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Underrated POS Dictators of the 20th Century

Hugo Stiglitz

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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01558D81-70FE-4A7F-949B-AA6F58BA1D6E_zps

So many to choose from but I gotta go with Francisco Franco.  

Spain is currently 2nd to Cambodia when it comes to mass graves because of him.

This POS ruled for 40 years with the help of the Hitler, Mussolini, the Catholic Church, and the USA post WW2 (because he was anti-Soviet).

He doesn’t get enough credit for being an evil fucking bastard. 

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InkaUtexas

InkaUtexas 25426

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Understand the hate for Pinochet, but why do the slimy bastard neighbors to the East get a pass? 

Gaucho Generals were no slouches. 

Dirty War, Spanish Guerra Sucia, also called Process of National Reorganization, Spanish Proceso de Reorganización Nacional or El Proceso, infamous campaign waged from 1976 to 1983 by Argentina’s military dictatorship against suspected left-wing political opponents. It is estimated that between 10,000 and 30,000 citizens were killed; many of them were “disappeared”—seized by the authorities and never heard from again.

https://www.britannica.com/event/Dirty-War

This does not include the numbers killed by taking over the Falklands. 

 

Pinochet

Commission director Maria Luisa Sepulveda said they had identified another 9,800 people who had been held as political prisoners and tortured.

The new figures bring the total of recognised victims to 40,018. 

The survivors will get lifetime pensions of about $260 (£157) a month. 

An earlier report by the commission recognised 27,153 people who suffered human rights violations under military rule.

The official number of those killed or forcibly disappeared now stands at 3,065.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-14584095

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hpslugga

hpslugga 4039

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Suharto was pretty disgusting too. Murdered hundreds of thousands of landless peasants in the first few months of his bloody rule then went on to be the scourge of East Timor for a couple decades. Heinous individual.

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Onboard 2.0

Onboard 2.0 9083

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46 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

I had a buddy married to a shrill harpy who tried to control every single aspect of his life, down to who he could visit, when and where he could go at all times, etc.  And she wasn't even that hot.

Worst dictator EVER.

Nobody shed a tear when they divorced.

Holy shit we got the same buddy. Mines done it 2x now, Back to back, crazy ass, controlling women . I used to figure the chicks were the problem, now I think it's just him.

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phdhorn

phdhorn 6224

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For your bang for the buck deadly dictator, nobody can touch Yahya Khan.  Only in power for two years, he reportedly killed up to 12 million people between 1969 and 1971. The other amateur ass dictators averaged about 5 to 35 years to do the same thing. Not Russkie Joe, gay wannabe painter Adolph, or pants suit Mao could get on the same podium with that guy. Pol Pot  give it his best "Pot" shot (HA HAR HA HEE!!), killing 4 million in about for years, but nobody was all First Team like the Kahn. he was so good he stopped off in Bangladesh and killed two million just for something to do on vacation, then got back to killing pakistanis. That guy was awesome!

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Onboard 2.0

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41 minutes ago, phdhorn said:

For your bang for the buck deadly dictator, nobody can touch Yahya Khan.  Only in power for two years, he reportedly killed up to 12 million people between 1969 and 1971. The other amateur ass dictators averaged about 5 to 35 years to do the same thing. Not Russkie Joe, gay wannabe painter Adolph, or pants suit Mao could get on the same podium with that guy. Pol Pot  give it his best "Pot" shot (HA HAR HA HEE!!), killing 4 million in about for years, but nobody was all First Team like the Kahn. he was so good he stopped off in Bangladesh and killed two million just for something to do on vacation, then got back to killing pakistanis. That guy was awesome!

Go big or go home.

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F250

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35 minutes ago, longhornmatt said:

I feel the same about Franco, but Spain seems more divided on him than I would have thought before visiting there.  I think most don’t view him favorably and I know there are some motions periodically to remove his tomb from El Escorial, but I got the sense that the attitude of many was more, “He may not have been the greatest but it’s our history and at least the trains ran on time” instead of “F that guy.”

When was your visit? There was a strong anti-Franco sentiment in Spain in the early 90's. Spain seemed to have held its breath in the 80's as it figured out democracy but by the 90's the general sentiment was vocally anti-Franco. It feels as though the anger has passed with time now that a couple of generations have grown up without memories of his rule.

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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1 hour ago, phdhorn said:

For your bang for the buck deadly dictator, nobody can touch Yahya Khan.  Only in power for two years, he reportedly killed up to 12 million people between 1969 and 1971.

Interesting story but there is much dispute over the casualty numbers and who was ultimately responsible.

Found this ominous and topical assessment:

The American political scientist Lawrence Ziring observes that,

Yahya Khan has been widely portrayed as a ruthless uncompromising insensitive and grossly inept leader ... While Yahya cannot escape responsibility for these tragic events, it is also on record that he did not act alone ... All the major actors of the period were creatures of a historic legacy and a psycho-political milieu which did not lend itself to accommodation and compromise, to bargaining and a reasonable settlement. Nurtured on conspiracy theories, they were all conditioned to act in a manner that neglected agreeable solutions and promoted violent judgments.[22]

Yahya Khan attempted to solve Pakistan's constitutional and inter-provincial/regional rivalry problems once he took over power from Ayub Khan in March 1969. The tragedy of the whole affair was the fact that all actions that Yahya took, although correct in principle, were too late in timing, and served only to further intensify the political polarisation between the East and West wings.

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Onboard 2.0

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1 minute ago, Atx71 said:

Meh....how many dicts. can claim eating their enemies? Literally.

Yeah they may have eaten a little long pig, but that's tame compared to Maos 20 million plus or Stalins 7-15 million, or Pol pots 4 million or Hitlers 7 million Jews alone.    He had lamp shades made from their skins.  Who knows how many Kim has killed.

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InkaUtexas

InkaUtexas 25426

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Al Bashir of Sudan needs to be on this list. First you have the War vs. South Sudan ongoing when he took power and he continued to lead for a few years.  Add to this Darfur. 

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Darfur Genocide. The first genocide of the 21st century, the Darfur genocide has caused the deaths of approximately 400,000 Darfuris, and displaced more than three million people. While the conflict has faded from the spotlight, ongoing violence continues to displace, injure, and kill people today.

Dude is wanted by The Hague, yet gives zero fucks.  

Quote

The court issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir on 4 March 2009 on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but ruled that there was insufficient evidence to prosecute him for genocide.[18][19] However, on 12 July 2010, the Court issued a second warrant containing three separate counts of genocide. The new warrant, like the first, was delivered to the Sudanese government, which did not recognize it nor the ICC.

Times might be catching up to him at home, but he won't go down lightly. 

What happens inside Sudan’s secret detention centres?

 

Quote

 

Dramatic footage filmed by protesters in Sudan shows masked security agents chasing down protesters, beating them and dragging them away to secret detention centres. 

Who are these hit squads? Where are these detention centres? And what happens inside their walls?

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-africa-47216487/what-happens-inside-sudan-s-secret-detention-centres

 

 

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Hornius Emeritus

Hornius Emeritus 12403

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 Francisco  Macias Nguema gets a lot of style points.  Assigned himself titles like "Unique Miracle"  and "Grand Master of Education, Science, and Culture."  Executed opposition while playing "Those Were the Days My Friend"  over the loudspeakers in a stadium.  By the end of his rule, nearly all of the country's educated class was either executed or forced into exile—a brain drain from which  Equatorial Guinea has yet to recover, even though he has been dead since 1979.  Killed may 300-400 thousand, but percentage-wise that's huge.

Edited by Hornius Emeritus
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F250

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15 hours ago, longhornmatt said:

I have been twice, most recently last year.   I didn’t take a broad survey or anything, but the people I did talk to about it seemed surprisingly meh about Franco. 

I've experienced similar sentiment in the past 10 years or so. The outrage is no longer present and the country's politics has shifted around some since it became a democracy which may have put somethings in perspective. There was a time in Spain that anything associated with capitalism or America was fascist by default. "Oh, you drink Coke A Cola, you must be Franco's butt buddy."

In the mid 90's,  I was at the park (El Retiro) in Madrid with a girl I was seeing from the University of Madrid. We were hanging out by the lake where a Christian Evangelical group was playing music. Definitely not something native to Spain. The group was surrounded by young hecklers shouting down the church group. I've never seen anything like it. After awhile the girl I was with explained that this American religion was unwanted and seen as an attempt to bring back fascism and then went on about all things fascist.

It was a very interesting perspective to hear, I was basically in Owen Wilson "wow" mode the entire time.

 

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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39 minutes ago, F250 said:

I've experienced similar sentiment in the past 10 years or so. The outrage is no longer present and the country's politics has shifted around some since it became a democracy which may have put somethings in perspective. There was a time in Spain that anything associated with capitalism or America was fascist by default. "Oh, you drink Coke A Cola, you must be Franco's butt buddy."

In the mid 90's,  I was at the park (El Retiro) in Madrid with a girl I was seeing from the University of Madrid. We were hanging out by the lake where a Christian Evangelical group was playing music. Definitely not something native to Spain. The group was surrounded by young hecklers shouting down the church group. I've never seen anything like it. After awhile the girl I was with explained that this American religion was unwanted and seen as an attempt to bring back fascism and then went on about all things fascist.

It was a very interesting perspective to hear, I was basically in Owen Wilson "wow" mode the entire time.

 

Franco’s alliance with the Catholic Church was almost a necessity for both him and the church. Pre Franco, the execution of priests wasn’t uncommon. It became a real problem. 

From your story it sounds like those old wounds never completely healed.

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Dertyberd

Dertyberd 394

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1 hour ago, F250 said:

I've experienced similar sentiment in the past 10 years or so. The outrage is no longer present and the country's politics has shifted around some since it became a democracy which may have put somethings in perspective. There was a time in Spain that anything associated with capitalism or America was fascist by default. "Oh, you drink Coke A Cola, you must be Franco's butt buddy."

In the mid 90's,  I was at the park (El Retiro) in Madrid with a girl I was seeing from the University of Madrid. We were hanging out by the lake where a Christian Evangelical group was playing music. Definitely not something native to Spain. The group was surrounded by young hecklers shouting down the church group. I've never seen anything like it. After awhile the girl I was with explained that this American religion was unwanted and seen as an attempt to bring back fascism and then went on about all things fascist.

It was a very interesting perspective to hear, I was basically in Owen Wilson "wow" mode the entire time.

 

Sounds familiar at a Spanish University.  A lot of open protests, political action, and some strikes.  It was pretty badass studying there.  

Franco is not some long forgotten problem.  There are still plenty of fascists running around.  Hell, 10 years ago the President of Galicia (autonomous region in the NW of Spain) was Manuel Fraga.   Fraga was the minister of tourism under Franco and ambassador to the UK.  He was a key founder of the Partido Popular, which is basically the GOP of Spain.  Fascists and their offspring are still very popular among the wealthy and older folks in Spain.  The undiscussed atrocities of Franco and his dictatorship have made it very easy for the mainstreaming of fascist thought in mainstream politics.  If you think we're polarized here, you've seen nothing like Spanish politics.  They have actual socialists and communists, not just cute Congresswomen from NY who subscribe to socialist policies Americans freak out over.  

Franco was a motherfucker and is still revered in many parts of the country, though thankfully they are dying off.  

 

Edit. Whatever you do don't speak ill of Franco to the police and especially not to the Guardia Civil.  They love beating the shit out of anyone who may be of a different political persuasion when they can.  

Edited by Dertyberd
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Hugo Stiglitz

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17 minutes ago, Dertyberd said:

 

Edit. Whatever you do don't speak ill of Franco to the police and especially not to the Guardia Civil.  They love beating the shit out of anyone who may be of a different political persuasion when they can.  

Among Franco’s cruelest brutalities was flushing out and often executing anyone that sympathized with the left.  He murdered thousands of his own people playing thought police. 

The irony is the moment he died the country immediately went back to democracy and instantly to the left in the first election.

It was a great fuck you to Franco but at the same time a demonstration of how effective his tactics of state sponsored terrorism worked while he was in power. 

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz
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2 hours ago, Dertyberd said:

If you think we're polarized here, you've seen nothing like Spanish politics.  They have actual socialists and communists, not just cute Congresswomen from NY who subscribe to socialist policies Americans freak out over.  

This is so true. The girl I was with was Basque and although she never admitted it, you could tell she sympathized with ETA but didn't approve of their methods. The ETA was one thing but then there was the back and forth of Leninist ideas versus various Socialist implementations. This wasn't your millennial Feel the Bern with AOC kinda stuff.

2 hours ago, Dertyberd said:

Whatever you do don't speak ill of Franco to the police and especially not to the Guardia Civil.  They love beating the shit out of anyone who may be of a different political persuasion when they can.   

Speaking of these guys. I saw a lot of mistreatment of blacks by the police in Spain. I once witnessed the cops drag several blacks out of a restaurant after they insisted on being seated. They were told the restaurant was closed but people behind them were being seated. One of the guys asked the customers to intervene but someone just yelled for them to leave. Then the cops showed up. The whole thing escalated so fast, it took a moment to process what I was witnessing. It was a flashback to a time I wasn't even old enough to have experienced.

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2 hours ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

The irony is the moment he died the country immediately went back to democracy and instantly to the left in the first election.

 It was a great fuck you to Franco b

I wouldn't say it was immediate. There was a perilous road they had to travel before getting to democracy. Shit, Juan Carlos could have just said "fuck it, I'm king" and retained support from the military and the Right, but he didn't. Still, he had to ease into the idea of democracy without pissing off the Francoists. Then there was the whole coup attempt in the 80's. It took a little while.

The story would make a great movie. I don't know why one hasn't ever been made.

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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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6 minutes ago, WhatTheBuck said:

Sounds like maybe Hugo watched last week's episode of The Dictator's Playbook on PBS. (Tonight's episode is on Idi Amin.)

That coupled with some reading.  I was surprised I wasn’t more knowledgeable about his story.  I suppose it had something to do with the US being aligned with him during the Cold War and never viewing him as an enemy or adversary.

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50 minutes ago, Hugo Stiglitz said:

That coupled with some reading.  I was surprised I wasn’t more knowledgeable about his story.  I suppose it had something to do with the US being aligned with him during the Cold War and never viewing him as an enemy or adversary.

I take it you are not a fan of Orwell or Hemingway.

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bolverk

bolverk 29360

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This question probably takes us down a rabbit hole that this thread wasn't intended for. But since Franco has been the primary subject for the last several posts, I'd like a chance at a "dumb amnesty" one that's bugged me for a while.

Why didn't Franco, who was a fascist and received military aid from the Nazis during the Spanish Civil War, involve Spain as an active belligerent party during World War II?

Edited by bolverk
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Hugo Stiglitz

Hugo Stiglitz 23356

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Armchair wiki analysis:

In September 1939 World War II began. On 23 October 1940, Hitler and Franco met in Hendaye in France to discuss the possibility of Spain's entry on the side of the Axis. Franco's demands, including supplies of food and fuel, as well as Spanish control of Gibraltar and French North Africa, proved too much for Hitler. At the time Hitler did not want to risk damaging his relations with the new Vichy Frenchgovernment. (An oft-cited remark attributed to Hitler is that the German leader said that he would rather have some of his own teeth extracted than to have to personally deal further with Franco.)[77][78] Franco had received important support from Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini during the Spanish Civil War, and he had signed the Anti-Comintern Pact. He described Spain as part of the Axis in official documents, while offering various kinds of support to Italy and Germany. He allowed Spanish soldiers to volunteer to fight in the German Army against the USSR (the Blue Division), but forbade Spaniards to fight in the West against the democracies. Franco's common ground with Hitler was particularly weakened by Hitler's propagation of Nazi mysticism and his attempts to manipulate Christianity, which went against Franco's fervent commitment to defending Catholicism.[79] Contributing to the disagreement was an ongoing dispute over German mining rights in Spain. Some historians argue that Franco made demands he knew Hitler would not accede to in order to stay out of the war. Other historians argue that Franco, as the leader of a destroyed and bankrupt country in chaos following a brutal three-year civil war, simply had little to offer the Axis and that the Spanish armed forces were not ready for a major war.

Yet, after the Fall of France in June 1940, Spain did adopt a pro-Axis stance (for example, German and Italian ships and U-boats were allowed to use Spanish naval facilities) before returning to a more neutral position in late 1943 when the tide of the war had turned decisively against the Axis Powers, and Italy had changed sides. Franco was initially keen to join the war before the UK was defeated.[80] In the winter of 1940–41 Franco toyed with the idea of a "Latin Bloc" formed by Spain, Portugal, Vichy France, the Vatican and Italy, without much consequence.[81] Franco had cautiously decided to enter the war on the Axis side in June 1940, and to prepare his people for war, an anti-British and anti-French campaign was launched in the Spanish media that demanded French Morocco, Cameroon and the return of Gibraltar.[82] On 19 June 1940, Franco pressed along a message to Hitler saying he wanted to enter the war, but Hitler was annoyed at Franco's demand for the French colony of Cameroon, which had been German before World War I, and which Hitler was planning on taking back for Plan Z.[83]Franco seriously considered blocking allied access to the Mediterranean Sea by invading British-controlled Gibraltar,[77] but he abandoned the idea after learning that the plan would have likely failed due to Gibraltar being too heavily defended, and it would have given the British the grounds to declare war on Spain and thus give the UK and its allies an excellent opportunity to take both the Canary Islands and Spanish Morocco, as well as possibly invade mainland Spain itself.[77][84] Franco was aware that his air force would not be able to protect Spanish cities from attacks by the British Royal Air Force, and the British Royal Navy would be able to blockade Spain to prevent imports of crucial materials such as oil. Spain depended on oil imports from the United States, which were almost certain to be cut off if Spain formally joined the Axis. Franco and Serrano Suñer held a meeting with Mussolini and Ciano in Bordighera, Italy on 12 February 1941.[85] Mussolini affected not to be interested in Franco's help due to the defeats his forces had suffered in North Africa and the Balkans, and he even told Franco that he wished he could find any way to leave the war. When the invasion of the Soviet Union began on 22 June 1941, Franco's foreign minister Ramón Serrano Suñer immediately suggested the formation of a unit of military volunteers to join the invasion.[citation needed]Volunteer Spanish troops (the División Azul, or "Blue Division") fought on the Eastern Front under German command from 1941 to 1944. Some historians have argued that not all of the Blue Division were true volunteers and that Franco expended relatively small but significant resources to aid the Axis powers' battle against the Soviet Union.

Franco was initially disliked by Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American declaration of war on Spain in order to overthrow Franco's regime.[86] Hitler may not have really wanted Spain to join the war, as he needed neutral harbors to import materials from countries in Latin America and elsewhere. In addition Hitler felt Spain would be a burden as it would be dependent on Germany for help. By 1941 Vichy French forces were proving their effectiveness in North Africa, reducing the need for Spanish help, and Hitler was wary about opening up a new front on the western coast of Europe as he struggled to reinforce the Italians in Greece and Yugoslavia. Franco signed a revised Anti-Comintern Pact on 25 November 1941.

After the war, the Spanish government tried to destroy all evidence of its cooperation with the Axis. In 2010 documents were discovered showing that on 13 May 1941, Franco ordered his provincial governors to compile a list of Jews while he negotiated an alliance with the Axis powers.[87]Franco supplied Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, architect of the Nazis' Final Solution, with a list of 6,000 Jews in Spain.[87]

On 14 June 1940, Spanish forces in Morocco occupied Tangier (a city under the rule of the League of Nations) and did not leave it until the war's end in 1945.

After the war, Franco allowed many former Nazis, such as Otto Skorzeny and Léon Degrelle, and other former Fascists, to flee to Spain.

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