Horrible Wars Nobody Cares About

I've just checked this list of wars by death toll, and I'm very surprised at how downplayed some of these wars are with respect to others. I never hear Genghis being decried as "as evil as the Nazis", instead in most works I feel there's a sort of "admiration" for his huge conquests. HE killed between 30 and 60 million people. But some of them are a lot more recent, and I don't recall them getting much coverage at all:

• 3,800,000–5,400,000 - Second Congo War (1998–2003)
• 300,000–3,000,000[24] - Bangladesh Liberation War (1971)
• 1,000,000–2,000,000 - Mexican Revolution (1910–1920)
• 1,000,000 - Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005)
• 1,000,000 - Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970)
• 900,000–1,000,000 - Mozambique Civil War (1975–1994)
• 800,000–1,000,000 - Rwandan Civil War (1990–1993)

800,000 - Congo Civil War (1996–1997)

• 570,000 - Eritrean War of Independence (1961–1991)
• 550,000 - Somali Civil War (1988- )
• 500,000 - Angolan Civil War (1975–2002)
• 500,000 - Ugandan Civil War (1979–1986)
• 300,000 - Darfur conflict (2003-)
• 230,000–1,400,000 - Ethiopian Civil War (1974–1991)
• 200,000 - Sierra Leone Civil War (1992–2001)
• 200,000 - Algerian Civil War (1991–2002 )[37][38]
• 200,000 - Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996)

And I'm ommmitting many, many others.

edited 10th May '12 6:49:30 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

General trend seems to be "Civil wars don't get much attention from countries that didn't fight in them".

I'm betting the French and the Guatemalans pay quite a good bit of attention to the wars that took place in their own countries. That's a rather West-centric view you've taken there that no one cares about those. (Not to mention, the Franco Prussian war and the Mexican Revolution seem a bit out of place on that list, considering they took place hundreds of years ago. The Mexicans, no doubt, learn as much about that war as we do about the American revolution here in the US.

Also that wars in africa are just sort of a way of life.

I know about the civil war in Sierra Leone in-depth, but mostly because of my interest in private military companies. Executive Outcomes performance in SL is held up as the golden standard of how a mercenary company can essentially be used in a positive manner.

Apart from that, I know a bit about Darfur, Rwanda, and Kony's shenanigans in Uganda. Mostly because I've seen proposals on how a private military company could correct a situation like that since no advanced powers want to come in and sort the mess out. Hell, there's a movement of Iraq and Afghan veterans to put together a big army and get independent financing to go kill Kony. Honestly, I'd be on-board with that. NATO peacekeepers aren't really the way to fix any of those wars where a bunch of psychopaths are pillaging and raping all in their path. Dropping tons of ass into the country, killing those guys, and then getting the hell out of dodge, that's the way to fix that.

I made a mistake with the Franco-Prussian war, but the Mexican Revolution wasn't "centuries" ago. But the only place I see in popculture is in Westerns, where it's kind of anachronistic.

The only two wars the French talk about besides their three confrontations with the Germans (1870, 1914, 1939) are the Algeria and Indochina (Vietnam) wars. And they don't talk much about the latter because they got away early and left the Americans deal with the clusterfuck.

Spoken like a true soldier, Barkey. But how do you go about financing that? Who's going to step forward and pay?

edited 10th May '12 6:54:35 AM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The French don't exactly have a lot to be proud of when it comes to war in the last century or two.

Colonial exploitation, getting their asses handed to them by the germans... Yeah..

Dude, let's not get into comparing how bad one Great Power is compared to another...

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Well, Ghengis Khan is probably not seen as being as evil as Hitler because he more or less won, and to my knowledge, his killing was more less indiscriminate rather than a targetted genocide.

As for the other wars? Well, the thing is that most of them are both old news and far away, so most of the western world doesn't care that much. "There are terrible wars going on in Africa" is considered news in about the same way as "Unrest in the Middle East" counts as news here, without the alure of oil to make us sorta kinda care.

All Quiet On The Western Front, huh?

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

The Franco Prussian War is important enough to get its own entry here — it wasn't a long war, but it was important.

And Ghengis Khan was long enough ago...that's basically it, really. I'd agree with you about the rest, but I guess it keeps your local airbase*

busy.

edited 10th May '12 7:59:14 AM by Greenmantle

Keep Rolling On

Genghis was evil but also kinda cool, while Hitler was evil, but apart from that kinda pitiful.

"Atheism is the religion whose followers are easiest to troll"

Ghengis was a lot more honest about his intentions, and it wasn't personal, just conquest. That sort of thing was common back then.

There is also the fact that Hitler is a lot more recent. Recent enough that a lot of our grandparents or great grandparents can talk about what things were like back then. The way we discuss Genghis Khan is a good deal more detached because he lived and died so long ago. Comparatively, Hitler and WW 2 happened just last week.

On the here and now; people tend to be more concerned with things going on at home. Our economy is floundering right now and so was our foreign policy for a good long while. The general consensus seems to be that as horrible as other country's wars are, we should get our noses out of their business. Even when they ask the UN for help people here get upset about US troops going in. Never mind it's for a good cause and done as part of our obligation to NATO or the UN. (I tend to get military movements regarding those two confused. <,<)

Genghis's entire campaign was massively personal. The Jin Dynasty had been harassing and culling his people for generations. The Uighurs wrote scrolls about how the Jin soldiers would surround and butcher entire tribes that killed a Jin Official. Against the Hsia Hsia, it was a similar story. A major unifying point for the tribes of Mongolia was the idea that they were going to finally give their oppressors a kicking.

The complete destruiction of the Khwarezmian Empire (complete. As in, completely subsumed into the Mongolian Khanate) was because a border Governor treated Genghis's diplomats horribly. When Genghis died, he was on his way to tear the Sung Dynasty to shreds, when they failed to supply him with troops.

I'm sorry, but while there was certainly a great deal of political and economic motive mixed in, Genghis's genocides were fuelled by personal fury widespread amongst his people.

edited 10th May '12 1:17:29 PM by Minister

It's your God, they're your rules, you go to hell." - Mark Twain

Genghis was relatively progressive about a lot of things, but people don't tend to talk about revolutionary religious tolerance, uniting warring nomad tribes into a stable empire, solidifying trade routes, and giving an actual face of authority for international diplomatic communication, because...well, he wiped out about 3/4 of Northern China and some 11% of the world's total population to do it. He was kind of a "play nice or I'll murder your entire city and the nearest two others" type.

edited 10th May '12 1:23:29 PM by Pykrete

Honestly, I can jive like that. If you're gonna try to conquer the world, that's probably the best way to do it. Sandwich in one hand, knife in the other. Pick one.

Yeah, but if people never heard of you because you move so damn fast...

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Genghis was very, very good at getting the word out. He'd make sure some people got away from each city, and his armies would take a few days atleast to burn and tear a city to shreds. Indeed, most of his tactics were about terror. On moving fast, while true, he was never faster than news - especially once he got a few siege engineers.

Still, horrible man, if you weren't a Mongol.

It's your God, they're your rules, you go to hell." - Mark Twain

No, actually there is at least one very memorable occasion when he moved faster than the news. There was a huge empire in the Persian-Afghan-Whateverstan region, and all of a sudden a bunch of messengers come telling them to surrender or die to a guy they never heard of before. They shot the messengers (to put it lightly). He thought "it's probably a misunderstanding". He sent a few more. They killed them again and made fun of him. He sent them one last message along the lines of

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Erm, yeah, that's the extermination of the Khwarezmian Empire that I mentioned above, and that was more a case of a Provincial Governor (Inalchuq) being a complete arsehole, mixed in with a bunch of racism from the Shah, basically assuming that the Jin were useless and the Mongols pathetic. Not Genghis moving faster, more him doing such shit people just couldn't believe it. Besides, why would he give a town an option to surrender if he thought they'd knew nothing about him? Mongols were ALL about terror.

It's your God, they're your rules, you go to hell." - Mark Twain

Or they just decided they would rather die than just flat out surrender to someone, regardless of reputation.

Genghis Khan is not alone in that regard. Alexander the Great sacked Tyre for the same reason. Cyrus the Great from memory sacked a city for the same reason as well. Seems like "sack a city, make people fear you to make conquest easy" must be a rule or something.

Well, the Sudan war ended like a only seven years ago yet I don't recall hearing about it at all. About twenty years long, one million dead. It was all The War On Terror. By the way, that's about five thousand soldiers that died to avenge about two thousand civilians. And let's not start counting the injuted, As for the number of Afghani and Iraki who died... but those don't count, do they? All those lives and billions spent... Was It Really Worth It?

edited 10th May '12 2:54:33 PM by TheHandle

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

What can I say? It works. Which is also the reason why when Constantinople finally fell to the Turks in 1453 they did the exact same thing. They virtually depopulated the city according to wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantinople

Thus bringing a final end to the last vestiges of the Roman Empire. (btw that was also an empire that had a habit of destroying cities, wiping out or enslaving the populace and plowing whatever they did not want to keep over with salt.)

edited 10th May '12 2:59:56 PM by TamH70

And what about Bangdalesh-Pakistan-India? Those were, like, two countries with nukes?

Gotta love these disparities...

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.