I'm all for "reason" backed up with "courage." When both fail, armed civil war is the inevitable next step for those who believe in their cause. And historically many such uprisings have been crushed by those in power and their international allies.

Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia would have been deposed in the early 1960's without the direct intervention of U.S. military "trainers." And many a peaceful protest has been brutally suppressed there since, including those focused on the current regime. But one has to search hard to find the reports.

Charley Noble