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- PARIS - One hundred years
ago, most
people earnestly believed the dawning 20th century would bring
a golden
age of technology-based prosperity, reason in human conduct, an
end to
war, and remarkable advancement of all mankind.
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- Instead of a golden era of humanism, the 20th Century
became the bloodiest era in the past 1,000 years. To avoid repeating the
crimes and horrors of the century just past, we must study -- and restudy
-- its political heroes and villains. The heroes may not return, but the
villains and their malevolent thinking certainly will. Study history, as
Santayana warned, or relive it.
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- VILLAINS
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- + Heinrich Himmler -- A sadist and monster,
Himmler
made his SS organization into an industrial scale killing
machine of Jews
and other `inferior' races. His racist brutality turned
the Ukraine and
western Russia against the Germans, who had been
welcomed as liberators
from Stalin. Small-minded, arrogant, and
efficient, he personified the
worst in the German psyche.
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- + Adolf Hitler -- A frustrated
artist who saw
himself as the `Nordic Christ,' and Germans as `the
chosen people,' Hitler
was the almost inevitable result of Germany's
humiliation after World War
I. An idealist, he was determined to better
mankind by purging the world
of inferior races and peoples -- and
smokers. Hitler's Reich murdered 12
million people, half of them Jews.
If Britain had the right to colonial
rule over India and Egypt, Hitler
asked, why did Germany not have the right
to rule Poland and Russia? In
1942, Hitler told the Duce, `My dearest wish
would be able to wander
about in Italy as an unknown painter.' Hitler rightly
predicted the
Soviet Union would become a mortal peril to Europe and America.
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- + Josef Stalin -- Genghis Khan with
tanks. An
extraordinary monster, the biggest mass murderer since the
Mongols -- perhaps
the biggest in all history. Everyone was Stalin's
enemy. Power was everything.
Stalin presided over the murder of 40
million of his own people and the
imprisonment of tens of millions of
Russians and East Europeans. The master
terrorist of all time, Stalin
knew how to conjure fear and obedience on
a mass scale. He repeatedly
outwitted the bumbling Roosevelt and Churchill
and infiltrated their
governments with his agents. A despot whose names
inspires fear and
respect (in Russia) to this day. The real victor of WWII
in
Europe.
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- + Lazar
Kaganovitch -- Stalin called him `my Himmler.'
Kaganovitch
personally supervised the murder of 6-7 million Ukrainian peasants
in
the mid-1930's -- a decade before Hitler's crimes -- and went on to
organize the mass murder of 2 million Muslims in the Caucasus and
deportation
of another 2 million to Siberia. This work continues today
as Russian forces
complete their Mongol-style destruction of tiny
Chechnya.
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- + Kim Il Sung
-- North Korea's communist despot,
Kim, who began the Korean War that
killed over 2 million of his people,
was noteworthy for creating --
along with Albania's Enver Hoxha -- the
most lunatic totalitarian
regime on earth, turning North Koreans into brainwashed
robots, an
Orwellian monstrosity that still persists.
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- + Vladimir Lenin -- Falsely portrayed by
historical
revisionists as the `good' communist whose ideas were later
corrupted,
Lenin was, in fact, the father of the system of `Red Terror'
which resulted
in the death of some 40 million Soviet citizens from
1922-1953. Stalin
merely expanded on and perfected the
institutionalized repression created
by the utterly ruthless,
brilliant, iron-willed Lenin who was determined
to impose marxism on
the world. Life meant nothing; the Party was everything,
according to
this perverted genius, the very worst of the many bloody-minded
intellectuals who brought untold suffering to this century.
-
- + Mao Zedong -- Brilliant,
determined, visionary,
colorful, Mao defeated the nationalists and
Japan, and unified China. Two
million `landlords' were shot. Mao woke
China from centuries of sleep,
and laid the basis for a modern nation.
But he created a grim, totalitarian
police state that rivaled Stalin's
USSR. Mao's`reforms,' so lauded by the
CBC and western liberal
admirers, bankrupted China and led to the death
of 30 million peasants.
The Cultural Revolution unleashed by the dying
Mao killed another 2
million people and saw China's greatest art treasures
destroyed, the
worst act of cultural vandalism in modern history.
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- + Mengistu Haile Mariam -- The bloodiest of
Africa's
modern tyrants, in 1973 Mariam overthrew Emperor Haile
Selassie and embarked
on the communization of Ethiopia under Soviet
guidance. Farmers who resisted
collectivization were denied food and
seeds: 1.5 million were starved to
death while fuddled Canada aided the
Mengistu regime, even flying food
to its troops. Hundreds of thousands
of Ethiopians were tortured and murdered.
Today, mass murderer Mengistu
resides comfortably in exile in Tanzania
while Chile's former leader,
Gen. Pinochet, is held by Britain on flimsy
Spanish charges his
security forces killed 2,600 marxist rebels and civilians.
-
- + Benito Mussolini -- A strutting
popinjay, a
windbag, a buffoon from comic opera, he made Italy look
very silly. Though
largely inoffensive in Europe, the Duce's Fascist
Legions used poison gas
and concentration camps extensively in Libya
and Ethiopia. Mussolini was
a great orator, great dresser, and made the
trains run on time -- until
bombed to smithereens by the Allies. Clever
Italians have managed to convince
most people that they were actually
on the Allied side during WWII. Though
a very minor malefactor,
Mussolini proved even fools can be dangerous.
-
- + Pol Pot -- A vicious teacher turned ideologue,
he combined the worst of Cambodian nationalism with Maoist ideology and
dementia. Pot and his Khmer Rouge sought to create a perfect agrarian
society
-- led by the communist party -- by killing anyone with an
education. A
million Cambodians were slaughtered in the name of
`agrarian reform.'
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- +
Franklin Roosevelt -- A clever, flamboyant American
leader
idolized by Democrats as the greatest president. But recent revelations
from Soviet KGB archives show FDR's administration was riddled with
communist
agents and sympathizers who ended up virtually directing US
foreign policy
during the war. Roosevelt (and Churchill) prolonged the
war and aided the
Soviet advance into Eastern Europe by refusing to
negotiate a surrender
with Germany. In effect, Roosevelt defeated a
lesser tyrant -- Hitler --
by allying himself to a far greater criminal
-- Stalin, who had killed
tens of millions of people before 1939. At
Yalta, Roosevelt and Churchill
gave half of Europe to Stalin in payment
for defeating Hitler.
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- +
Woodrow Wilson -- Named here not because he
was an evil man, but
because he was a good man whose wrongheaded idealism
helped create the
greatest disaster of the century: the end of World War
I and its
aftermath. Gulled by British propaganda, Wilson foolishly sent
American
troops to fight on the Western Front, thus giving victory to the
Allies
in a previously stalemated war. Had US troops stayed out of the
conflict, the Allies and Central Powers would have come to a negotiated
peace settlement that punished no nation for a war that began virtually
by accident. This would very likely have prevented the century's two worst
scourges: the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia and the rise of the Nazis
in Germany. Instead, Wilson watched helplessly as Britain and France
ground
Germany into the dust and carved up the empires of their
defeated foes
-- leading directly to today's conflicts in the Balkans
and Middle East.
-
- + Papa Doc
Duvalier -- The consummate master of
evil. A country doctor turned
despot, Francois Duvalier imposed a reign
of terror over Haiti that was
exceptional for the supernatural fear he
inflicted on his people. High
priest of Ongan (voodoo), and a ruthless
dictator, Papa Doc was said to
read people's minds and turn the dead into
zombies. The most
frightening person this writer has met.
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- HEROES
-
- + Konrad Adenauer -- Took over leadership of a
ruined, defeated, disgraced Germany, in 1949, which was still under
foreign
occupation. In fourteen years, the Adenauer government
organized the rebuilding
of Germany from rubble, its restoration to
international respectability,
and its re-emergence as a world power.
Dignified, stern and upright, Adenauer
symbolized all that was good in
the old Germany.
-
- + Winston
Churchill -- A deeply flawed hero. A
great war leader, historian,
and brilliant actor who brought out the pride
and valor of Britons. But
Churchill, the century's most ardent imperialist
and leader of
Britain's war pro-war faction in two world wars, was so blinded
by his
hatred of Germany, that he ended up destroying the British Empire,
and,
with Roosevelt, handing half of Europe over to Stalin's tyranny. Hitler,
not Churchill, saved Britain in 1940 by refusing to destroy the trapped
British armies at Dunkerque and declining to invade prostrate England --
in vain hope of an Anglo-German alliance against the USSR.
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- + Charles DeGaulle -- A majestic
figure of profound
dignity, foresight, moral energy, determination and
style. He almost single-handedly
saved France from the ignominy of
defeat by Germany in 1940, rekindling
the pride, elan, and power of his
great nation. DeGaulle was the only Allied
leader who understood the
Soviet threat. After the war, his embrace of
old foe Germany laid the
foundation for united Europe. In spite of the
spiteful mockery of his
Anglo-American allies, among the greatest of the
great.
-
- + Deng Xioping -- Deng seized power
in China after
Mao's death in 1976 and ended the dementia of the
Cultural Revolution that
killed 2 million people and nearly destroyed
China. In 20 years, Great
Reformer Deng transformed China from a vast,
impoverished prison camp into
a dynamic nation destined to become a
world power. Deng deftly dismantled
communism and Mao's totalitarian
system, releasing the Chinese peoples'
inherent energy and talent, and
brought China into modern world. Under
Deng, the income of Chinese
jumped tenfold. Deng laid the foundation for
a future more politically
relaxed China that resembles modern Singapore.
History will hold Deng a
greater revolutionary than Mao Tse-tung.
-
- + Dwight Eisenhower -- The best president of the
20th Century and the finest American. Eisenhower personified the admirable
qualities of Americans: energy, simplicity, forthrightness, confidence,
and decency. Eisenhower's years as president marked the high point of good
government and civic values -- before made-for-television politicians
degraded
and besmirched and cheapened the presidency. I like
Ike.
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- + Mohandas Gandhi
-- The greatest Indian of the
millenium. A leader spiritual and
temporal who combined moral saintliness
with political cunning and
inspiring leadership. Gandhi's crusade for non-violence,
human rights,
religious tolerance and aiding the helpless were a beacon
of light in
the 20th Century's darkness -- particularly since he did so
on a vast
subcontinent where none of these qualities were known. Though
the
racist Churchill dismissed Gandhi as `a half-naked fakir,' the Indian
sage will likely be regarded by future historians as the noblest and most
important human being of the 20th Century- and, of course, the father of
Indian independence.
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- +
Mikhail Gorbachev -- A tragic yet admirable
figure who did not
understand that communism was not an economic system,
but one of mass
control and intimidation. Gorbachev's attempts to reform
and modernize
communism, and the even more important rejection of class
struggle and
international revolution by Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze,
destroyed the Evil Empire that was Soviet Union. Gorbachev's refusal to
use tanks to crush nationalist uprising in the USSR and Eastern Europe,
and his withdrawal of Soviet forces from Germany, saved the world from
a war that could have easily gone nuclear. Today, he is reviled by
Russians.
History, however, will view him as man who was too decent and
humane to
perpetuate the Soviet Empire.
-
- + David Ben Gurion -- Modern patriarch of the
Jewish people, he led his people out of the wilderness of the Holocaust
into the promised land of Israel. A man of Biblical majesty and enormous
inner power, without Ben Gurion the state of Israel may not have
succeeded.
Tragically, the price of the Jewish homeland was the
eviction of a million
Palestinians from their ancestral homeland, a
problem which has yet to
be resolved half a century later.
-
- + Pope John Paul II -- Stalin once
asked, sarcastically,
`how many divisions has the Pope?' The answer
came three decades later
in the form of Pope John Paul II. This Polish
warrior pope helped raise
the storm winds that finally blew down the
evil edifice of communism and
freed the long- suffering peoples of
Eastern Europe who had been condemned
by Roosevelt and Churchill at
Yalta to Soviet totalitarian rule. Great
warrior, great humanist, he
renewed the vigor and teachings of the Catholic
Church, and expelled
the marxist priests who had infested it. If there
ever was a true
saint, it is John Paul II. The greatest pope since the
Renaissance.
-
- + Jean
Juares -- French humanitarian, thinker
and martyr, his voice
thundered at the beginning of the century for the
rights of the common
man. His calls for Franco-German brotherhood presage
the European
Union. Juares was assassinated for opposing France's entry
into World
War I, the greatest disaster of the century.
-
- + Imam Ruhollah Khomeini -- A Shia cleric of enormous
moral stature, he sparked an historic revolution in Iran that overthrew
the US-run regime of the vainglorious, thieving, hated Shah, Reza Pahlavi,
freeing Iran from 30- years of western exploitation, inspiring Islamic
revolutionaries from Morocco to the Philippines. Khomeini showed that
ideas
and faith were more powerful than police states.
-
- + Gamal Abdel Nasser -- Nasser
electrified the
entire Third World and personified the struggle against
British and French
colonialism. Though he suffered disastrous military
defeats and economic
failures, Nasser still managed to instill a sense
of pride and manhood
in the demoralized Arab and Muslim world. His
strength, honesty, concern
for his people, and determination to restore
Egypt's long lost dignity,
made Nasser a titan among Mideast leaders.
Egyptians still call him El
Rais' the boss.
-
- + Ronald Reagan -- A simple man wise enough to
know right from wrong in a confusing, morally ambiguous world, Reagan,
like Eisenhower, brimmed with optimism and decency. Intellectuals and the
media scoffed at him, but ordinary Americans knew what a truly great and
good man Reagan was. Against all advice, Reagan challenged the Soviet
Empire
and defeated this scourge of mankind. His impending death will
break America's
heart.
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- +
Margaret Thatcher -- A grocer's daughter who
managed to overcome
Britain's poisonous class structure, restore the jejune
Conservative
Party, and rescue her nation from the swamp of socialism into
which it
was sinking fast. The toughest politician in Britain, she and
Ronald
Reagan led the free world to victory in the Cold War. Thatcher is
the
greatest woman of the century.
-
- + Theodore Roosevelt -- A true man's president.
Adventurer, outdoorsman, explorer, Teddy Roosevelt captured the robust
spirit of a young, dynamic America and the wild west. When an American
named Ian Pedicaris was kidnapped by the Barbar chieftan El-Rasaouli,
Teddy
R. wired him, "Pedicaris alive, or El-Rasaouli dead." A
bully
president and a memorable American.
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- MARGOLIS
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