I think we can all agree that if a group has the levers of governmental power (especially the military), they can commit atrocities and evil on a gigantic scale. Obviously, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao’s regimes spring to mind.
After doing some reading on groups like The Shining Path, it got me to thinking about what groups outside of governments and “regular” military were the worst the world has seen? I know this probably requires a tighter definition to get a better group of answers, but I’m going to let you all make your own criteria. Number of killings? Rapes? Nature of the killings? Nature of the atrocities? The choice is up to you. Plus, it’s Friday afternoon. What’s more fun to think about than the darker nature of humanity?
Just to through some out there:
European slave traders (probably too broad to consider as one group)
U.S. Mafia
Sicilian Mafia
Sinaloa Cartel
Tonton Macoute (though they might be considered governmental in a sense)
Blackhawk. 21st century mercenaries shielding themselves under the US flag while doing some of the dirtiest work there is, largely on behalf of and to profit the biggest conglomerates. “Worst” because not only were/are they all those things, but they were organized by those who should have known better in an era when we should be intolerant of such corporate thuggery.
As you’ve acquired your own Pit thread in about four posts, you might want to dial back the high snark factor. We aren’t here to see who can take each other down quickest. I suspect you even know what verb. sap. means.
Yes, Blackwater which was some other stupid name (Wii? Hu? Wut?) before changing to the togas-and-laurels name.
Does the Aztec priesthood count? They sacrificed hundreds of thousands, maybe millions. I guess they were sorta a state religion though. And maybe not as evil if they’re delusional.
What’s the most evil corporation? The East India Company? Goldman Sachs might seem bad, but they haven’t created a private army and conquered India…yet.
Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s one thing to buy and sell people who you stupidly believe to be sub-human and turn them into slaves. It’s quite another to grab your neighbor who looks just like you and do the same thing.
Blackwater is one of the great liberal lies. It started out as an ex-military guy running training services and then the CIA and DOD increasingly asked him to do more and more work and he agreed because he was a businessman obviously. They were almost exclusively protection services, and they had fewer incidents with civilians overseas than the U.S. military or basically any other entity that was over there.
The idea that they rank even in the top 100 of bad NGOs is basically retarded. There are NGOs during the Age of Imperialism that actually committed mass scale (as in millions of dead) genocides. Blackwater on the other hand at the very worst had some of its employees act negligently in a manner that resulted in a few civilian deaths over like a 5 year period.
Blackwater was a key element in sustaining the profitability of two wars for megacorps… something right out of a bad cyberpunk novel. Total deaths in those two wars range from 150,000 to double that to over one million “related” deaths. The number of deaths directly caused by Blackwater are irrelevant to their role in sustaining not just the war, but the corporate presence and profitability thereof. You can’t compose a reasonable sentence about that without using words like “despicable” and “filth.”
I guess the next argument is that they were just following orders?
I’m sorry I didn’t realize it was childish conspiracy theory hour. Completely ignore the nonsense you just posted, I’ll ask again: do you seriously believe Blackwater is worse than the NGOs during the imperialist age that enslaved and committed genocide against millions?
I didn’t and wouldn’t say “worst,” but I give greater weight to atrocities committed in the modern era, yes. And greater weight to those committed or abetted by those on a payroll to do so rather than for personal or national gain.
