That Islam Karimov sounds like a nasty piece of work. Not to mention our own Dick Cheney of course. And Berlusconi. Vicente Fox was no Vlad the Impaler, but he was not so great on a lot of levels. Pretty much anybody involved with the right in Colombia is bad.
Of course, if you look quite deep enough, you'll see its all a con, a look at past history tells: all government is wrong!
The guy from Turkmenistan has to be tops for some category of shitty leadership.
Angela Merkel won't be thought well of in post-apocalyptic Europe.
The people in charge of the UC system and, in particular, the people at the UC system who are apologists for police brutality.
Ok, not world leaders, but pretty hideous.
5: How is it that so many fascists get put in charge of UC schools?
He ain't exactly dropping people out of helicopters over the ocean though, despite the fact that it would serve a bunch of fascist thugs in Venezuela right if he did.
This just in: Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.
From what I hear, the poor people in Venezuela are happier. Not sure if that's propaganda, but he's done some good things.
And yet, his spirit lives on:
I'm sure bob thinks Obama wins. bob's interesting when he talks about film.
Harper is awful! And a dick. He cut $200 million from Environment Canada (particularly climate change related stuff (I'd like to say 'ironically' but with my Canadianess I'm afraid I'd be using it wrong)) and just announced they were spending $60 billion on new airplanes and stuff. Plus the pipeline nonsense which is just a continuation of the tar sands issues.
He was just re-elected too damn it.
Ali Abdullah Saleh is lucky to have such good friends in the WH.
16: Makes our policy towards Libya look like a joke. We're against tyrants, my ass.
Fidel Castro, Kim Jong-il, Robert Mugabe.
To call him a "world leader" is laughable, but worst recent prime minister of the Netherlands has to go to Jan Peter Balkenende. Bad enough he was a total Bush lapdog only second to Blair in his subservience, but on top of it he looked like Harry Potter only more nerdy.
Hang on. 21 comments in and nobody's mentioned Silvio Berlusconi? A winner in so many categories.
Hey, Bob lived through Pol Pot.
Isn't the real monster you, Stanley?
Think about it.
Sometimes I ask my students what is the best all time lower bound, given a set.
The people in charge of the UC system and, in particular, the people at the UC system who are apologists for police brutality.
Could you at least try to not make us look so soft in front of the Europeans? A few people getting a whack from a baton when they start to push through a barricade is weak brew. Maybe there could be some kind of exchange program where UC students get to go overseas and take part in a soccer riot or something.
Could you at least try to not make us look so soft in front of the Europeans?
Which "us"?
22: What am I, chopped fegato?
Which "us"?
Come on, America, Fuck Yeah!
I think of us now as less in a "history's greatest monsters" phase then a "stumbling fecklessly toward the abyss" phase. Like the leaders around WWI. None of them -- not even Kaiser Wilhelm -- are remembered as monsters today, but their incompetence paved the way for the real monsters. Types like Bush are certainly mean in their way, but they are more feckless and incompetent rather than personally brutal and sadistic. Does anyone think Bush would last a day in a level Darwinian playing field with actual evil dictators?
Does anyone think Bush would last a day in a level Darwinian playing field with actual evil dictators?
I don't know, but if they filmed this I would watch.
Like the leaders around WWI. None of them -- not even Kaiser Wilhelm -- are remembered as monsters today
I dunno, I still think of the Kaiser as a monster. In the "Frankenstein's Monster" sense, though. Tragically created by a deluded, hubristic German, initially has good intentions, misunderstood by society, becomes enraged, runs amok, causes death and destruction.
35: also, the inflexible neck.
33: It seems like we're getting into some tricky semantics here, viz. the purported incompetence of WWI leaders. Of course, in hindsight, many of their decisions look incompetent, but a large part of that is the cultural effects of WWI, which really undermined a big chunk of the ideological basis of prewar society. A lot of those generals actually believed in the ennobling effects of battle. They wanted to be at war. Now, of course, no one wanted to lose, so in that sense the Triple Alliance leadership could be said to lack competence, at the same time, they fought effectively to a stalemate until the US entered the war.
Yes, there were fewer cartoonishly brutal despots in that era, but there were plenty of leaders who were more than happy to flush a hundred thousand lives down the toilet in a day rather than change their fundamental understanding of the world. And they got lots of medals for doing so!
I kind of wish GWB had a permanent reality-TV channel, just to watch him go about his quotidian routine. Maybe the Smithsonian could sponsor it.
37: well, kindof, but you can still make the argument "This is what the Kaiser (or whoever) wanted to achieve; this is the inept way he tried and failed to achieve it; therefore he was incompetent." And a lot of those guys very sincerely didn't want a war. Asquith didn't.
at the same time, they fought effectively to a stalemate until the US entered the war.
This is a highly dubious statement. The war was pretty lively in 1917 and early 1918 before the US entered the war in force - Russia was knocked out, the Germans launched the April Offensive, Caporetto was fought and lost...
I kind of wish GWB had a permanent reality-TV channel, just to watch him go about his quotidian routine.
Pushing a rock, pushing a rock, pushing a rock, turn it around, pushing a rock...
And I'm pretty happy describing Enver Pasha as a monster.
40: I'm a little embarrassed to say I know exactly what this is from, and it made me laugh.
Embarrassed because I get so few references here, without resorting to Google, but early 90s America's Funniest Home Videos is right in my wheelhouse.
38: Or even an "I'm With Busey"-style knockoff.
Yes, there were fewer cartoonishly brutal despots in that era, but there were plenty of leaders who were more than happy to flush a hundred thousand lives down the toilet in a day rather than change their fundamental understanding of the world. And they got lots of medals for doing so!
There's sort of a base level of evil in the nation state, today as well as back then. Killing a hundred thousand people in the name of your conventional wisdom is par for the course (as is getting a medal for it). The history's greatest monsters sweepstakes requires something above and beyond, right?
Now, of course, no one wanted to lose, so in that sense the Triple Alliance leadership could be said to lack competence, at the same time, they fought effectively to a stalemate until the US entered the war.
I thought the current accepted view is that this is totally wrong, that the allied generals were actually pretty competent (given the constraints of the time) and the US basically sucked it militarily for all of 1917 and most of 1918, until the Germans collapsed.
Like the leaders around WWI. None of them -- not even Kaiser Wilhelm -- are remembered as monsters today
Au contraire. Some consider Woodrow Wilson to be the fifth greatest monster in American history.
Jimmy Carter, of course, is number one.
47: I thought that that the consensus was that while the US generals were shitty, the constant influx of fresh US troops eventually caused the German collapse.
Asking someone what they think of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties can be a quick route to figuring out whether we're going to disagree about US foreign policy goals.
46: The history's greatest monsters sweepstakes requires something above and beyond, right?
Probably so, given the existence of Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot. Of course "history's greatest monster" has been downgraded to jokeability (sp), because that's how we roll.
47
I thought the current accepted view is that this is totally wrong, that the allied generals were actually pretty competent (given the constraints of the time) ...
Is this true? The case that they were a bunch brutal butchers prone to ordering pointless attacks against strong positions seemed pretty convincing to me.
47: I dunno, reading some of The Great War and Modern Memory awhile ago, I got the impression that the British in particular were just completely blinded by ideology, even surpassing the Frunch. But not that the TA generals were so awesome either.
47, 52: There's been a revisionist school that's made the argument that the Allied generals weren't as bad as they've been made out to be, but it's far from uncontroversial. The argument basically boils down to "once they'd gone to war, they had to fight, and under the circumstances they did as well as they could have", with a side of "the view of the war as pointless butchery is a later invention". I don't find it convincing, personally, but I can at least see where the revisionists are coming from. (Although all of the revisionists I know of are British. I don't think the theory has gained as much purchase among French historians.)
Foch won the war by smoking his pipe.
And I think Petain looks pretty competent, for this one, anyway.
Mangin and Nivelle, though, not so much.
The argument basically boils down to "once they'd gone to war, they had to fight, and under the circumstances they did as well as they could have", with a side of "the view of the war as pointless butchery is a later invention".
Alternately: They won.
Or, what do I know. I just know of the existence of that revisionist historiography, but haven't read any of it.
49.last: My understanding was that although the American troops on the ground certainly helped in reversing German advances from earlier in 1918*, it was the realization on the German side that the active involvement in the fight of a new deep-pockets ally with lots of fresh cannon fodder that caused a serious movement towards ending hostilities.
*Which were themselves undertaken somewhat in desperation to get to Paris before the Yanks did.
I was always taught that Americans won the war through sheer gumption. Was this not the case?
well, gumption along with love of freedom.
61: Also, the songs of Irving Berlin.
Among the many reasons the Americans won the war are...
Probably some unmitigated stick-to-it-iveness.
...and an almost fanatical devotion to the Pope.
But seriously, somebody's making a cheap wool stingy-brim porkpie in XXL now. I should totally buy one, right?
America waits till Germany is about to fall over from sustained punching from Britain and France, then walks over and smashes it with a barstool, then pretends it won the fight all by itself.
WWI:
The Germans are stupid enough to get into a two front war with shitty allies, but clever enough to for the most part remain on the defence in the west once the front freezes, concentrating on knocking Russia, then Italy out of the war. Their submarine warfare does draw the Americans in, not clever, but their superior refinement of tactics/strategics in 1917-18 still almost wins them the war.
British: completely wedded to doing the same thing that didn't work the first time over and over again, because Jerry won't expect it the ninth time. On the other hand, invented the tank as a means to break through the trenches, but waste their strategic potential at first.
The French: early adaptors of the Green Lantern school of warfare: "we need the will to win (elan) and everything else is secondary" but redeem themselves with better and more cautious generals later on: big on artillery, take to tank warfare relatively quickly.
Russians: lots of peasant power, early wins against weak German and weaker Austrian forces, not much good from then on but who cares about wasting peasant lives? The bolshies, that's who!
Austrians: worse than the bloody Russians, but still strong enough to keep Italy hemmed in and almost knock it out of the war
Turks: can actually fight, as the Aussies find out to their cost, but turn out not as loved by their co-religionists as everybody fears/hopes.
Italians: fight hard but stupid trying to invade Austria over the Alps.
Yanks: late to the war, keen to ignore all the lessons the Limeys finally had had hammered in by 1917/18.
Serbs: bloody stubborn buggers cause the whole mess, though plenty of others helped stir the pot.
Other Balkan participants: let's hear it for the Third Balkan War -- oops, not as fun as the first two were.
ANZAC: cannon fodder, will turn disasters into nation building after the war. Won't learn the most important lesson from WWI, stay out of imperialistic ventures as the Aussie involvement in Vietnam proves.
Canadese: bugger being cannon fodder, eh? Let's try some novel tactics. Underrated, as they would be in WWII.
Belgians: as in almost every other century, saw their country once again be Europe's favourite battlefield. For the Flemish speakers there was the additional joy of being commanded by officers who only spoke French.
Dutch: stayed out of the whole mess by being neutral in favour of Germany until that was politically impolite, were setting themselves up for a rude shock 2 decades later.
69 is epic. I think it's just about right, though I didn't know about Canadian tactical innovations. What did they do, freeze over no man's land and skim exploding hockey pucks into the enemy trenches?
Big mines at Vimy Ridge? I don't know.
ANZAC: cannon fodder, will turn disasters into nation building after the war.
The Australians are wedded to this idea that "the Poms forced the Diggers to do all their fighting for them!" but many, many more British than Australian troops fought and died at Gallipoli. The erroneous idea is in part the work of journalist and professional shit-stirrer Keith Murdoch, who was one of the first journalists to cover Gallipoli and slanted his stories to create maximum friction between the British and Australian governments, for his own commercial benefit. That man's son is Rupert Murdoch. The drop-bear does not fall far from the tree.
That man's son is Rupert Murdoch.
Now that *is* a fascinating tidbit!
69 *is* good, but I find it hard to believe that people from Canadia ever said "bugger", even back in the 'teens.
73: every generation thinks they invented sex, Stanley.
Meanwhile in non-arsehole biologists/geologists/science populisers, what do we think of Richard Fortey?
I'm rather in favour of Richard Fortey, even in this thread.