An irreverent guide to world history from an Oriental perspective
Dick Cheney, Winston Churchill, and Mother Teresa make the cut
This post first appeared on Russia Insider
Russia and India have been close allies for more than half a century. Yet most Russians know little about India.
This is a country with its own world view, self-sustaining civilization and a history that is remarkably similar to Russia’s. Both countries have been subjected to savage invasions over the past several centuries.
As we enter a new year, here’s an example of the Indian view of evil by an Indian who has been a friend of Russia for longer than he can remember. Don’t look for Russian villains here because Indians have a different perspective – often at odds with the Western one, which alas many Russians are still following.
However, you are unlikely to find fault with this list of nasty people who have caused untold human misery.
9. Yahya Khan
It took Adolf Hitler 12 years to round up and kill six million European Jews, but the Pakistanis, led by their President Yahya Khan, killed three million of their own Bengali citizens in less than a year. The fair-skinned Pakistanis of West Pakistan had such a racist, visceral hatred for their Muslim brethren in East Pakistan that Yahya is recorded as saying furiously: “Kill three million, and the rest will eat out of our hands.” The disruption of normal life in the region was cataclysmic: more than 30 million people – nearly half the population – fled the cities and went back to their villages, while ten million fled to India.
More than two million of those killed are believed to have been Hindus. The rest were ordinary Bengali Muslims, students and academics. Next, the Pakistanis targeted women, raping at least 200,000. Among Yahya’s executioners in East Pakistan was General A.A.K. Niazi, who let loose his (fair skinned) Punjabi and Pathan soldiers on the defenseless women, saying:
“I will transform the breed of this bastard race.
Worse, after 93,000 Pakistan soldiers surrendered to the Indians, none of the Indian military were held accountable. The victorious generals not only prevented Bengali guerrillas from taking revenge on the Pakistani soldiers, but worse, they kept them in comfortable POW camps for more than a year.
There is a special place in hell for Yahya.
8. Talat Pasha
Not many people know the name of this genocidal maniac, but his deeds are well known. Talat Pasha was the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire from 1917 to 1918. In 1915 he issued an order to wipe out the Armenians, forcing the entire population of Armenia – then under Turkish rule – into concentration camps.
With their belongings, naked people were forced to trudge miles with no food and were killed if they couldn’t continue. The entire male population of Ankara was exterminated. Out of 2.5 million Armenians, 1 to 1.5 million were killed. In 1921, an Armenian assassination squad ended Talat Pasha’s miserable existence.
7. Dick Cheney
Seventeen of the 19 hijackers of 9/11 were Saudi Arabians and yet the US invaded Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with Islamic terror. US Vice President Dick Cheney lied and fabricated evidence to get the US to go to war with Iraq. This led to the destruction of a secular country, its infrastructure and its army, but more tragically the war caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and the displacement of millions.
Сheney also authorized physical and sexual abuse, torture, rape, sodomy and murder of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison by US Army and CIA personnel.
Worse, he used the war to make billions for his old company Halliburton. This suggests that he destroyed an entire country with a view to making money for himself and his cronies.
Iraq was once a bulwark against Islamic fundamentalism, but America’s war is directly responsible for the emergence of Al-Qaeda and ISIS.
The reason Cheney’s boss for eight years isn’t here is because George W. Bush was “an ignorant person who wanted to show his mother he could do things his father couldn’t”. Cheney was the Svengali who prodded the IQ challenged Bush to invade Iraq.
He is likely to be singled out for special treatment in hell.
6. Pol Pot
What’s unique about Pol Pot, the Prime Minister of Cambodia from 1976 to 1979, is that he wiped out 25 to 33 per cent of the population of his country – nearly three million.
Pol Pot represents the ultimate communist fantasy – to destroy their ‘class enemies’. He wanted to uproot Cambodian civilization, turning it into an agrarian society and the people into workers and peasants. He is the only person in history who ordered an official genocide against his country. He banned Buddhism, money, schools, markets and personal possessions. Doctors, teachers, engineers and other skilled people were systematically eliminated.
His communist government forced mass evacuations of cities, separating people from friends and families.
The torture of class enemies happened on a massive scale, with millions, including the elderly, pregnant women and children beaten to death after being forced to work insanely long hours. People were expected to work until they dropped dead.
Pol Pot was supported both by the Chinese and the Americans, because he was an enemy of the Vietnamese.
Cambodia’s nightmare finally ended in December 1985 when the highly professional Vietnamese army invaded the country and destroyed Pol Pot’s headquarters. He fled to Thailand and after a few years moved to China, where he was treated for cancer.
Pol Pot died in April 1998 of natural causes but is surely having a painful time in hell.
Murderous tyrants fill history’s pages, but Timur of Samarkand was cruel towards both man and beast. Among his favorite pastimes was pushing elephants down steep cliffs.
A former bandit, Timur conquered Persia and Mesopotamia, invaded Russia, Georgia, Syria, Turkey and India. In Baghdad he had 90,000 people beheaded so he could build towers with their skulls. In Turkey, where he promised no bloodshed in return for surrender, he had 3,000 prisoners buried alive and pointed out that he had kept to the letter of his oath. He also captured the Turkish Sultan and his wives, kept the Sultan in a cage in his parlor and had his naked wives serve visitors food and drinks.
In 1397, Timur invaded India. The entire stretch of land from the Khyber Pass to the northern plains was subjected to massacres, rape, pillage and kidnapping. He easily defeated the Muslim sultanate ruling Delhi, but strong Hindu resistance made Timur even more vengeful than usual. During the ransacking of Delhi, almost all those not killed were distributed as slaves among Timur’s nobles. In his memoirs, he claims his 15,000 Turks each “secured from 50 to 100 prisoners....there was no man with less than 20” and that “women were obtained in such quantities as to exceed all count”.
Timur declared his army had only killed Hindus and spared Muslim civilians. That’s rich, coming from someone who wiped out the city of Baghdad.
Timur is most likely being repeatedly thrown off a steep cliff into hell’s lake of lava.
There’s a reason why Canadian author Tarek Fatah danced in the wee hours in his bedroom when he received a phone call informing him that Delhi’s Aurangzeb Road had been renamed after APJ Abdul Kalam.
Aurangzeb was singularly responsible for the continuing Hindu-Muslim divide in India. The Mughal emperor came to the throne by murdering his scholarly older brother and heir apparent Dara Shikoh. He also blinded Dara’s young children.
Aurangzeb let elephants loose among the population and raided Hindu lands, destroying ancient temples. The number of stunningly beautiful temples he destroyed runs into the hundreds, if not thousands. Every Hindu in his kingdom had to pay the hated jaziya tax to be allowed to practice his religion. He claimed he was (unsuccessfully) “trying to destroy the ancient sovereignties of this country”.
According to Fatah, “Aurangzeb today would be the equivalent of the Islamic State’s Al-Baghdadi, if not Osama Bin Laden or the Taliban Mullah Omar.”
Fatah is of Pakistani origin but unlike most South Asian Muslims he realizes the great harm Aurangzeb caused India.
“As emperor, Aurangzeb banned music, dancing and alcohol in the Mughal Empire. In Sindh and Punjab where many Muslims attended Hindu Brahmin preaches, he ordered the demolition of all schools and temples where these took place, making it punishable for Muslims to dress like non-Muslims.”
Under the influence of Hinduism and the strong, sustained Hindu resistance, Islam lost its edge in India. By the late 1600s, a unique culture had formed in northern India, with Islam ready to shed its terrorist behavior towards other religions. Dara, who translated ancient Hindu texts into Persian, was symbolic of this remarkable transformation of Islam.
However, Aurangzeb not only set the clock back on this reconciliation but alienated all his Hindu allies. This led to fierce wars of resistance that weakened the country and allowed the British to slowly conquer India. The partition of India (although British-midwifed) can be attributed to the deep divide created by this terrorist emperor.
His legacy lives on in the hearts of many Indian Muslims who regard him as no less than a saint.
Hell is the right place for such a scumbag.
(NOTE: Aurangzeb Road was the second most expensive street in New Delhi. You are surely wondering who would name such a beautiful street after such an evil person. The answer is, the British. New Delhi was built by colonial Britain and several streets were named after brutal Muslim rulers and barbaric representatives of the queen of England. This is just one example of the West’s love for fundamentalist Islam.)
3. Mohandas Gandhi
Mohandas Gandhi’s pacifism caused great harm to India and Hindus. Muslims refused to listen to him and attacked Hindus who had been effectively disarmed by Gandhi’s appeals for peace. This encouraged Muslims to attack Hindus even more because they knew Hindus weren’t going to retaliate.
Had Hindus been allowed to attack Muslims, or at least be prepared to defend themselves with weapons, the cycle of Muslim violence could have been nipped in the bud. By going on hunger fasts in order to prevent Hindus from retaliating, Gandhi was the chief villain of Partition. Hundreds of thousands of Hindus were killed and thousands of women raped because of Gandhi’s imposed pacifism. He advocated a senseless surrender to murder.
According to Indologist and Belgian orientalist Koenraad Elst, “The fundamental problem with Gandhi’s pacifism, not in the initial stages but when he had become the world-famous leader of India’s freedom movement (1920-47), was his increasing extremism. All sense of proportion had vanished when he advocated non-violence not as a technique of moral pressure by a weaker on a stronger party, but as a form of masochistic surrender.”
Gandhi’s advice to the victims of communal violence was “breathtaking for its callousness in the face of human suffering”. During his prayer meeting on 1 May 1947, he prepared the Hindus and Sikhs for the anticipated massacres of their kind in the upcoming state of Pakistan with these words:
“I would tell the Hindus to face death cheerfully if the Muslims are out to kill them. I would be a real sinner if after being stabbed I wished in my last moment that my son should seek revenge. I must die without rancor. You may turn round and ask whether all Hindus and all Sikhs should die. Yes, I would say. Such martyrdom will not be in vain.”
Worse, believing he was some kind of mahatma (great soul), he tried to prove his self-control by often sleeping and bathing naked with other women. These women included his grandniece, Manu, and the wife of his grandnephew, who were both 18 when they started sleeping in the same bed as Gandhi, who was 77 years old at the time.
Graeme Donald writes in Lies, Damned Lies and History: A Catalogue of Historical Errors and Misunderstandings: “All had to sleep naked and, just to make doubly sure of his resolve, Gandhi would take them to bed in pairs. Some as young as 12, several girls later acknowledged that they did often ‘render service’ to Gandhi but refused to elaborate.”
Donald adds that the girls were selected for their “pertness” to “stiffen his resolve” for celibacy. “Very much a case of ‘damn, failed again, must try harder tomorrow night.”
Such a paedophile belongs in hell.
2. Mother Teresa
Mother Teresa took money stolen from pensioners by financial fraud artist Charles Keating. She accepted donations from the murderous Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. She was also a friend of Enver Hoxha, the communist dictator of Albania.
Worse, Teresa’s 600 missions in 123 countries have been described as "homes for the dying" by visiting doctors. The doctors observed a significant lack of hygiene, even unfit conditions, as well as a shortage of actual care, inadequate food and no painkillers. Teresa claimed that “There is something beautiful in seeing the poor accept their lot, to suffer it like Christ's passion. The world gains much from their suffering.’'
Her nuns were not provided with medical training, the use of mosquito repellents, or information about malaria and vaccinations, because Teresa believed "God" would look after the nuns. One of her nuns got into trouble with the order for helping a man with dysentery who was dying. Teresa quoted Peter 2:18-23, which orders slaves to obey their masters even if they are abusive and difficult, and urged her nuns to obey superiors without question.
But she was a hypocrite: seeking out the best medical care for herself. Despite the fact that medical tourists from the West travel to India for treatment, Teresa reckoned India wasn't good enough for her. She was admitted to California's Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation.
Teresa was stingy even during national emergencies. During Indian floods she offered prayers and medallions of the Virgin Mary but no monetary aid.
Teresa's fundraising sermons persuaded people that Calcutta is a city of lepers and beggars. Her nuns lied to the global media that the city had 450,000 lepers, knowing that this would make rich westerners despatch their dollars.
All abandoned children who are taken into Teresa's missions are brought up as Christians. In India Teresa was (and her mission continues to be) actively engaged in proselytizing, which is not only illegal but has a negative impact on India's complex social hierarchy.
For her lies, stolen cash and allowing little children suffer painful deaths, she is a favorite member of hell.
1. Winston Churchill
This scumbag takes the pole position in this list.
Like No.10 Yahya Khan, Prime Minister Winston Churchill managed to outdo Hitler and his Nazi cohorts. The Germans may have taken 12 years to murder 6 million Jews, but their Teutonic cousins, the British, managed to kill almost 4 million Indians in just over a year, with Churchill cheering from the sidelines.
Australian biochemist Dr Gideon Polya has called the Bengal Famine a “manmade holocaust” because Churchill’s policies were directly responsible for the disaster. He knowingly and enthusiastically caused the famine in 1942-43 by transferring vast quantities of food grain from India to Britain.
To Churchill, the starvation of Indians was less serious than that of Greeks. When the British administrators urged him to release food stocks for India, Churchill responded with a telegram asking why Gandhi hadn’t died yet.
Churchill’s hostility toward Indians has long been documented. At a War Cabinet meeting, he blamed the Indians for the famine, saying they breed like rabbits, and are a beastly people with a beastly religion. On another occasion, he insisted they were “the beastliest people in the world next to the Germans”.
According to author Madhusree Mukerjee,
“Churchill’s attitude toward India was quite extreme, and he hated Indians, mainly because he knew India couldn’t be held for very long.”
The fact is the British Prime Minister possessed an extraordinary range of prejudices. During World War II, in a memorandum to the War Cabinet about policy towards Italy, he wrote:
“All the industrial centers should be attacked in intense fashion, every effort being made to terrorize the population.”
He also pushed for the firebombing of German population centers such as Dresden, Leipzig and Chemnitz which killed 200,000 civilians in 1945. It was the only way the British could show they were in the war.
In 1944, Churchill came up with a cataclysmic plan to convert Germany into a “country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character”. The Morgenthau Plan if implemented would have starved 10 million Germans to death in the first year alone. US President Franklin Roosevelt admitted Churchill was “bought off” by the American offer of $6.5 billion in Lend Lease.
No human being deserves to be in hell more than Winston.
(Disclaimer: As an atheist I don’t believe in heaven or hell in the religious sense. But the universe is ruled by the laws of physics and mathematics, which imply that all actions have consequences.)
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