I think these affairs ought to be handled through international bodies. The UN seems to have no mechanism for it.
The UN deliberately has no mechanism for this because it's a talking shop intended to help avoid war by providing a talking venue. That's the whole idea, they're not the world police, there is no such thing. They're a forum.
I'm absolutely not defending any given dictator but history shows that every attempt to remove a dictator "for the greater good" is usually 1) selfishly motivated and 2) backfires horribly.
No, and in fact the comparison to Hitler felt out of place. I'm simply saying that it isn't as black and white that one should NEVER remove a head of state.
What I will concede is that catch 22 of not knowing how the future will play out, so how COULD you confidently and with wide agreement intervene BEFORE someone commits atrocities.
Once the genocide started though I do thing all considerations, including national stability and continuity, are lower priority than ending the genocide as fast as possible.
That's what made Trump so dangerous, it is insane that such terrible people have such a charismatic appeal. To me they are horrible men, to others they seem to come across as some kind of savior.
> every attempt to remove a dictator "for the greater good" is usually 1) selfishly motivated and 2) backfires horribly.
Basically, "leave it to the population to sort out themselves, even if they've lost the democratic means to do so," up until a government has gone so insane it's massacring its people, or other people.
To phrase it more completely, regime change and general destabilization of Latin American countries has definitely led to the immigration crisis in the United States now. Lack of stable governments and economies has absolutely exacerbated the production and transportation of drugs into the United States. Hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans have been killed or disappeared by US-empowered gangs or governments.
Now that said, I don't know what the world would look like had their right to self-determination been preserved. Nobody knows. But as a general rule, countries whose power structures were not toyed with by colonial powers do better than countries whose power structures were toyed with.
It's why the UN has an obsession with a tiny democracy in the middle east and ignores the multitude of brutal dictatorships which oppress and kill far more people around it and across the globe.
There are general rules against war crimes and they still happen day after day, under flimsy excuses. Bombed a hospital or a wedding party? There was a suspected terrorist there. White phosphorus over civilians? It was just for the smoke screen. Overthrew a government overseas? Freedom for those poor people.
China on the other hand doesn’t get visibly involved in almost any remote conflict and they’re obviously a (if not the) superpower.
China has everything that Russia lacks and more.
China was another example of superpower “style”. Not the Russian or US “let’s invade this country” or “let’s kidnap that leader”.
For example if your country is subject to a terror bombing campaign, it's very tempting to assassinate the one leader who had the power/respect/authority to order the attacks to start but often they're also the only leader who can order the attacks to stop
In the 1970s/1980s presumably the UK could have had IRA leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness assassinated. But it sure turned out to be useful, in the late 1990s peace process, that the IRA had identifiable, living leaders who could engage in negotiation, sign an agreement, and get the bomb makers to stop making bombs.
Since ideas don't execute themselves, who would you pick to enforce this prohibition, never mind even getting 100%(?) alignment from countries what the conditions are for "kidnap", "assassination", and "de facto head of state"?
Opinion, public or not, cannot enforce anything.
Don't get me wrong, I live in Taiwan so it's not something I want to have happen, but the PRC seems focused on localizing its economy as much as possible, so it may be that if that time comes, it doesn't matter if other countries boycott it. Didn't seem to matter that much to Russia in the Ukraine situation, or at least, it didn't stop them.
If they would actually do that, they would loose their threat model to keep the EU in check.
But enforcement is not even my point. I'm referring to a moral principle.