The World's Champion Villain

American Thinker ^ | February 20, 2007 | Randall Hoven

[neverdem]

Much of the world now believes that the United States is a force for evil.

Hugo Chavez: George Bush is "the devil".

Harry Belafonte: Bush is "the greatest terrorist in the world".

Nelson Mandela:  U.S. is "a threat to world peace".

Ann Wright (retired U.S. Army colonel and State Dept. official, now anti-war activist):  "We are the cause of violence in Iraq.  The violence will continue as long as we're there."

William Blum (author of Rogue State, and quoted by Osama bin Laden): "If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize to all the widows and orphans, the tortured and impoverished, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then I would announce, in all sincerity, to every corner of the world, that America's global interventions have come to an end."

Joel Rogers (in The Nation): "Our own government, through much of the past fifty years, has been the world's leading ‘rogue state.' ... the bodies of literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocents, most of them children, whose lives we have taken without any pretense to justice."

Amnesty International: "Throughout the world, on any given day, a man, woman, or child is likely to be displaced, tortured, killed, or 'disappeared', at the hands of governments or armed political groups. More often than not, the United States shares the blame."

And these are not isolated opinions.  In a recent poll, a majority of Europeans think that America is now "a threat to world peace" and see "George Bush as a greater danger to world peace than either the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-Il, or the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad."

I'm sure many in the U.S. believe the same.  There seems to be a notion that the world's natural state is one of peace, if only the U.S. hegemon would take a chill pill.

As they used to say: time for a reality check. 

First of all, the United States wasn't even around through most of history, when peoples were annihilating each other in virtually continual warfare - from the extinction of the Neanderthals through Genghis Khan.  But we don't have to go that far back in history; the last century is rife with examples of violence in the world.

One way to get a handle on "evil" in the world is to examine genocides.  The list below is a complete listing of all alleged genocides since 1915, according to Wikipedia.

• Japan 1910-45.  Japanese killed 25,000,000 Chinese and enslaved millions of Koreans.

• Turkey 1915-23.  Turks (Muslims) killed 1,500,000 Armenians (Christians).

• Soviet Union 1918-89.  Soviet Communists killed 20,000,000.  (Fatality count is from The Black Book of Communism.

• Germany 1940-45.  Nazis killed 11,000,000 Jews, Romas, homosexuals, Slavs, the mentally ill and communists.

• Croatia 1941-45.  Croats (Catholics) killed 500,000 Serbs (Christian Orthodox).

• China 1950-80.  Chinese Communists killed 65,000,000 fellow Chinese.  (Fatality count from The Black Book of Communism.)

• Zanzibar 1964.  Africans killed 5,000 Arabs and Jews.

• Bangladesh 1971.  Muslims killed 1,500,000 Hindus.

• Burundi 1972.  Tutsis killed 125,000 Hutus.

• Cambodia 1975-79.  Communist Cambodians killed 1,700,000 fellow Cambodians.

• East Timor 1975-99.  Indonesian military (Muslim) killed 150,000 Timors, including many ethnic Chinese.

• Afghanistan 1979-89.  Soviet Communists killed unspecified number of Afghans.

• Lebanon (Sabra) 1982.  Christians killed 750 to 3,500 Palestinians.

• Sudan 1983-2007.  Arab/Muslims killed over 2,000,000 Africans.

• Iraq 1988.  Iraq's government (Sunni dominated) killed unspecified number of Kurds.

• Tibet before 1990.  Communist Chinese killed unspecified number of Tibetans.

• West New Guinea/Papua before 1990.  Indonesian government (Muslim) killed unspecified number of Guineans/Papuans.

• Bosnia 1992-95.  Serbs killed at least 8,000, mostly Muslim.

• Rwanda 1994.  Hutus killed 937,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Burundi, Zanzibar, Guinea/Papua, Rwanda, Sudan, Tibet?  Do those sound like the heart of U.S. interventionism's darkness to you?  The largest death tolls are from Communism (100,000,000 dead according to the Black Book of Communism), which was our enemy during the Cold War.  The other big killers were Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan (over 36,000,000 according to the above numbers), who were our enemies in World War II.

In short, the U.S. either had nothing to do with all that violence or was actively fighting to stop it.

Let's move to today, with the U.S. in Iraq.  What was Iraq doing before the U.S. invaded in 2003?  Saddam had already gone to war with two neighbors, Iran and Kuwait, resulting in over a million dead.  Saddam killed hundreds of thousands of his own people; there are over 400,000 dead in mass graves throughout Iraq.  He had lobbed rockets into Saudi Arabia and Israel, shot at U.S. aircraft on UN sanctioned missions and tried to assassinate former President Bush.  He financially rewarded the families of suicide bombers.  And he once had and used WMD, and could make them again.

Yet somehow people seem to believe that if we'd just let Saddam alone, there would be little or no violence in Iraq.  Let's review.  When we did leave him alone, the death count easily reached 1,400,000 or more.  When we merely imposed sanctions, we were accused of causing the deaths of over half a million children.  Now that we've invaded, we're chided for 3,000 American dead and perhaps some tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

Let's simplify this by a multiple choice question:  What decision would you make among the following choices:

(a) Do nothing to a regime that has killed over 1,400,000 of its neighbors and own people, shot at U.S. aircraft on UN sanction missions, tried to assassinate a former U.S. president, had contacts with terrorists, had produced WMD and maintained resources to produce them again (assuming it actually got rid of those it had), had declared itself hostile to the U.S. and it allies, and continues to defy UN resolutions, violating terms of its own surrender.

(b) Impose economic sanctions to get a change of that violent behavior, despite the regime causing hundreds of thousand of deaths and blaming them on the sanctions, and not changing violent behavior anyway.

(c ) Invade the country and set up democratic institutions and elections, costing 3,000 or more American deaths and thousands of Iraqi civilian deaths.

It is naïve and sophomoric to harp on what went "wrong", when every possible choice included bad things happening.  And if you think you have some other choice that would have come out wonderfully, consider writing fiction.

Today we face radical Islam.  If you think "they hate us" because of our foreign policy, how do you explain Islamic violence in Thailand, The Philippines, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sudan, etc.?  Funny how the existence of Israel causes Muslims to kill Hindus, Buddhists, pagans and Christians across the planet.

Dear people:  The true bad guys in this world are not like the boogey man; they do not disappear when you pull the sheet over your head.  Ask the Jews about Auschwitz, the Chinese about Nanking, the Ukrainians about forced famine, the Cambodians about killing fields, the Tutsis about machetes, etc.  Those are example of what happens when the U.S. is not around.

[wgflyer]

"Doing so today would most likely bring an entirely justified charge of War Crimes against whatever commander ordered such attacks."

Maybe, but I wonder if those tactics might not still be required from time to time. It is necessary to subdue a bellicose population. I'd say the scale of subduction depends upon the enemy and the scale of the war. The piecemeal wars that we fight these days seem to lead only to more wars with the same exact people. And our enemies are always supported and goaded on by the same people. Is it possible that we're placing ourselves in a bad position by caring so much about enemy civilians?

[jim35]

Ditto that.

[missnry]

let's see:
... a regime that has killed over 1,400,000 of its neighbors and own people, shot at U.S. aircraft on UN sanction missions, tried to assassinate a former U.S. president, had contacts with terrorists, had produced WMD and maintained resources to produce them again (assuming it actually got rid of those it had), had declared itself hostile to the U.S. and it allies, and continues to defy UN resolutions, violating terms of its own surrender.

how quickly people forgot why we went into Iraq!

[Hatteras]

"Germany 1940-45. Nazis killed 11,000,000 Jews, Romas, homosexuals, Slavs, the mentally ill and communists."

Nazi Germany would have been no place to be if you were a mentally ill communist Slavic homosexual...

[pigsmith]

"Those are example of what happens when the U.S. is not around."

Regardless whether the rest of the world likes us or not, I believe chaos would reign world-wide if the restraining influence of the U.S. ceased to exist.

[Tolik]

Nailed It!
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[Christopher Lincoln]

The Congo Free State was the private land, not a colony, of King Leopold II of Belgium to do with whatever he wanted.

This is not quite as true as Belgium would have wished. Leopold consolidated his power in the Congo with the aid of a large loan from Belgium, obtained by the promise to leave the Congo to Belgium on his death

[FreedomPoster]

Rummel's new URL is below, and has updated information.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills

The 20th Century page is here:

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

It's quite a resource.

[Valin]

One way to get a handle on "evil" in the world is to examine genocides. The list below is a complete listing of all alleged genocides since 1915, according to Wikipedia.


Japan 1910-45. Japanese killed 25,000,000 Chinese and enslaved millions of Koreans.
Turkey 1915-23. Turks (Muslims) killed 1,500,000 Armenians (Christians).
Soviet Union 1918-89. Soviet Communists killed 20,000,000. (Fatality count is from The Black Book of Communism.
Germany 1940-45. Nazis killed 11,000,000 Jews, Romas, homosexuals, Slavs, the mentally ill and communists.
Croatia 1941-45. Croats (Catholics) killed 500,000 Serbs (Christian Orthodox).
China 1950-80. Chinese Communists killed 65,000,000 fellow Chinese. (Fatality count from The Black Book of Communism.)
Zanzibar 1964. Africans killed 5,000 Arabs and Jews.
Bangladesh 1971. Muslims killed 1,500,000 Hindus.
Burundi 1972. Tutsis killed 125,000 Hutus........


Yes but none of the won the 2000 election and that makes President George Bush EVIL incarnate.

[FreedomPoster]

See the updated Rummel page link I posted earlier in the thread. I'm pretty sure if you dig around at the site, there are numbers on the Congo.

Hmmmmm. Here; Google site search works pretty well:

Exemplifying the Horror of European Colonization: Leopold's Congo

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COMM.7.1.03.HTM

[Valin]

Thomas P.M. Barnett - Part 5
The Hugh Hewitt Show
http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=958c6c72-2360-497d-8957-e341b11b24db

(Snip)
HH: But nevertheless, that still posits positive good to the U.S. military’s operations in the world, and that must strike some as far-fetched.


TB: Well, I mean, I think you’ve got to look at it in terms of the grand sweep of history. When we saved Europe in terms of a very disastrous civil war in the first World War, we came back and stopped the threat of fascism in the Second World War, and basically have engaged in a long term babysitting operation in Europe that, you know, gave birth to the EU over the long haul. We stood down the threat of the communist socialist bloc, and on that basis, helped liberate 3 billion people in the direction of markets and economic freedom, and hopefully over time, political freedom. We’ve become a huge glue in Asia, and participated in that section of the world’s rise. Yes, there were things we did along the way that were great missteps, Vietnam being one of them. But you have to look at these mistakes in terms of the larger stories that don’t get told, which is when Americans come and stay with their forces, typically, stability ensues, economic integration ensues, and you get prosperity over time and lasting peace. We’re down to the tougher nuts now with sub-Saharan Africa and the announcement today by Bush that there will be an Africa command, which is something I predicted in the second book, Blueprint For Action, and we’re stuck in the Middle East for quite some time. But these are no longer challenges, and no greater challenges than what we faced in the past. We just have to remember our role in history, and I argue that that’s a very, very, very positive role that no other country has aspired to, to the degree that we have.


HH: Now we’ll talk about Iraq after the break, but just to set it up, it seems to me that if you read your book and go back to that 30,000 feet, that the chaos of Iraq, whether it’s a marketplace bombing that kills 150 people, or the loss of great young Americans, which happens every single day, and you know some of their families, I know some of their families, that nevertheless, in the world historical context you’re describing, the chaos in Iraq really isn’t that much chaos.


TB: Not in the grand scheme of things. I mean, it doesn’t…we’re actually a world more at peace than we’ve ever been, and with a global economy that we’ve never enjoyed before. So I mean, we’re trying to affect change in a part of the world that’s not been well integrated up to now, but which we need to integrate because of the rising demand for energy around the planet.
(Snip)

________________________________________

Dr. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Part 6
The Hugh Hewitt Show
2-14-07 at 3:29 AM

http://hughhewitt.townhall.com/Transcript_Page.aspx?ContentGuid=18630115-142f-4edf-bd40-085ede8215bb

(Snip)

HH: Dr. Barnett, you describe the United States as globalization’s bodyguard. Can you expand on that a little bit?


TB: Well, I think we have to understand that basically, we’re globalization’s source code. Our country, in terms of the model we represent, as an economic and political union, really gives rise to the sort of model of globalization that comes out from the experience of the Second World War, after that colonial globalization model of the Europeans kind of self destructed in a massive civil war that raged over 1914-1945. Our model of globalization, transparency, collective security, free trade, free markets, a kind of a leviathan over all of us in the form of the federal government, that’s the role that in effect, we walk into after the Second World War. So we played bodyguard to globalization’s spread around the planet. It doesn’t mean that we’re the ruler. I like to say globalization comes with rules, but not a ruler. So we have to understand the limitations of that, and we have to understand that our application of military force needs to be contextualized within some larger rule set, that we get the rest of the advanced powers of the world, not everybody on the planet, not every Podunk country, but the big powers need to agree upon so that we understand collectively under what conditions it makes sense for us to wage war, and we’re not going off doing things others can’t support.


HH: Now you posed the question which I’m sure many anti-interventionists are having, are forming as they yell at the radio. Quote from Page 301: “What gives America the right to render judgment of right and wrong, or good versus rogue? If America takes on the worst offenders in order to extend the core’s rule sets, then why not take on all offenders? Why not just admit we run an empire?” Why not, Dr. Barnett?


TB: Well, because an empire is about enforcing maximal rule sets, what you must do. And what we do is we enforce minimal rule sets. That’s the nature of our political system, you know, what’s not written into law is everything you can do. That’s different from other parts of the world. I remember being almost arrested in the Soviet Union in 1984 for playing Frisbee in a park, and the cop came up to me and said that’s against the law. And I said where is it written, and he said buddy, it’s not written that you can play Frisbee in a park. And that’s how most of the world is governed. But our system has always been based on the notion that if it’s not written down as prohibited, then it’s basically fair game. And that’s the way we’ve ruled the world, if you want to call it that, as we basically enforced minimal rule sets, certain bad things that you must refrain from, so that we can have a relatively stable and free flow of commerce around the planet. You know, the most minimal rule set we’ve pursued throughout our history, and it’s the reason why we had a Navy all these years, is simple freedom of the sea, because in the global economy right up the Second World War, that was basically the only rule you needed. Just keep the fees free, and global commerce can move effectively. But it’s a lot more complex now. I mean, it’s not just sea travel, it’s air travel, it’s networks, it’s all sorts of connectivity that we can barely control, much less understand, and it just behooves us to understand that our role has expanded, and yet we’re not an empire. We don’t seek political control over places. We don’t seek to enforce maximal rules. We seek to keep a level playing field. And others like us in that role. That’s why nobody’s built a force to counter us over the last 17 years, despite all those predictions from realists that it was inevitable.
(Snip)

[Trailerpark Badass]

Exactly. Power corrupts. It's inherint in the nature of power. There's no getting around it. Absolute power kills absolutely as well.

And the most frightening thing is that those in power can convince themselves of the moral rectitude of their exertions, giving them a stamina and zeal lacked by mere evildoers.

[Mr. Jeeves]

The only way to change world opinion is to simply stop intervening. After about ten years and a few million dead, their vision will begin to clear remarkably.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Is it possible that we're placing ourselves in a bad position by caring so much about enemy civilians?

We do so because we cling to this romantic ideal that the poor, oppressed civilians are helpless under the tyrant's boot - when in most cases, a sizable percentage of the population supports the tyrant (in return for a share of the spoils) and is directly responsible for his enduring rule.

I don't think it's possible in most cases to "free" a people from tyranny. Once we are gone, spoils-seekers will put a new tyrant right back in power. The poor goatherds who at the bottom of society won't have a say in matters either way.

If a nation threatens us, we should reserve the right to utterly destroy their capability to wage war. Short of that, we can only be a good example - and we could start by focusing energy on removing some of our own Federal tyrant class.

[Kaslin]

Ping

[Alouette]

Jack Bauer: "George Bush is my real father."

[BuffaloJack]

Thanks. This is an excellent and informative post.
"... the existence of Israel causes Muslims to kill Hindus, Buddhists, pagans and Christians across the planet."
For clarification there is a little redundancy here. We shouldn't confuse 'pagans' with 'heathens'. The term 'pagan' was applied to various cultures that embraced parts of Buddhist philosophies as Buddhism spread West a couple of millenia ago. The term Pagan was derived from the City of Pagan, Burma. Pagan was the capital city of Buddhist culture at the time of Christ. Those sect, cults and religions of Europe that adopted parts of this belief system (including the Celts of the British Isles) were referred to as pagan religions. Over time the association with Buddhism was lost to most people and only the term pagan remained.

[neverdem]

The Assault on the Grunts

The War Within Islam - The growing danger of the Sunni-Shiite rivalry. (Christopher Hitchens)

A Global Intelligence Briefing For CEOs by Herbert Meyer

From time to time, I’ll ping on noteworthy articles about politics, foreign and military affairs. FReepmail me if you want on or off my list.

[Stars&StripesNE]

Great thread, thanks.

[tet68]

I would first apologize to all the widows and orphans, the tortured and impoverished, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. Then I would announce, in all sincerity, to every corner of the world, that America's global interventions have come to an end."


Go ahead, FINISH IT!!!

...end that...America's global largess has come to an end, no more foreign aid of any kind, what so ever. Zero , zip , nada. Have a nice day.