Post by Dennis Brownofficial heads of state. So, if Saddam is the standard, I couldn't
name half a dozen of his equal that would qualify as Bush friends.
With the reduced criteria to something along the lines of "bloodthirsty
lunatic who heads a US allied country", I think our current poster boy is
Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan.
That being said, I never had the impression that Saddam was in the same
league as Karimov, even. His sons were definately off the deep end, but
my impression is Saddam had moved beyond torture for torture's sake (at a
personal level - such a system is probably rife with abuses, vendettas, etc).
If we were to expand the criteria to something more like "governments who
willfully engage in torture, violence, and rape against their own
citizens" - which are pretty much the only things that Hussein was
rightfully accused of - then coming up with a half-dozen governments is
easy.
Post by Dennis Brownyou requested. As the dinosaurs of tyranny retire, the rodents of
terrorism rush in to take their place. The same 24 hour news cycle
that makes it harder for tyrants to hide their large atrocities,
makes it easier for terrorists to get world-wide shock value for much
smaller atrocities. The Internet now plays a large role as well.
I hope that better mass media coverage will keep these kinds of things
from happening again, but I doubt that's true. I don't think most
Americans could name Uzbekistan as a military ally, and I think even fewer
could document what goes on there.
I think what helped keep people like that in power is vast financial,
political, and military backing from a global power. The end of the Cold
War removed the most significant rivalry, allowing a lot of this to shake
loose (most notably in Eastern Europe). Most recently, though, the US has
been throwing it's weight around, hooking up with some unsavory people to
"fight terrorism". Europe and Russia are beginning to distance themselves
from the US and taking steps to set themselves up as more independent
powers, and the US almost seems determined to start a cold war with China.
So, with global moves to limit US power, and US playing games to secure it
- smaller countries could become -- strike that -- are becoming strategic
pieces again.
This trend is not encouraging to the dream of a tyrant free world.
Post by Dennis BrownGwynne Dyer pointed out in an interview I saw that there are
actually fewer wars and large scale atrocities now than at any time
in recent history, despite what the news appears to show.
Absolutely true. Just for a bit of perspective - I'm thirty - so while I
remember the Cold War, it was in it's last throes before I started to
notice the world. This certainly would *seem* to be the world's most
dangerous time from my memory.
That being said, I've read about things like the Cuban Missile Crisis, the
tension during the 50s, Mutual Assured Destruction, World War II, the
Great Depression, the Spanish Flu, the Great War...
The current doomsday scenario is a terrorist setting off a nuke in New
York City, killing millions of people. The doomsday scenario when I was
born was a total nuclear exchange between the US and the USSR - killing
EVERYONE.
The world is a much better place than it used to be.
Post by Dennis Brownknow, when I looked over the Web site with the worst tyrants and
mass murderers from history I realized that almost all are now in
the past. Who of the really big players is still in business?
Darfur isn't solved, whether you want to lay that at the feet of Halil or
al-Bashir or someone else still seems to be something of an open question.
Kambanda is in jail for the Rwandan genocide - but he was sentenced seven
years ago; so I wouldn't put this *too* far out of our minds.
The Maoist rebels are, by some counts, winning their war in Nepal - and
would seem to be inclined to set up another Maoist government like the one
Cambodia was treated to under Pol Pot.
True, none of these guys are no Stalin, or Hitler, or even Pol Pot (not yet,
anyway) - but they're not small time, either.
I'm also very concerned with the rising anti-muslim sentement in many
quarters of the world. It may be only a matter of time before someone
gets the idea that all their problems would go away if they did.
I fully agree the world is a safer and better place than it's given credit
for - but we're not done, yet.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers.
--
C.T. Paterson, ***@freenet.carleton.ca
When e-mailing, include "waterloo" in the subject to bypass spam filters.