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Notably absent from the list is the North Korean starvation\oppression in recent years that left perhaps a million or more dead.
The number of North Koreans who die of starvation is no different from any other third world country, except in the critical years 1996-97, when there were famines and severe flooding which destroyed half the crop production capacity. Maybe a million died of starvation in that year, for which the NK government is even more saddened than you are.
In 1994, the harvest was 7-million tons. In the flood years of '96-97, it was only 2.4 million. By '99, it was back up to 4.2 million. It would take 5-million to meet normal international criteria of adequacy, which would be a pound a day per capita. But there were again devastating floods in 2007. (I leave it to you to judge whether your lifestyle contributed to climate change that killed Koreans.)
Shall we also include the president of Bangladesh on the list, for "killing" people who die of natural disasters there, too? On what tyrant shall we blame the famines in the Horn of Africa?
1. Colonization of the New World by Europe The main countries involved were Spain, England, France, and Portugal. It is widely agreed that native Americans died in droves, both from European diseases to which they had no immunity and from direct warfare, and that they were dispossed of their lands.
Well, choosing the deaths of the American aboriginal population is a bit spurious, because Europeans certainly did not understand germ theory at the time. What's more, syphilis likely originated in the New World and was brought back to Europe with Columbus. So using your logic, one could say that the American Indians killed roughly a million Europeans in the twenty years after Columbus set foot on San Salvador, even before Cortez and Pizarro got their expeditions underway.
Further, if we go a couple of centuries back and look at the Black Plague, I suppose we could say that the Chinese practiced germ warfare on Europe, killing a third of its inhabitants.
The number of North Koreans who die of starvation is no different from any other third world country, except in the critical years 1996-97, when there were famines and severe flooding which destroyed half the crop production capacity. Maybe a million died of starvation in that year, for which the NK government is even more saddened than you are.
In 1994, the harvest was 7-million tons. In the flood years of '96-97, it was only 2.4 million. By '99, it was back up to 4.2 million. It would take 5-million to meet normal international criteria of adequacy, which would be a pound a day per capita. But there were again devastating floods in 2007. (I leave it to you to judge whether your lifestyle contributed to climate change that killed Koreans.)
Yet they produced 9.1million metric tons in 1990 but you seem to be ignoring the trend of decline well before the floods exacerbated a growing problem.
So basically, they cut their harvest in half due to other problems they failed to address and spent heavily on things like oh....a nuclear wheapns program. So, there was no slack in the production nor additional stored food stocks when the flooding hit.
I'm assuming you are being ironic pointing out that "climate change" caused the floods and not bad land management techniques which we've had issues with in the US over the years as well.
Well, choosing the deaths of the American aboriginal population is a bit spurious, because Europeans certainly did not understand germ theory at the time. What's more, syphilis likely originated in the New World and was brought back to Europe with Columbus. So using your logic, one could say that the American Indians killed roughly a million Europeans in the twenty years after Columbus set foot on San Salvador, even before Cortez and Pizarro got their expeditions underway.
Further, if we go a couple of centuries back and look at the Black Plague, I suppose we could say that the Chinese practiced germ warfare on Europe, killing a third of its inhabitants.
Excellent point. I was aware that the deaths from disease were unintentional. However, the mass dispossession of lands over a couple of centuries were pretty horrible, although in line with past human history. I stand behind my inclusion of this on the list, though I admit it is arguable.
How come the Taiping Rebellion of 1850-1864 doesn't qualify for the list of nominees? The continuous chaos of 14 straight years of slaughter generated refugee displacement, famine and plague, which resulted in 20 million dead. Both sides freely practiced agricultural genocide policies. Not content to merely capture or drive away the local populations, they also burned all the structures and crops, killed all the farm animals and either flooded or salted the land.
Among the 11 nominated atrocities at the start of the thread, only Mao and Stalin can claim to be in the twenty million plus class, so there must be room for Taiping.
Thank you for this information. I didn't include it on my list because I was basically ignorant of it. I am not a specialist in world history, much less a professional historian. I intended my OP more or less as a springboard for discussion.
Yet they produced 9.1million metric tons in 1990 but you seem to be ignoring the trend of decline well before the floods exacerbated a growing problem.
So basically, they cut their harvest in half due to other problems they failed to address and spent heavily on things like oh....a nuclear wheapns program. So, there was no slack in the production nor additional stored food stocks when the flooding hit.
I'm assuming you are being ironic pointing out that "climate change" caused the floods and not bad land management techniques which we've had issues with in the US over the years as well.
Your response raises reasonable questions about mismanagement or misdirected priorities, which cannot be dismissed out of hand. But it still does not suggest anything that would constitute genocide or the intentional mass starvation of the population or any subset of it.
It could be argued that a nuclear power program is not necessarily a bad idea for an overpopulated small country with few resources, particularly when their harvest was an adequate 7-million metric tons. Nuclear weapons would be a logical peripheral to nuclear power, for a country that has been constantly threatened by another nuclear offensive capability for the past 60 years, and it's the only part of their nuclear plan that we ever hear about.
North Korea is, as a whole, the coldest country on earth. Nuclear power to simply heat their homes is a perfectly practical idea. Pyongyang's average January high temperature is the same as Stockholm's, and the highlands are even colder.
North Korea has a population of 25-million, in a rugged mountainous area with the size and climate of Wisconsin. North Korea has less arable land per capita than India or Saudi Arabia. Adequate agricultural production is not a given, and most of the countries of the world spitefully desire to starve North Korea out of existence (would that be genocide?), the same way we did to the poor souls of Cuba for an entire lifetime, as punishment for their dictator's nose-thumbing at our corporate shills.
Well, choosing the deaths of the American aboriginal population is a bit spurious, because Europeans certainly did not understand germ theory at the time. What's more, syphilis likely originated in the New World and was brought back to Europe with Columbus. So using your logic, one could say that the American Indians killed roughly a million Europeans in the twenty years after Columbus set foot on San Salvador, even before Cortez and Pizarro got their expeditions underway.
Further, if we go a couple of centuries back and look at the Black Plague, I suppose we could say that the Chinese practiced germ warfare on Europe, killing a third of its inhabitants.
Not exactly true though much, if not most, of the infections were unintended. However, there were instances of deliberate biological warfare. While many look at the small-pox infected blanket stories as folklore, the fact of the matter is that on at least one occasion a high-ranking European considered infecting Indians with smallpox as a tactic of war.
Lord Jeffrey Amherst was commander of British forces in North America during the French and Indian War (1756-'63). Amherst and a subordinate discussed, apparently seriously, sending infected blankets to hostile tribes. There are also documents to prove it. Peter d'Errico, legal studies professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst did the research on this.
During Pontiac's Rebellion in 1763, the Ottawa who had been allied with the French during the French and Indian War, laid siege to the English at Fort Pitt.
According to historian Francis Parkman, Amherst first raised the possibility of giving the Indians infected blankets in a letter to Colonel Henry Bouquet, who would lead reinforcements to Fort Pitt. In a postscript to a letter to Amherst on July 13, 1763, Bouquet said:
"P.S. I will try to inocculate the Indians by means of Blankets that may fall in their hands, taking care however not to get the disease myself. As it is pity to oppose good men against them, I wish we could make use of the Spaniard's Method, and hunt them with English Dogs. Supported by Rangers, and some Light Horse, who would I think effectively extirpate or remove that Vermine."
On July 16 Amherst replied, also in a postscript:
"P.S. You will Do well to try to Innoculate the Indians by means of Blanketts, as well as to try Every other method that can serve to Extirpate this Execrable Race. I should be very glad your Scheme for Hunting them Down by Dogs could take Effect, but England is at too great a Distance to think of that at present."
On July 26 Bouquet wrote back:
"I received yesterday your Excellency's letters of 16th with their Inclosures. The signal for Indian Messengers, and all your directions will be observed."
We don't know if Bouquet actually put the plan into effect, or if so with what result. We do know that a supply of smallpox-infected blankets was available, since the disease had broken out at Fort Pitt some weeks previously. We also know that the following spring smallpox was reported to be raging among the Indians in the vicinity.
Though it would seems that the Europeans of the day would have had no understanding of germ theory, they obviously had more of an understanding than we realized. D'Errico provides other quotes from Amherst's correspondence that suggest he considered Native Americans subhumans who ought to be exterminated. Check out his research for yourself at www.nativeweb.org/pages/l egal/amherst/lord_jeff.html. He not only includes transcriptions but also reproduces the relevant parts of the incriminating letters.
While many look at the small-pox infected blanket stories as folklore, the fact of the matter is that on at least one occasion a high-ranking European considered infecting Indians with smallpox as a tactic of war.
It's still folklore, then. Consider the kinds of things that Cheney et al. (or Michelle Bachman) might have "considered on at least one occasion", which I don't think you want to use as a yardstick to measure our own foreign or domestic policy.
Nevertheless, thank you for bringing to light the facts of the famous smallpox blanket fable.
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