That metaphorical action seems to either indicate genocide or causing the popular support for the revolutionary to wither. I am going to assume that you meant the latter.
I meant the former.
Did I not just say that it is foolish to try to turn the water against the fish? The fish is the natural inhabitant of the water.
You do not wither the support of people for their uncles, fathers, brothers, cousins, and sons.
What you do is genocide. Genocide *works*. No lake, no fish.
But Whisper, isn't genocide immoral?Duh. So's invading somebody else's country for made up bullshit reasons. Go hard, or don't go at all, but don't hang out in the middle spewing weaksauce excuses.
But genocide doesn't work! Look what happened to the Nazis!That's because they failed.
People take entirely the wrong lesson from WWII. They don't remember Europe before the war. All sides were opposing varieties of fascist. It wasn't like the British weren't out there wiping out entirely populations in the colonies.
The Nazis were only different from the British and their allies in three respects.
1. They lost.
2. They did it in their own backyard, which makes it hard to hide the evidence.
3. They didn't have the common sense to lie about it.
Seriously, all that crap with the death'shead belt buckles and whatnot. Amateur hour. Real professional ethnic cleansers, like the aforementioned British, know that you have to do it while pretending to be the good guys, the nice guys, even to the extent of looking wimpy.
Seriously, the civilization that invented the concentration camp, the all-time reigning world champions of the sport of mass-grave filling, has everyone convinced that they all act like Hugh Grant, and wouldn't bust a grape in a fruit fight. It's genius. I don't know whether to spit on them or ask for their autograph.
Now, America has the "pretend to be the good guys" part pretty well understood. We could be better at it, mind. We were dumb enough to prosecute our war criminals. Catch the British doing that. If Lt. Calley had been a Brit, they'd have told the press his squad wiped out several hundred of the Yellow Menace, and given him a medal.
But America doesn't understand the "kill the bastards" part. Oh, we get all full of ourselves when we invade, playing football fight songs and dropping cluster munitions. But we don't have the sustained ruthlessness required to run an empire. We keep losing our nerve, and curling into the fetal position, sobbing "Why don't you
love me???" at the people whose families we just killed.
The way you wipe out a population is the way the British do it. Divide and conquer. Take the oppressed minority in the country you just invaded. They're your new best friend, your new police force. Arm them to the teeth, then turn them the fuck loose for payback time.
Then when they start filling those mass graves for you, wring your hands and cry, but
don't do anything about it. Eventually your bitter enemies, the people who would be the "resistance", will beg you to step in and save them. Then, when, you're good and ready, switch to supporting the other side. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Eventually, you'll have wiped out millions, while leaving those remain convinced that you are the only thing stopping the slaughter from being total.
Or you can do it like the Isrealis, and cut down, without cutting off, the natives' access to everything they need to live (food, water, working sanitation, education, medical care, etc.). Then justify continuing to do so by pointing out the squalor your victims live in, and arguing quite convincingly that they are savages. Above all, keep mentioning every one of you they actually manage to kill, while never, never admitting to the death toll you're racking up.
This, however, is an inferior method, because you need colonists, and eventually you start to acquire a whiff of Nazi about you anyway, because you're too directly involved. Israel is starting to have that problem, and would have much sooner without the Holocaust card to play. (Our 9/11 card ran out long ago.)
If we were smart, we would be stirring the entire Middle East into a vast Sunni/Shia bloodbath, while sitting back on our hands making weepy noises about how we just wanted everyone to get along.