Lessons from History, my opinion

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One thing that is different between current events and historical events is public opinion.

Like it or not, most people are influenced to some degree by the reactions of people (neighbors, friends, talking heads on TV, bloggers) to various happenings.  In the time of Pharoah, say, the only insight he would have had into what the people thought would be hearsay, and whatever was channeled to his ears by his so-called advisors.  Today, Obama only has to turn on his TV or power up his laptop to know all about what people are saying.  Of course there are still idiots who only listen to their friends.  A lot of people do tend to only talk with those who agree with them.  (I must admit that I do tend to hang out with mostly die-hard liberals, except for my buddy Gene, who listens to conservative talk shows almost exclusively, and jumps all over me if I happen to mention anything like health care reform.)

There were genocides all through history; for instance, the eradication of the Phoenicians by ancient Rome, and the harrowing of Carthage.  But over the years, the understanding of major historical events among the common people has gradually increased, with its cumulative effect on what we consider morally objectionable and morally justified.  The near-eradication of the Native Peoples of North America was clearly wrong, in hindsight.  But part of that very "hindsight" is World War 2, and the worldwide attitude towards genocide, in general.  Indeed, the word genocide had not been coined, if I'm not mistaken, prior to the 20th Century.  A similar eradication of a people (or a score of peoples, as was the case in the American expansion) is wronger now than it was then.

Despite all this, in the US, as in many other nations of course, there are those whose opinions seem to have only the most twisted relationship to world opinion.  Nevertheless, certain types of atrocities, at least, are less forgivable today than they might have been in the distant past.  For instance, it would be unforgivable if a head of state were to have his spouse beheaded for not providing him or her with a male heir.  (I'm not sure of the exact circumstances, but Henry Tudor has a lot to answer for, IMO.)

Notwithstanding all the above, there appear to be many regimes currently in power who have calculated precisely how much of world opinion they can ignore.  One reason for this is that the US tends to orchestrate world opinion very aggressively, and it becomes a convenient excuse for ignoring any opinion: "The US is behind it."  On one hand, orchestrating world opinion using diplomacy is a step forward as far as the US is concerned; in the past, we suspect that the CIA influenced thinking in many parts of the world using methods that were far more extreme than we can imagine.  Anything the US does without sending out the bombs and the tanks (and the CIA) is worthy of some degree of approval.

Also in the US, there are those who have studied the fine art of just how far we can go before we screw up the little sympathy we have abroad.  These experts are back in business now after an eight year sabbatical; there was no demand for subtlety in the first eight years of this century.

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