When only one of the sides have weapons, there can not be a civil war, only a genocide. I am convinced that there is a limit on the violations of Human Rights that Europe will be able to tolerate from a state member.
"civil war", "genocide". Come on people, don't throw these words willy-nilly, leave that to bad news outlets.
Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum (probably unnecessarily so) but we're not on the verge of a catalan genocide in any way, shape or form. If you keep abusing words they end up losing their meaning.
I think they'll be shooting less because they're a particular ethnicity and more because they're rioting, protesting the decision, or directly fighting the government. Ethnic differences would be coincidental in such an occurrence.
"Quite brutal" by the standards of the ordinary course of civil society, yes. "Quite brutal" by the standards of governments facing an insurrection? Not so much.
Yes, the spanish government was quite brutal in its attempt to stymie the referendum
That's wrong. There were a handful of injured, don't believe the propaganda. Most international media that were fooled by that lies have acknowledged this much.
Regardless of the scale and strength of the repression I'm still of the opinion that it was unwarranted. Declare the referendum to be illegal, tell lawful spanish citizens to stay home then disregard the results. Maybe prosecute the people organizing the referendum if the law allows it.
Even though the referendum was illegal it didn't create any imminent danger. Therefore I think the use of force by Madrid was disproportionate. It also effectively backfired by making the independentists look more sympathetic even though their motive is for the most part rather selfish at the core.
It's true that it was a disaster but not because they tried to prevent it, but because they didn't the obvious thing and sent the police one day earlier. The videos that are in that page are not particularly violent, just what you would expect when people resist the police.
Oh FFS. We know what we saw on TV outside your little PP-controlled broadcast TV bubble. I was watching footage of your police beating the shit out of people all day long.
This particular argument -- "fake news, it didn't happen" -- is outside of Spain the most ridiculous Trumpish nonsense imaginable. "Lies"? I saw it with my own eyes in real time. Looking us right in the eye and insisting that black is white is offensive.
The Spanish government regularly wastes Catalonian money, including sending in police to suppress this technically illegitimate vote. Whatever this vote cost to administer, it is a pittance in the grand scheme of things, especially considering the people seem to be willing to bear the economic burden of attempting to gain sovereignty.
If their crime is misappropriating funds for the referendum, then surely the police should be arresting the politicians, not harassing the public at large.
Because they were planning to spend millions of euro in an illegal thing, and use the results to try to legitimize the illegal thing in the eyes of the world.
They may not have much arms now, but they have money. There are certainly states that would not mind selling them arms for profit.
While secession will be troublesome, there are not many attempts at preventing secession that have not turned ugly violent in recent years because of attempts to prevent it.
I lived through a non-violent federation split and certainly hope for this outcome elsewhere. In the case of my country majority of the people didn't want the split either. Despite that it was possible to happen without violence.
I suspect the only reason the US government lets Americans think the second amendment would enable the population to forcibly remove an undesirable government, is because the weapons and strategic/tactical/leadership skills of the population are vastly out-classed by the armed forces.
What good is a semi-automatic against a supersonic jet that just fired an air-to-ground missile in your direction? Plenty of AK-47s in Afghanistan, they don’t even take on subsonic drones effectively.
In other asymmetric warfare situations, supersonic jets have done very little to end a conflict. No sane person would ever want to start a war with a civil militia containing nearly all able-bodied men in a region; it's bad enough when just a couple per cent are against you, all with small arms. Imagine how bad it would be with 20%, 30%, 40% of the able-bodied against you.
Consider also that there are arms manufacturers and state militias all across the country. If it's California, they have (some of) Northrop Grumman. If it's Virginia, they have General Dynamics Mission Systems.
Yeah, it'll work out really well when the U.S. military uses their General Dynamics Mission Systems radios to order their General Dynamics Mission Systems drones to fire General Dynamics missiles at General Dynamics. While their General Dynamics M1 Abrams tanks and General Dynamics Stryker AFVs roll through the streets to kill the civilians.
This is not the way things would play out. The federal government would twiddle their thumbs and say that they are very cross with the separatists, and we'd all get on with our lives.
I thought the implication was the tanks rolling up at General Dynamics offices and factories to “protect national security assets from terrorists”, and the General Dynamics CEO welcoming them with the closest one can get to open arms when you’re wearing heavy body armour.
“Disappeared” isn’t just destroying, it’s capturing, too.
When tyranny starts to come in there's a long period where the government can order the police / military to stand down, but doesn't have the power to order them to commit atrocities themselves.
So there's usually a violent group of government supporters who don't have any special arms or training. eg, Hitler's brown shirts.
The second amendment is very affective against them.
If the alternative is genocide then I'll take my chances. Asymmetric warfare is a real option and with enough turned generals and armed forces you'd have access to the same high powered weapons and the people could form a militia as well.
It would only come to nukes if the other side escalated to weaponry just below nukes. In that case, it's not "nuking Americans in Seattle", it's "nuking well organized terrorist cells using advanced weaponry, in order to save further loss of life."
The point is that no matter how much "power" the federal government has granted to civilians via the 2nd amendment, the federal government will ALWAYS have more.
It would never be “over a sovereignty dispute”, it would be to stop what the rebels were imminently going to do in that sovereignty dispute. Nuking is extreme, but there will always be (at least, in the eyes of the government) a excuse to escalate to the level beyond what is available to the rebels to protect the innocent threatened by them.
Those weapons only win if you don't care about civilian losses (that is one way to win a counter insurgency, see Mandatory Palestine) - but by not caring about civilian casualties I mean you have to be willing to commit genocide (again, see the British actions in Mandatory Palestine).
If you do care about civilians (and I assume the US armed forces would be forced to care) a jet is probably not worth much against an AK-47, as long as that AK-47 is in the hands of a guy who is willing to hang out close to a bunch of civilians.
Again you can win a counter insurgency either by winning over the local population or by utterly destroying it (see manda, the Island of Melos).
I wouldn't cite Afghanistan as an example of how well military high-tech works for suppression. If it did, it wouldn't be and wouldn't have been such a mess.
Then what is the alternative? Wouldn’t you rather die with the honor of defending you and your families liberty than live under an oppressive regime?
The argument that “the government is too strong they’d beat you with your puny guns” is so incredibly short sighted. You’re discounting the power the rifle gives the people not only as a weapon but a symbol of freedom and revolution. An armed society is a deterrent at the very least.
I would flee a country if and when it looked like that country was too far down a bad path.
I am in the process of doing so now, as it happens — leaving the UK because of the Investigatory Powers Act, because the Home Secretary wants to ban unbreakable encryption without understanding it, and because Brexit removes one of the major obligations to follow international human rights laws which would allow me to sue the government to fix that law.
I’d rather pick my battles and live somewhere new, than die an unknown and unnamed victim of a remote death machine.
When only one of the sides have weapons, there can not be a civil war, only a genocide. I am convinced that there is a limit on the violations of Human Rights that Europe will be able to tolerate from a state member.