I'm not normally an advocate for "shock and awe"....or any other type of war.......

[fannyannie]

but I am today - I'm blaming it on the hormones - I just wish Bush/Blair/Anyone would drop a bomb on Mugabe's "presidential palace" ......preferably when he's there.

he is a vile dictator and woe betide anyone who voices dissent in Zimbabwe.I wish someone would do something about him too- not sure if dropping a bomb is the solution though!

He is such an evil man. Its sad that they don't have any oil or something would have been done by now.

donnie is right about it being a questionable solution.
Who would take charge ?
This is Africa, so the chances of a smart honest democrat are somewhat less than Bush being elected President of Iran.

The next leader of Zimbabwe is most likely someone who is currently powerful. I don't think Mugabe has never killed anyone. It is ordinary Zimbaweans who do this shit for him, and the most efficient of the people who organise it who is likely to be the next president.
There is no such thing as an absolute ruler, only those who manage the people around them very well.

thus the trick is not to kill Mugabe.
Find the poshest bit of Harare, the one with the boutiques, art galleries etc.
Bomb it flat, napalm is good because it not only kills but leaves horrible scars on the survivors.
Within hours of the first Gucci store being destroyed the local elite will be leading forces against Mugabe's bunker.

The reason that nuclear weapons held the peace in the cold war was the anonymous people around the top man knew that they and their families would be hit first.
Thus the top bloke would be guided away from confrontation.
It's an interesting fact that no senior leader in WWII actually died from being shot at by his countries enemies.
In WWIII, they would have been dead on the first day, so they started referring to it as "the end of the world"...

I'm a strong believer in selective assasination. There's some burmese leaders I'd like to take out too. (is that incitement to murder?)

Dominic, have you ever been to Harare? To "the bit with the boutiques, art galleries etc"?

Thought not!

ffs, it's unreasonable and blinkered to say
"This is Africa, so the chances of a smart honest democrat are somewhat less than Bush being elected President of Iran."

The chances of a smart honest democrat being elected in Zim immediately after Mugabe are not fabulous, but that's because of Mugabe's murderous regime, rather than some broad-brush geographical stereotype.

But I agree with you that killing uncle bob won't solve the problem

Never been to Harare, but surely you are not saying that there is not some part of the City where the elite hang out ?
If all else fails, random destruction of Range Rovers by A10s will improve human rights in any crap country very quickly.

I may be broad brush, but that doesn't make me wrong.
Exactly how many democracies are there in Africa ? Is there any African country whose human rights policy you would feel proud of ?

Although gravely flawed S.Africa is a democracy.
Oh, but they are Uncle Bob's biggest supporter aren't they ?
oops.

How to ruin a country in 7 short years
Disastrous dictator
I am not in favour of taking folks out, esp when you cannot be sure what will replace them.

I hear Tsvangarai is in hospital too.

I think Sth Africa hold the only hand in sorting this and they refuse to help

it's gone beyond a black/white divide.
A large proportion of the country are without food, shelter and water.

From a country that used to almost totally self sufficient for food production as well as exprting extensively
insanity

Yeah the elite live in places like Murambi, but it's daft to think of dropping a bomb there. And it's Pajeros, not range rovers, in Zim

As to democracies in Africa - there are quite a lot, actually. I think the last count was 18 or 20. And yes, Mbeki's weak point is that he has supported Zim, but then Mugabe was feted in London too, when he came to power first, so don't paint the whole continent as stupid and incapable.

"Find the poshest bit of Harare, the one with the boutiques, art galleries etc.
Bomb it flat, napalm is good because it not only kills but leaves horrible scars on the survivors"

You really haven't been there.......anywhere there are 'posh' shops (and sadly not many of those - even in the 'good old days' of 10yrs ago) there are street traders selling there goods outside.

Mugabe (and his closest allies in power) have organised the murder of many people who they feel are 'in the way' or threatening to stop towing the 'party' line....its' amazing how many 'car crashes' there have been in recent years of previously high ranking politicians.

He orders his police (who are NOT just 'ordinary' Zimbabweans - only his closest supporters join up and stay joined up and get paid well for doing so) to kill, torture and 'make disappear' ordinary Zimbabweans who dare to try and speak out against him.

THIS is what he orders his police to do the opposition supporters (or in this case the opposition leader).

and this is what the leader looked like before the weekend.

I can't even bring myself to post links to images of 'common' Zimbabweans who have been beaten under his authority simple because they support the 'wrong' party

and even if there were posh areas, the suggestion of bombing the equivalent of Bond Street in Harare in order to effect regime change is just plain nuts, imnsho

yep - especially given that Mugabe and his cronies don't even shop in Zimbabwe - they jet off to South Africa, and Europe to do their shopping (using taxpayers money of course )

I accept the correction on vehicle targetting with apologies and thankes.

I agree you won't get regime change by bombing the local Bond Street. I never said you would, indeed I specifically said that the problem is the elite, not the president, who is merely the conductor to an orchestra of misery.
Nice thing about targetting the elite is that there are a lot of them. Thus you can kill a few to scare the rest into better behaviour.
As I said, killing the president merely gets his most ruthless henchman into power.

I'm not sure if it will work to be honest, but it's much easier than an invasion, with much less loss of life, and it's a good working principle for most African countries than any rich person deserves to die anyway.

They won't unless they find oil in Harare!

I'm not sure who exactly you mean by the "elite"

Elite is indeed a fuzzy term, but the trick is not to care too much about being wrong sometimes. If you take out posh vehicles in a shit country then you will usually get the right people.
That is actually a good definition of a shit country, one where rich = bad. Any apartment block which has guards is both easy to spot and contains the people whose fault it is.

Obviously anyone at a senior level in the police or army is also fair game.

"Any apartment block which has guards is both easy to spot and contains the people whose fault it is."

You really haven't got a clue about Zimbabwe have you????

Rich doesn't mean "bad" in Zimbabwe, and we used to have a guard at the main gate of the group of tiny little cottages we lived in (paid for by all residents in there!).

Do you realise who you sound like, Dominic? Does the idea of bombing a capital to take out random (relatively) rich people sound in any way familiar to you?

New York? Madrid? London?

just read the apartment block with guards comment, and all I can say is I'm grateful you're not in charge of military intelligience. Have you even been to any part of Africa?

Rich is quite likely to mean 'foreign' in a country which has had runaway inflation.

BTW this comment is interesting:
"The reason that nuclear weapons held the peace in the cold war was the anonymous people around the top man knew that they and their families would be hit first."

Any evidence DC?

Wouldn't work in London or NY, since posh cars correlate poorly with political power, also our rich aren't so bad as theirs.
As for nukes in the cold war, I cite as evidence, the behaviour of leaders and the nuclear powers.
For 50 years the west faced socialism with huge armies on hair triggers. Alomst nothing happened.
Extreme care was taken to avoid direct attacks, or even the semblance of such.
During the cold war, there were many proxy wars, something almost unknown before. The arab/Israeli wars, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, et showed that both sides were up for aq fight, but they took great care to keep it compartmentalised.

Cuba was a bit scary, with that nutter Kennedy clearly kept within tighter check than he wanted. It was a classic war start situation, lots of pushing and shoving between armed forces, and a posturing leader trying to expand his sphere of influence. But the Russians did not rise to the bait.
We know that targetting for both sides was heavily optimsed for command and control structures, and that means hitting the leadership. Although the class of missile used for that work is remarkably precise, with error of

I nearly started a thread on this after seeing the pictures of Morgan Tsvangiri in the paper today. Apparently Mugabe had the audacity to let him go to court like that - obviously knows no-one will do anything - the judge stopped proceedings and ordered all the defendents to go to hospital.

They were arrested at a prayer meeting.

Hmm, that's rather weak evidence DC, and open to several interpretations.
Of course not being a history graduate you won't realise that.

You know what, Dominic, you have so little idea what you're talking about that I'm not going to waste any more electrons posting responses to you.

I know I was horrifed when I saw him on the news last night.

And so many others.

Was also horrifed to see how well Mugabe looks for his bloody age. It is amazing that someone who appeared so well educated (although Wikipedia reports a lot of his honorary degrees are being rescinded)

I thought his rule was to end next year but also think they will keep changing the rules to extend it.

I can't believe my mate and her two boys are thinkging of moving back there