been proven to work as well. India. South Africa. The United States. It is not guaranteed to work, but it can if the people truly follow it. **jjimm** , I would have no problems with any of the means you described. On a side note, in 2003 then-Secretary of State Colin Powell wrote a series of Op/Eds regarding Myanmar and Zimbabwe hinting at the possibility of US-enforced regime changes. I found that to be a very good way to measure public opinion. Which consisted mostly of people politely nodding their heads that something should be done, then continuing on to the sports scores and stock indices. Tyrants rule from fear, but gain their power from apathy. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/38 "2006-04-13T13:01:16Z")
[QUOTE=Agnostic Pagan] Seriously though, I firmly believe that Satyagraha is the only true way to remove tyrants. [/QUOTE] Civil disobedience, like terrorism, is a tactic that cannot work without publicity. As George Orwell pointed out, Gandhi’s tactics would not have worked at all in a country where enemies of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard from again. [http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/ghandi.html](http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/ghandi.html) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2006, 1:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/39 "2006-04-13T13:03:11Z")
From the above-linked essay: > [@](#): > > However, Gandhi’s pacifism can be separated to some extent from his other teachings. Its motive was religious, but he claimed also for it that it was a definitive technique, a method, capable of producing desired political results. Gandhi’s attitude was not that of most Western pacifists. Satyagraha, first evolved in South Africa, was a sort of non-violent warfare, a way of defeating the enemy without hurting him and without feeling or arousing hatred. It entailed such things as civil disobedience, strikes, lying down in front of railway trains, enduring police charges without running away and without hitting back, and the like. Gandhi objected to “passive resistance” as a translation of Satyagraha: in Gujarati, it seems, the word means “firmness in the truth.” In his early days Gandhi served as a stretcher-bearer on the British side in the Boer War, and he was prepared to do the same again in the war of 1914-18. Even after he had completely abjured violence he was honest enough to see that in war it is usually necessary to take sides. He did not - indeed, since his whole political life centred round a struggle for national independence, he could not - take the sterile and dishonest line of pretending that in every war both sides are exactly the same and it makes no difference who wins. Nor did he, like most Western pacifists, specialize in avoiding awkward questions. In relation to the late war, one question that every pacifist had a clear obligation to answer was: “What about the Jews? Are you prepared to see them exterminated? If not, how do you propose to save them without resorting to war?” I must say that I have never heard, from any Western pacifist, an honest answer to this question, though I have heard plenty of evasions, usually of the “you’re another” type. But it so happens that Gandhi was asked a somewhat similar question in 1938 and that his answer is on record in Mr. Louis Fischer’s Gandhi and Stalin. According to Mr. Fischer, Gandhi’s view was that the German Jews ought to commit collective suicide, which “would have aroused the world and the people of Germany to Hitler’s violence.” After the war he justified himself: the Jews had been killed anyway, and might as well have died significantly. One has the impression that this attitude staggered even so warm an admirer as Mr. Fischer, but Gandhi was merely being honest. If you are not prepared to take life, you must often be prepared for lives to be lost in some other way. When, in 1942, he urged non-violent resistance against a Japanese invasion, he was ready to admit that it might cost several million deaths. > > At the same time there is reason to think that Gandhi, who after all was born in 1869, did not understand the nature of totalitarianism and saw everything in terms of his own struggle against the British government. The important point here is not so much that the British treated him forbearingly as that he was always able to command publicity. As can be seen from the phrase quoted above, he believed in “arousing the world,” which is only possible if the world gets a chance to hear what you are doing. It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again. Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing? The Russian masses could only practise civil disobedience if the same idea happened to occur to all of them simultaneously, and even then, to judge by the history of the Ukraine famine, it would make no difference. But let it be granted that non-violent resistance can be effective against one’s own government, or against an occupying power: even so, how does one put it into practise internationally? Gandhi’s various conflicting statements on the late war seem to show that he felt the difficulty of this. Applied to foreign politics, pacifism either stops being pacifist or becomes appeasement. Moreover the assumption, which served Gandhi so well in dealing with individuals, that all human beings are more or less approachable and will respond to a generous gesture, needs to be seriously questioned. It is not necessarily true, for example, when you are dealing with lunatics. Then the question becomes: Who is sane? Was Hitler sane? And is it not possible for one whole culture to be insane by the standards of another? And, so far as one can gauge the feelings of whole nations, is there any apparent connection between a generous deed and a friendly response? Is gratitude a factor in international politics? ---
**Author:** ![Agnostic\_Pagan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c4cdca/32.png) [@Agnostic\_Pagan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agnostic_Pagan)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2006, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074/40 "2006-04-14T02:53:37Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Civil disobedience, like terrorism, is a tactic that cannot work without publicity. As George Orwell pointed out, Gandhi’s tactics would not have worked at all in a country where enemies of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard from again. [http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/ghandi.html](http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/index.cgi/work/essays/ghandi.html) [/QUOTE] I will grant you that. Publicity and lines of communication are necessary. That is one of many reasons that I think the Internet is fundamentally changing the world. Far too much of the world is still out of the loop, but a very large portion can access it if and when necessary. The only truly repressed\* nation left where outside knowledge is unknown and unaccessible is North Korea. [Cite.](http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm) I do not (hope not) think that the ‘dirty’ wars previously common in South America would be possible in the present day. I do not think any regime has the power to turn back the clock again, though unfortunately many will try. “Without a free press and the right of assembly, it is impossible not merely to appeal to outside opinion, but to bring a mass movement into being, or even to make your intentions known to your adversary. Is there a Gandhi in Russia at this moment? And if there is, what is he accomplishing? **The [East European] masses could only practise civil disobedience if the same idea happened to occur to all of them simultaneously**, and even then … it would make no difference.” Fortunately 1989 trumped 1984. AP - As compared with ignorant countries that lack widespread access because of non-political factors. But with exception of some small island nations, all countries have some internet capability, even if its just a satellite link. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-do-you-remove-an-evil-tyrant/352074.md?page=3)