by Pieter J. Friedrich
12/17/03
Commenting on the capture of Saddam Hussein, Congressman Jim Kolbe (R-AZ) said, "For 35 years, the people of Iraq suffered under the rule of one of the most cruel and vicious tyrants in the history of the world. His capture puts a period to the statement that says the Saddam Hussein era is ended." (The emphasis is my own.)
In my mind's eye I can see Representative Kolbe as a young boy. He is sitting in his high-school World History class enthusiastically arguing in whispers with his fellow "liberal" classmates about how the government shouldn't steal 51.5% of a citizen's income. He tells his classmates that if he ever become a congressman he'll see to it that Congress passes a (temporary) tax cut so that the government will only steal 51% of a citizen's income.
Yes, I can see Rep. Kolbe in my mind's eye, and as I see him I'm thinking that perhaps instead of nit-picking over government theft rates in class he should have been paying closer attention to his World History lessons. After all, Rep. Kolbe's grasp of history is sorely lacking if he truly believes that Saddam Hussein is "one of the most cruel and vicious tyrants in the history of the world." That's all right, though, because Rep. Kolbe is only chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on foreign operations - it's not as though he's the one who decides how much money is set aside for foreign intervention (or as if history would have any influence over such a decision if he were the one in charge of making it).
I have an idea! We should all take five minutes to learn about the tyrants Rep. Kolbe never heard about (I imagine he was defending Republican plans for Medicare the day his World History teacher taught this lesson).
To start with, we'll look at the number of people "one of the most cruel and vicious tyrants in the history of the world" (aka, Saddam Hussein) killed. Authorities charge that Saddam Hussein was responsible for an estimated 450,000 deaths. We will assume those are the deaths of innocents and not of soldiers or Kurdish rebels.
All things considered, former President Hussein's body count strikes me as a bit low. Not to be cold-hearted, but in the Old World (Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia) the murder of 450,000 innocents is peanuts.
Now, class, who are a few of the rulers that killed more people than Mr. Hussein and his government did?
Anyone? Anyone?
One of the first nations that comes to mind is our ally in this Second Gulf War, Britain. Since a look at the body count Britain has racked up over a thousand years might be a tad embarrassing, we'll just look at the score for the past two centuries.
On that oppressed little island known as Ireland (home of my ancestors), very conservative estimates tell us that the number of Irish killed or starved at the hands of the British can be placed at 100,000. In the Boer War, the British put their enemies, the Dutch, in concentration camps...a mere 20,000 of 120,000 of the imprisoned died in those camps
R.J. Rummel, in his book Death By Government, says that the British government was responsible for the murders of 816,000 innocent men, women, and children in the 20th century alone. This nation, dear students, was our closest ally in the war to "liberate" Iraq from the iron rule of Mr. Hussein.
We might also remember the massacres that have taken place at the hands of various tyrannical governments in the 60 years since World War II. In World War II: The Rest of the Story and How it Affects You Today, author Richard Maybury notes the following mass murders:
"In Yugoslavia under Tito, an estimated 1.07 million were murdered.
"In Pakistan between 1958 and 1987, an estimated 1.5 million were murdered.
"In Poland between the end of the Second World War and 1948, almost 1.6 million were murdered.
"In Cambodia between 1975 and 1979, two million were sent to their deaths.
"In Indonesia, in 1965 and 1966, a half-million were murdered.
"No one knows how many people were massacred in the Rwanda-Burundi-Congo fighting during the 1990's. The lowest estimate I have seen is 800,000.
"In Vietnam between 1945 and 1987, an estimated 1.7 million were murdered."
We might also remember that in the 1990's, 2,000,000 Sudanese Christians were murdered.
R.J. Rummel says that in the 20th century alone "170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people."
Impressive so far, is it not? As we continue, I would suggest that my students keep in mind that "one of the most cruel and vicious tyrants in the history of the world" was responsible for a quarter of one percent (0.26% to be exact) of the murders of innocents in the 20th century. Shocking, no?
As I said, the body counts examined so far are impressive, but they become more so. Shall we go on, class?
In the 1940's, President Roosevelt allied with Chiang Kai-Shek, who led the Chinese Kuomintang. Chiang Kai-Shek was responsible for the deaths of 10,214,000 Chinese...and he was an ally.
Kai-Shek was so brutal that the Chinese revolted and overthrew him, and the Red Chinese took over. They were responsible for the murders of 35 million innocents between 1949 and 1987. China is still Red and has been awarded "most favored nation" trading status by the United States.
Have any of you ever heard of a man named Joseph Stalin? He was anally of the U.S. during WWII, so we like to affectionately refer to him as Uncle Joe. As ruler of Soviet Russia, Uncle Joe oversaw the murders of 62 million innocent people (85 to 100 million at outside estimates).
By now perhaps the more astute of my students have noticed that large-scale slaughter is the norm for the Old World.
Since you're all so fascinated by history, you might want to research Tamerlane. He was a Mongolian who lived in the 14th century and conquered Persia, Russia, and India. He only slaughtered an estimated 17 million people.
Then there was another Mongolian emperor named Kublai Khan. This emperor lived in the 13th century and he and his armies killed an estimated 18.4 million people.
If you have the time, you could also consider third century China. In that nation the population was estimated at 50 million before the transition to the "Three Kingdom period" - an estimated 7 million survived that transition.
Richard Maybury says that "in 1984, the Norwegian Academy of Sciences and University of Oslo calculated that since the year 3,600 B.C., there have been more than 14,000 wars. The vast majority of wars have been in the Old World, and they have killed an estimated 3.6 billion - not 3.6 million, 3.6 billion."
War and the slaughter of innocents are commonplace events in the Old World. That's one of the reasons our ancestors fled that world. That's also why the Founding Fathers warned us against forming political alliances with nations in the Old World.
Did we learn anything, class? Yes, we did. We learned that it's propagandistic hogwash to call Mr. Hussein (admittedly a very evil man) "one of the most cruel and vicious tyrants in the history of the world." We learned that some of our congressmen are stupider than they look.
We also learned that massacres occur all the time in the Old World...so maybe it's best to just leave well enough alone and mind our own business, and not arrogantly believe we can stop what has gone for thousands of years.
