Originally posted by Toad
What invalidates your comparison is that governmental forces in both of your examples remained essentially benign. They did not "pull the trigger" on their countrymen either because they weren't ordered to do so or because they refused such orders
You are either very uneducated or refuse to educate yourself about issues that are contrary what you "believe" to be true. I will educate you on one example (I only need to show one example to invalidate your argument that it cannot be done): Romania's December 1989 Revolution.
Some background on Nicolai Ceausescu (in case you don't know how to pronounce it: say "chow - chess - que"): His people nicknamed him "Dracula II" because of his ruthless tactics in subjugating his people using the dreaded Securitate, or secret police. Like Saddam, he had a minority problem in the north west region of his country...he called it the Hungarian Problem. Like Saddam he figured he needed to get rid of these people. The method he chose was radiation. Every Hungarian minority that was ever arrested or brought in for questioning (including women and children) were bombarded with low level radiation in a process called "Radu". The effect was a very slow death from cancer, which went untreated by what little Romanian healthcare system existed. The west learned of this as it was noticed that every Hungarian deported from Romania during Ceausescu's reign died of cancer. Most Romanians suspected the practice existed, but of course it was never made public. Real nice guy. If you want to learn about some more of his atrocities get a book called "Red Horizons" by a former leader in the Securitate named Ion Pacepa...it will leave you physically ill.
Like Saddam, Ceausescu had his version of the Republican Guard, called the Worker's Guards or sometimes by it's old Soviet name, the Patriotic Guards. In 1989, it numbered close to 250,000, which augmented another 500,000 of regular troops. On top of these troops the Securitate had 15,000 agents and 20,000 special Security Troops whose sole purpose was to put down demonstrations. In 1987 he used the troops to forcefully put down a "riot" of 30,000 in the city of Brasov.
The revolution started unexpectedly. I will compress what happened over the several days of the revolution. A priest named Laszlo Tokes was viewed as a dissident by the local Party officials in Timisoara. He preached tolerance and freedom to his congregation. Tokes was ordered to leave his church and take a post in a very small village where he could do less harm. He refused. As a result an order was issued for his arrest as well as his family. He was a Hungarian which meant certain death for his entire family. His congregation, realizing that Tokes' arrest meant his death, protested by guarding the church. The protest spread until over 1000 demonstrators were camped out. The Party officials at first capitulated, but the crowd had turned from protesting Tokes' arrest warrant to a crowd chanting "FREEDOM".
The Securitate was called in and disbursed the crowd using batons and shovels. But the next day several thousand protestors began marching. Outraged Ceausescu called a meeting of the Political Executive Committee and screamed at the Interior and Defense Ministers for their inability to quell the growing protest.
"Why didn't they shoot?", he demanded to know. He then ordered the military to move in and fire on the demonstrators. The protest had spread to most of the city as tanks and infantry moved in to carry out Ceausescu's order. Many soldiers did refuse to fire into the crowds, then estimated at nearly 50,000, and were executed by their commanders on the spot. Tanks and artillery fired into the center of town while infantry shot those at the periphery.
In the end no accurate casualty count is known. Soviet reporters wrote later that they had witnessed hundreds of bodies laying in the streets and watched bodies being dumped into the river or cremated in mass graves. The hospitals of the region were overflowing with the wounded.
The next day, the protest continued. A general strike was called in the region. Later, thousands more protestors flooded the streets and charged the army pushing them out of the city. Three days later, the dissident leaders addressed the city from an opera house bombed by artillery rounds and declared Timisoara a free city.
As news leaked out, unrest spread to Bucharest. Riots began in the capital and continued despite the military being called in to stop the revolt. Ceausescu attempted to turn the revolt by staging a forced pro-Ceausescu demonstration. But the demonstrators threw down their pro-Ceausescu signs and began chanting "Death to Ceausescu". The Securitate guarding the mob were overrun and were stripped of their weapons.
At this point several military brigades in Bucharest switched sides and started to move towards the Committee building along with the protestors. Ceausescu, fearing for his life, boarded a helicopter and attempted to escape. His helicopter ran out of fuel in the countryside and he was forced to hide. The dissidents began a hunt for him and all the while had running battles with the Securitate, Security Troops and loyal Worker's Guards. Terrorist type strikes by loyal forces continued for months even after the revolution "ended". Ceausescu was eventually found, tried and executed on Christmas day...a banned holiday under his dictatorship. The entire revolution started and ended in December 1989.
Did some of the military switch allegiances...yes, but not until it was obvious that Ceausescu was finished.
If 20 million Iraqis decide that it is time for Saddam to go...he would be gone. BTW, it would be impossible for Saddam to insure the complete loyalty of all of his troops. Saddam uses a conscripted army...all young men must serve at some point, which means if there is some % of the population that wants Saddam out, close to that same % exists in the army.
