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Title: The Top 5 Most Evil Empires Ever
Source:
Destro
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Published: Dec 22, 2006
Author: Destro
Post Date: 2006-12-22 12:31:12 by Destro
Keywords: None
Views: 249
Comments: 26
The Top 5 Most Evil Empires Ever 5) Assyrians: The Assyrians were the first true terror state. Assyria ruled via terror - population reductions and deportation. They invented systematic genocide and ethnic cleansing. For the first time in history the idea of centralization was introduced into politics; the conquered provinces were organized under an elaborate bureaucracy at the head of which was the king, each district paying a fixed tribute and providing a military contingent. This was the first truly military society of history. No effort was spared which would contribute to the efficiency of the army, or which would assure continued Assyrian supremacy over all possible foes. Terror was another factor contributing greatly to Assyrian success. Their exceptional cruelty and ferocity were possibly reflections of callousness developed over centuries of defense of their homeland against savage enemies. But theirs was also a calculated policy of terror -— possibly the earliest example of organized psychological warfare. It was not unusual for them to kill every man, woman, and child in captured cities. Sometimes they would carry away entire populations into captivity. The policies and procedures of Assyria were employed with vigor and ferocity by and proved invaluable in maintaining security. 4) Aztecs: The Aztec empire should really count as one of the worst of the bunch but it only comes in at number four because their impact on world history was isolated. The Aztecs rules an empire that was rooted in a religion that required warfare to obtain human sacrifices. The Aztecs ruled their empire the way a cattle baron runs his ranch. The subjugated people under Aztec rule existed as stocks to keep the Aztec need for human sacrifices going as well as serving as a source of protein in times of famine. While human sacrifice was practiced throughout Mesoamerica, the Aztecs, if their own accounts are to be believed, brought this practice to an unprecedented level. For example, for the reconsecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed 84,400 prisoners over the course of four days, reportedly by Ahuitzotl, the Great Speaker himself. The Aztecs covered their holy buildings and temples with human body parts and painted their inner holy sanctums with human blood. The smell of rotting human flesh was a pleasing aroma for them. Clearly they belong on the list in the top five. 3) Nazi Germany: For initiating wars of race and ideology on the world that totals and estimated human loss of life, irrespective of political alignment, at roughly 62 million people. The civilian toll was around 37 million, the military toll about 25 million. The Allies lost around 51 million people, and the Axis lost 11 million. For initiating concentration camps and death camps for civilians that killed millions. For making byproducts from human bodies and experimenting on them. The reason the Nazis are in the number three slot is that they only were in power for 12 years. 2) Communist nations: Since this was a semi-cohesive movement I have combined their crimes under the Red banner rather than single out if the USSR was worse that the Red Chinese, etc. According to "The Black Book of Communism" Communist regimes...turned mass crime into a full-blown system of government". Using unofficial estimates he cites a death toll which totals 94 million. and in my opinion trump the Nazis only because their reign of terror lasted longer - about 80 years. 1) Ottoman Turkey: This is a controversial pick for number one on the terror list but the Ottoman Turks ruled their empire - an empire based on control through terror for over 500 years. They kept subjugated people under their yoke through mass killings, population movements and forced conversations. Their victim totals are incalculable because the Turkish terror state lasted for so long. The Turks declared their state a warrior or <> state. In other words, a state that was bound to declare holy war (Jihad) against the non-believers. This way, they were able to bring together all kinds of adventurers, who were willing to fight either for ideological reasons, or for just the spoils of the war. They adopted the inhumane measure of forcibly recruiting young Christian children. In other words, they forcibly took male children of the enslaved Christian families (mainly Greeks. and later also Armenians Bulgarians, Albanians and Serbs), and brought them up in special camps They conditioned them to become fanatic Turks and relentless killers to their own people. These children would grow up to believe that their father was the Sultan and that if they were to die in battle they would go to heaven. Thus, because of this New Army, or Janissaries, (Yeni-ceri in Turkish) the Turks continued to pursue their conquests. They slaughtered systematically millions of Asia Minor's inhabitants, in order to change the ethnic character of the land. It has been estimated that during the seven centuries of Turkish presence in Asia Minor several millions of Greeks, at least two-three million Armenians and hundreds of thousands of Kurds, Syrians, but also Serbs, and Bulgarians in Europe, were systematically massacred. In the 20th century alone, it has been estimated that approximately 1,5 million Armenians and more than 1 million Greeks were exterminated. In this manner, the Turks managed to hold on to Asia Minor, a foreign land for them, where Greek civilizations had flourished for 2.000 years before the appearance of the Turks. The Turks just destroyed these civilizations and unfortunately did not even try to take advantage of its accomplishments. In two previous occasions the Greek people contributed in civilizing their conquerors, as was the case with the Romans and the Franks. One must possess a cultural identity to be able to absorb what is creative and good from other civilizations. Unfortunately, the conquering Turks lacked such an identity. The Turks also failed to administer their subject peoples within the Ottoman Empire. There were no <> in the civilized sense of the word. The Sultan's word was the law in the capital and arbitrary rule of local representatives was the law in the provinces. The property, honor, and life of the conquered were completely at the mercy of the occasional Turkish official. The only bond that kept the multiethnic empire together was the crude use of force-ultimately the butchery-of the rulers. Slaughter was the rule without concern for innocence or guilt. Under these conditions the Turkish administration was truly detestable to all the subject people who suffered and patiently waited for each opportunity to throw off the Ottoman yoke. The Turks failed to assimilate the various nationalities within their empire. They could not also administer them efficiently, not even control the economy because commerce and industry was left in the hands of the Greeks, Armenians and Jews, while the Turks kept busy with governing and simultaneously exploiting the profits while terrorizing the inhabitants. For the enslaved people to be finally liberated from their rulers there took place a series of revolutions, which led to the establishment of independent states. In 1908 the Young Turk revolution forced the Sultan to grant a constitution to the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. In spite of the apparent liberalism of the formally bourgeois revolution, which was spearheaded by the military without the participation of the people, there continued to develop additional centrifugal tendencies as they did in the times of the Sultan's despotism. For those nations still within the Empire whose fellow nationals had established independent states, e. g. the Greeks- it was natural for them to seek union with their free compatriots. Those peoples still within the Empire that had not attained separate statehood, e.g. the Armenians, and the Kurds, focused all their energies towards the attainment of self-determination and the establishment of autonomous national homelands. The Young Turks sought to rid themselves of troublesome non-Turkish ethnic groups so that they could build a homogeneous Turkish state and so they could avoid further mutilation of Turkish controlled territory in areas where non-Turks were in the majority, such as Eastern Thrace, Western Asia Minor and Pontos, where the Greeks were in the majority, Eastern Asia Minor where the Armenians were in the majority and, Southeastern Asia Minor where the Kurds were in the majority. Thus, the supposedly liberal and constitutionally oriented Young Turks returned to the usual Sultanic abrasiveness and brutality, which now became much more organized and systematic and assumed genocidal proportions. The massacres were premeditated: It was decided that <>, This was stated in the L o n d o n T i m e s on the 3rd of October 1911 summarizing the proceedings of the Council of Union and Progress (The Young Turks). At first, the persecutions took place against the Greeks, made under the pretext of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). Persecution took the form of lootings, expulsions and murders. After the wars, persecution continued even more intensively, to the point where on the 25 of May 1914 the Ecumenical Patriarchate was forced to declare that the Orthodox Church was <>. The Patriarchate, further, in a show of protest and mourning, suspended the activities of Greek churches and Greek schools throughout Turkey. After the declaration of World War I, the Turks found the perfect opportunity to organize more effectively the massacres against ethnic minorities, so that they could finally transform their empire into a homogeneous nation-state. Prominent officers of the Young Turks movement, while serving as members of the government, organized the expulsion of the inhabitants as well as the lootings and massacres that were perpetrated against them. Specifically, Talaat Pasha, minister of the interior, was prominent as the mastermind of the pogroms. However, the entire Turkish state administration participated in the organization and the execution of the extermination program. They began with the genocide of the Armenians, who did not possess a state, which would rush to their aid and followed it up with mass expulsions and massacres of the Greeks. The victims of this period are over 2.5 million people of which 1.5 million were Armenians. In the chronological Index one can see detailed figures regarding the persecution of the Greeks of Asia Minor, Thrace and Pontos. After the end of World War I, the Allies recognized that the Turkish government could not protect the property, honor, and life of the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire. They assigned to Greece the responsibility to administer Eastern Thrace and the Smyrna district. This arrangement was contained in the Treaty of Sevres. Simultaneously, there was established a separate and independent Pontian state. In 1920, Alexander Millerand, president of the Supreme Allied Council stated: <>. The Turkish government signed the Treaty of Sevres but Mustafa Kemal refused to recognize it. After 40 long months of war, during which Kemal's forces secured considerable foreign assistance, the Greek military front in Anatolia collapsed. The Turks reoccupied Asia Minor and entered Smyrna on September 8, 1922. In Smyrna, in the meantime, there was an influx of refugees from various parts of Asia Minor. And the conquering Turks set the city on fire and unleashed the last phase of the genocide against the Greeks and Armenians. These were moments of unbelievable horror. The pier turned red by the blood of the victims. The bishop of Smyrna Chrysostomos was publicly ridiculed and then slaughtered. Events were too horrible to even describe. The American Consul in Smyrna, George Horton, gives a detailed and objective picture of the chilling Turkish crimes in his book T h e B l i g h t o f A s i a (Indianapolis: Bobb and Merryl, 1925). The Treaty of Lausanne ended the Greek-Turkish war and imposed the unjust and mandatory exchange of 300,000 Turks from Greece for the 1,400,000 Greeks that survived the holocaust. The Greek refugees of Asia Minor, without being consulted had to give up their ancestral homes to the Turks, after almost 4,000 years of glorious and productive history. Through the unjust actions of massacre and persecution of Greeks and Armenians, the contemporary Turkish state was thus created. It was a state founded on crime, the state about which French prime minister George Clemanceau said on the 25th of June, 1919: <>. On the 26th of November 1979, the New York Times wrote quite characteristically: <> (After the massacres of many hundreds of thousands). While the total number of dead due to the policies of the Turks may be less than that of the Communists they get pride of place because of their longevity. For 700 years the Turks were the epitome of the 'evil empire'. Even the Mongols halted their depravities when combat ended - but not so the Turks who incorporated it into a constant tool state policy. Even though human justice has not yet punished the Turks, one may believe that there is a Divine Justice to which the Turks will sooner or later be answerable.
Poster Comment: My own list - please feel free to expand and or comment on.
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#1. To: All (#0)
(Edited)
The last part should read: 1) Ottoman Turkey: This is a controversial pick for number one on the terror list but the Ottoman Turks ruled their empire - an empire based on control through terror for over 500 years. They kept subjugated people under their yoke through mass killings, population movements and forced conversations. Their victim totals are incalculable because the Turkish terror state lasted for so long. They declared their state a warrior or "Gaz" state. In other words, a state that was bound to declare holy war (Jihad) against the non-believers. This way, they were able to bring together all kinds of adventurers, who were willing to fight either for ideological reasons, or for just the spoils of the war. They adopted the inhumane measure of forcibly recruiting young Christian children. In other words, they forcibly took male children of the enslaved Christian families (mainly Greeks. and later also Armenians Bulgarians, Albanians and Serbs), and brought them up in special camps They conditioned them to become fanatic Turks and relentless killers to their own people. These children would grow up to believe that their father was the Sultan and that if they were to die in battle they would go to heaven. Thus, because of this New Army, or Janissaries, (Yeni-ceri in Turkish) the Turks continued to pursue their conquests. They slaughtered systematically millions of Asia Minor's inhabitants, in order to change the ethnic character of the land. It has been estimated that during the seven centuries of Turkish presence in Asia Minor several millions of Greeks, at least two-three million Armenians and hundreds of thousands of Kurds, Syrians, but also Serbs, and Bulgarians in Europe, were systematically massacred. In the 20th century alone, it has been estimated that approximately 1,5 million Armenians and more than 1 million Greeks were exterminated. In this manner, the Turks managed to hold on to Asia Minor, a foreign land for them, where Greek civilizations had flourished for 2.000 years before the appearance of the Turks. The Turks just destroyed these civilizations and unfortunately did not even try to take advantage of its accomplishments. In two previous occasions the Greek people contributed in civilizing their conquerors, as was the case with the Romans and the Franks. One must possess a cultural identity to be able to absorb what is creative and good from other civilizations. Unfortunately, the conquering Turks lacked such an identity. The Turks also failed to administer their subject peoples within the Ottoman Empire. There were no "laws" in the civilized sense of the word. The Sultan's word was the law in the capital and arbitrary rule of local representatives was the law in the provinces. The property, honor, and life of the conquered were completely at the mercy of the occasional Turkish official. The only bond that kept the multiethnic empire together was the crude use of force-ultimately the butchery-of the rulers. Slaughter was the rule without concern for innocence or guilt. Under these conditions the Turkish administration was truly detestable to all the subject people who suffered and patiently waited for each opportunity to throw off the Ottoman yoke. The Turks failed to assimilate the various nationalities within their empire. They could not also administer them efficiently, not even control the economy because commerce and industry was left in the hands of the Greeks, Armenians and Jews, while the Turks kept busy with governing and simultaneously exploiting the profits while terrorizing the inhabitants. For the enslaved people to be finally liberated from their rulers there took place a series of revolutions, which led to the establishment of independent states. In 1908 the Young Turk revolution forced the Sultan to grant a constitution to the remnants of the Ottoman Empire. In spite of the apparent liberalism of the formally bourgeois revolution, which was spearheaded by the military without the participation of the people, there continued to develop additional centrifugal tendencies as they did in the times of the Sultan's despotism. For those nations still within the Empire whose fellow nationals had established independent states, e. g. the Greeks- it was natural for them to seek union with their free compatriots. Those peoples still within the Empire that had not attained separate statehood, e.g. the Armenians, and the Kurds, focused all their energies towards the attainment of self- determination and the establishment of autonomous national homelands. The Young Turks sought to rid themselves of troublesome non-Turkish ethnic groups so that they could build a homogeneous Turkish state and so they could avoid further mutilation of Turkish controlled territory in areas where non- Turks were in the majority, such as Eastern Thrace, Western Asia Minor and Pontos, where the Greeks were in the majority, Eastern Asia Minor where the Armenians were in the majority and, Southeastern Asia Minor where the Kurds were in the majority. Thus, the supposedly liberal and constitutionally oriented Young Turks returned to the usual Sultanic abrasiveness and brutality, which now became much more organized and systematic and assumed genocidal proportions. The massacres were premeditated: It was decided that "the Ottomanisation of all Turkish citizens, which never succeeded through persuasion, had to be done by the force of arms", This was stated in the L o n d o n T i m e s on the 3rd of October 1911 summarizing the proceedings of the Council of Union and Progress (The Young Turks). At first, the persecutions took place against the Greeks, made under the pretext of the Balkan Wars (1912-1913). Persecution took the form of lootings, expulsions and murders. After the wars, persecution continued even more intensively, to the point where on the 25 of May 1914 the Ecumenical Patriarchate was forced to declare that the Orthodox Church was "under attack". The Patriarchate, further, in a show of protest and mourning, suspended the activities of Greek churches and Greek schools throughout Turkey. After the declaration of World War I, the Turks found the perfect opportunity to organize more effectively the massacres against ethnic minorities, so that they could finally transform their empire into a homogeneous nation-state. Prominent officers of the Young Turks movement, while serving as members of the government, organized the expulsion of the inhabitants as well as the lootings and massacres that were perpetrated against them. Specifically, Talaat Pasha, minister of the interior, was prominent as the mastermind of the pogroms. However, the entire Turkish state administration participated in the organization and the execution of the extermination program. They began with the genocide of the Armenians, who did not possess a state, which would rush to their aid and followed it up with mass expulsions and massacres of the Greeks. The victims of this period are over 2.5 million people of which 1.5 million were Armenians. In the chronological Index one can see detailed figures regarding the persecution of the Greeks of Asia Minor, Thrace and Pontos. After the end of World War I, the Allies recognized that the Turkish government could not protect the property, honor, and life of the Greeks in the Ottoman Empire. They assigned to Greece the responsibility to administer Eastern Thrace and the Smyrna district. This arrangement was contained in the Treaty of Sevres. Simultaneously, there was established a separate and independent Pontian state. In 1920, Alexander Millerand, president of the Supreme Allied Council stated: "The Turkish government not only failed in its duty to protect its non- Turkish citizens from the looting, violence and murders, but there are many indications that the Turkish government itself was responsible for directing and organizing the most cruel attacks against the populations, which it was supposed to protect. For these reasons, the Allied powers have decided to liberate from the Turkish yoke all the lands where the majority of the people were non-Turks". The Turkish government signed the Treaty of Sevres but Mustafa Kemal refused to recognize it. After 40 long months of war, during which Kemal's forces secured considerable foreign assistance, the Greek military front in Anatolia collapsed. The Turks reoccupied Asia Minor and entered Smyrna on September 8, 1922. In Smyrna, in the meantime, there was an influx of refugees from various parts of Asia Minor. And the conquering Turks set the city on fire and unleashed the last phase of the genocide against the Greeks and Armenians. These were moments of unbelievable horror. The pier turned red by the blood of the victims. The bishop of Smyrna Chrysostomos was publicly ridiculed and then slaughtered. Events were too horrible to even describe. The American Consul in Smyrna, George Horton, gives a detailed and objective picture of the chilling Turkish crimes in his book T h e B l i g h t o f A s i a (Indianapolis: Bobb and Merryl, 1925). The Treaty of Lausanne ended the Greek-Turkish war and imposed the unjust and mandatory exchange of 300,000 Turks from Greece for the 1,400,000 Greeks that survived the holocaust. The Greek refugees of Asia Minor, without being consulted had to give up their ancestral homes to the Turks, after almost 4,000 years of glorious and productive history. Through the unjust actions of massacre and persecution of Greeks and Armenians, the contemporary Turkish state was thus created. It was a state founded on crime, the state about which French prime minister George Clemanceau said on the 25th of June, 1919: "We do not find even one example in Europe, Asia, or Africa, where the imposition of Turkish sovereignty had not been followed by a decline in material prosperity, and by the impoverishment of its culture. Also there does not exist one example where liberation from Turkish control was not followed by the advancement of material prosperity and an improvement of the cultural level. Whether dealing with Christians or Muslims, the Turk has managed to bring destruction wherever he conquered. The Turk has never been able to develop in peace that which he won through conquest". On the 26th of November 1979, the New York Times wrote quite characteristically: "According to the most recent statistics, the Christian population in Turkey was diminished from (4.500.000) at the beginning of this century to just about 150,000. Of those, the Greeks are no more than 7,000 yet, in 1923 they were as many as 1, 2 million" (After the massacres of many hundreds of thousands). Even though human justice has not yet punished the Turks, one may believe that there is a Divine Justice to which the Turks will sooner or later be answerable.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
The British Empire must have been worse than the Aztecs. How about the UK and European Colonialists? Combined they're responsible for a lot of human misery in all 4 corners of the globe. Even when they didn't personally "pull the trigger" they intentionally created political environments that were very destructive.
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." The Armenians in California couldn't agree more.
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." Most interesting - thanks for the work on this post.
While all empires tend to be evil because they rule through compulsion and force there is a case to be made that some empires do contribute something positive to those they rule while other empires contribute nothing positive. India may have suffered under British rule but they were better off under the legacy left behind by the British then say the legacy of Mogul rule had on them.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
What about Africa and South America?
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." What about them? This is my list of the top 5 - you are free to come up with your own reasons and lists.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
You decided India is better off because of the Brits, it's pretty clear that Africa is not. The Portugese and Spaniards were particularly brutal and ruthless slave-traders and colonialists. The Aztecs don't belong on this list. If you're going back as far as the Assyrians, then what about the Roman Empire?
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." Shit, we haven't made the list yet? We've got torture, concentration camps, aggressive warfare, extraordinary renditions, prison guards sodomizing children to get mama to talk, white phosphorus dropped on civilians, massive bombing of civilian targets, a staged murder of 3000 of our own citizens... What does it fucking take to make the list?
the law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal bread.
Just to be a Christmas Contrarian. Depends how you define Empire. The migration outflow out of Europe, beginning in 1500, particularly the settling of, and displacement and destruction of the people already extant, on that part of the North American Continent that came to be known as the United States of America, could qualify.
I know, the balance of good and evil is not tipping in our favor anymore. Thanks to the Bush Cabal, we'll be #1 in no time.
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." that would be cool. 'look, either you peasant fuckers are having a discussion or you'll die, damn you...'
Like hell they don't.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
I corrected my evil typos at number 2
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
Very interesting, didn't realize until the end that you had written this! I expected the Aztecs to be on the list, that was a very odd culture to say the least. Regarding devine justice for the Turks and their crimes, it depends on your beliefs whether people should be punished in this life or the next (if you believe in a next), and individuals should be responsible for their own sins, I don't believe in guilt by DNA. To punish an innocent Turk who has done nothing to hurt anyone would accomplish nothing and be a sin in itself, just my opinion. Very interesting and well-written article though.
The Turks evil policies continue.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
Didn't know that. Most of what I know about them these days is that many of them flood into Germany as immigrants.
While the Romans may not be the absolute worst, they definitley rank high in my list. Their destruction of Carthage was one of many crimes against liberty and humanity in the ancient world. While the Carthaginians were not perfect, they represented the closest thing to a captitalist country that existed in ancient times. It was the eqivalent of wiping Hong Kong off the map. Except that Carthage had a formidable navy. Were it not for several strategic mistakes during the punic wars, Carthage could have won and the world would be a much different (and I would suggest, better) place. There are others that also have left a dubious legacy that most don't think about. The Byzantines, in addition to having a fetish for eye-gouging, created the modern secret-police state that was inherited by the Czars and later passed along to the Soviets.
You are either with the President, or you are for the Bill Of Rights.
Funny thing though, I've met several Turkish nationals here in the USA and I have yet to meet one that I didn't like. Secular and intelligent (and the women are beautiful), I suspect there are many peoples who are the exact opposite of what their governments are like.
You are either with the President, or you are for the Bill Of Rights.
Will Durant calls the destruction of the Indian Hindu Empire and culture one of the greatest tragedies ever, in his book Our Oriental Heritage.
Gruesome and informative, thanks.
"The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer." The Byzantines did not invent the secret police - that was the Spartans. The Byzantines version though was based on the Roman model since the Byzantines themselves were Romans. The Roman empire had many phases. What the Romans did to Carthage (who themselves sacrifices babies to their god) was done by the Roman Republic - also the Roman Republic was responsible for the reduction of the Gauls. Then came the pagan Roman Empire period and then the Christian Roman Empire period and finally the Eastern Roman Empire period which the West started to call 'Byzantine' only recently. As for the Byzantine fetish for eye gouging. Do you know why the Byzantines did that? It was because the Byzantines being devoutly Christians banned capital punishment. But now that they had banned capital punishment the state had to punish her enemies some how and they used blinding their enemies rather than executing them. For example Emperor Basil the Bulgar-Slayer was named thus for how many he killed on the battlefield. He could not as a Christian king kill prisoners of war like the pagan Romans would have done so he blinded the captured Bulgars leaving one man in 100 with one eye to guide the rest home. So I leave it up to you - was that evil? My criteria for evil is based on if I was a peasant farmer living within that empire would I be under constant terror and threat of death? Clearly, this was not the case for a subjugated person under Roman or Byzantine rule. Nor was it the case under the Czars. Believe it or not the Czars pretty much left people alone - Czarist Russia did not even have serfdom until late in its day.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
The Turkish state carried out 3 pogroms against the remaining Greeks in Turkey. One in the 1950s, and 2 in the 1970s - one in Constantinople and the other on Cyprus. In 1950 the population of Greeks in Constantinople numbered 250,000 and now numbers 2,000 souls. The Turks use force to keep at least 250,000 Greeks forced to convert to Islam and Turkishness - the so called Crypto-Greeks of Pontus. The Turks refuse to grant minority rights to Muslim Kurds or to Christian Assyrians. Being Turkish itself is an artificial creation of Ataturk. Turks proper are probably a minority or a plurality in modern Turkey and other non Turkish Anatolian minorities are refused their rights and in fact are forced to forget their identities in Turkey. Turkey is a horrible country kept afloat all these years by the USA as a bulwark against the USSR - without the Cold War aid given Turkey would have fallen apart long ago.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
My list is only the top 5 - I am sure the empire of Timur who left piles of Hindu (and Muslim) corpses along the march of his armies is in the top 10.
"The desire to rule is the mother of heresies." -- St. John Chrysostom
I read Turkey abolished the Ottoman Empire in 1922, they became a member of NATO in 1952, and is a democratic secular republic. It doesn't sound like they are carrying out brutal attacks exterminating people on mass scales or otherwise anymore. And many Europeans go on ski vacations there.
Informative post on the Turks...
#2. To: Destro (#0)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#3. To: Destro (#1)
Even though human justice has not yet punished the Turks, one may believe that there is a Divine Justice to which the Turks will sooner or later be answerable.
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#4. To: Destro (#0)
a village is missing its idiot.
#5. To: robin (#2)
#6. To: Destro (#5)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#7. To: robin (#6)
What about Africa and South America?
#8. To: Destro (#7)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#9. To: Destro (#0)
#10. To: Destro (#0)
#11. To: bluedogtxn (#9)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#12. To: Destro (#0)
They kept subjugated people under their yoke through mass killings, population movements and forced conversations.
#13. To: robin (#8)
The Aztecs don't belong on this list.
#14. To: gengis gandhi (#12)
#15. To: Destro (#0)
#16. To: Diana (#15)
#17. To: Destro (#16)
#18. To: robin, Destro (#8)
If you're going back as far as the Assyrians, then what about the Roman Empire?
#19. To: Destro, Diana (#16)
The Turks evil policies continue.
#20. To: Destro (#0)
#21. To: PnbC (#18)
---Henry Kissinger, New York Times, October 28, 1973
#22. To: PnbC, robin, Destro (#18)
The Byzantines, in addition to having a fetish for eye-gouging, created the modern secret-police state that was inherited by the Czars and later passed along to the Soviets.
#23. To: PnbC, Diana (#19)
(Edited)
#24. To: swarthyguy (#20)
#25. To: Destro (#16)
(Edited)
The Turks evil policies continue.
#26. To: Destro (#23)
(Edited)
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