Paul writes:

speeding up the glasnost process? if the history deems the downfall of the soviet union as a good thing it will because not only were people 'liberated' from oppressive governments, but they were 'liberated' without being subjected to the social, economic and humanitarian horrors of all out war....glasnost was good because it was not world war III: it was 'openess', not bombs.

From a humanitarian standpoint, the Soviet Union was killing its own people by the million. Just read The Gulag Archipelago. Glasnost came too far too late for those who were subjected to the social, economic and humanitarian horrors of peace.

But your response indicates that you are missing the point. Like the old Soviet Union, the media couldn't put cameras on the people dying every day because of the Iraqi government. The Iraqi government is not open to cameras and the Iraqi government's programs are causing everyday horror to the people there. Until the conflict in Iraq, the eyes of the world have not stirred the fickle passions of European protestors. They have not been allowed to and so the protestors haven't seen fit to decry the destruction of Iraq by it's government. This new openness comes from conflict and nowhere else.