Dictators (on main list)

[Catlady (Rita Prince Winston)]

Steve bboyminn wrote in
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/HPforGrownups/message/182487>:

<< In hindsight, looking at Voldemort, Hitler, or any other ruthless
dictator, we surely ask how and why did this happen. What the man was
saying and doing was so hopelessly illogical and irrational, and yet,
that charismatic man was able to accomplish the most despicable
things. Things that in hindsight make no sense at all. >>

Remember that terrible, terrible civil war in Sierra Leone, where the
rebels were cutting off everyone's hands and feet? They would invade
villages and force the children to kill their parents and then take
the children as slaves and make them be child soldiers? The leader of
the rebels was Foday Sankoh, and every sound bite I ever heard from
him was lunacy, and media reports of his back story were that he had
been some kind of official who was denied a promotion, so he decided
to conquer the country in order to give himself an even higher
promotion. And it seemed obvious to me that if one actually wanted to
conquer a country in order to rule it, one would not wish to wreck
that country's resources (such as its labor force!) because ruling a
wrecked country would be unrewarding.

I kept asking "why would anyone follow this idiot? He doesn't tell
them it's a class struggle or an ethnic struggle. he doesn't tell them
that this is a holy war commanded by God. He doesn't even tell them
they'll get rich from loot. I understand about the child soldiers;
they really will be killed if they get caught disobeying or trying to
escape, and if they do escape, they have no home or parents to return
to, and they expect to be punished as murderers. But how did he
recruit his original band of followers with which he started to invade
villages and enslave children?"

I eventually found out, and it WASN'T charisma. It was Charles Taylor,
the Liberian in the US on a student visa who was convicted of
burglary, escaped prison, returned to Liberia, and assassinated the
previous dictator and eventually became dictator himself, after a very
destructive civil war between several men who all wanted to be
dictator themselves.

It was eventually reported that the plan he made while in US prison
was not simply to become dictator for the sake of that glorious title,
but to use the position to get rich off diamonds illegally excavated
in neighboring countries, which he would export from Liberia despite
Liberia not having diamond mines. He gave Foday Sankoh some money to
hire mercenaries to start his rebellion, and conquer some diamond
mines to pay him back in diamonds. Charisma not needed, just paychecks.

Personally, I think Charles Taylor is Satan. So very, very, very much
damage done by one man who wasn't even a politican or a general or a
CEO or an orator, just a greedy street thug...