Posted on 10/16/2015 3:29:36 PM PDT by Idaho_Cowboy
One man's hero is another man's tyrant, a popular aphorism goes.
But while we can argue the validity and virtue of certain political agendas, the callous methods by which some leaders attain their goals are less up to interpretation.
After all, no matter how a historian tries to spin it, ordering a tower to be constructed out of live men stacked and cemented together with bricks and mortar is pretty brutal.
Business Insider put together a list of the most ruthless leaders of all time featuring men and women who employed merciless tactics to achieve their political and military agendas.
[Here the list of the names; detail at the link]
Qin Shi Huang
Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (aka Caligula)
Attila the Hun
Wu Zetian
Genghis Khan
Tomas de Torquemada
Timur (aka Tamerlane)
Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (aka Vlad Drăculea or Vlad the Impaler)
Czar Ivan IV (aka Ivan the Terrible)
Queen Mary I (aka Bloody Mary)
Countess Elizabeth Báthory de Ecsed (aka the Blood Countess)
Maximilien Robespierre
King Leopold II of Belgium
Mehmet Talat Paşa
Vladimir Lenin
Benito Mussolini
Joseph Stalin
Adolf Hitler
Khorloogiin Choibalsan
Francisco Franco
Mao Zedong
Pol Pot
Idi Amin
Augusto Pinochet
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
There is no doubt in my mind that without our Second Amendment, Obama would certainly have already been put on that list.
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I agree
+++++++++
And at the rate we’re going, if Hitlery is “elected”, she would make the list.
Does Kerry know his idol “Jenghis” is on this list?
So, you're saying sometimes you must show the barbarians you can be every bit as ruthless as they.
Gnarly
Didn’t it give you the creeps?
That’s interesting.
Neither Pinochet nor Franco belong on that list.
I agree.
We need a Pinochet here. Temporarily, of course. IMO
Were you a diplomat?
Didn’t the History Channel have a documentary on something similar a number of years back? If I remember correctly Gengis Khan won (interesting descriptive) that dishonor.
I don’t think he made up the list.
Oh how I would like to buy you a generous quantity of your beverage of choice and spend an evening listening to you elaborate on that post.
Torquemada let’s face it, you can’t torquemada anything!
Actually, the American presidents during WWII could theoretically be up there and that would be fine with me.
But they did it for the good of the country and not themselves.
Dresden bombing and dropping atom bombs were pretty ruthless :)
No problem with the A bomb, a little bit of a problem with Dresden.
But i could be wrong.
and who made a tower out of live men!!! have to look that one up or go to the link
That’s a chart I’ll be hanging on to. Thanks
——Neither Pinochet nor Franco belong on that list. ——
Funny, I was thinking the exact thought...
I know it was Business Insider. I have spent the last few years reading every biography on Mary I and she doesn’t deserve to be on such a list.
Agree, especially on Pinochet. Not remotely in the class of the most ruthless. Very low body count.
I disagree about Franco and Pinochet. They were tough and ruthless, and I probably wouldn’t want them to rule me. However, they were fighting Communists the whole time they were in power.
Sorry, I misunderstood. I agree with you that she doesn’t even come close to being on such a list.
Did you see Last King of Scotland? How would it compare?
Surprised they didn’t make the list 10000 names ling so they xould squeeze on an evil founding father
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