Haim Nahman Bialik Quotes

A Cossack revolt had broken out in 1707 and was put down by the Czar’s forces. He then issued what might be one of the first official orders for genocide. Few Cossacks survived.

Roger’s Rangers of the French & Indian War were the first using unconventional warfare and invented the “deep raid” when they went in stealth all the way to Quebec and defeated the Abnaki Indians in their home village rather than defend against the Indians’ French coordinated attacks on upper York State. Rogers was portrayed by Spencer Tracy in the film Northwest Passage depicting the raid. All the men were killed but the women and children were captured and released with the exception of 5 teenagers who the Rangers took with them. This was one of the first formal “Rules of War” in what was otherwise a viciously uncivilized war.

It is not known whether Agamemnon ever existed other than in Greek legends. The “quotation” comes to us from Homer’s Iliad which itself was based on oral histories before and itself was oral for years before it was written. So the dialogue may be written by Homer. However, if real, was the earliest reference to genocide. The photograph is of a mask believed to be of the period but there is no certainty is was the King even though was associated with him by Heinrich Schliemann—the 19th century archeologist who found the object.

Darwish’s father, a Colonel in the Egyptian Army, was assigned by Nasser to Direct the Intelligence Operations for the Palestinian Terrorists in Gaza. After many Israelis were killed, the Israeli Defense forces targeted the Colonel and killed him. Nasser’s concept of revenge was to kill any Jews, anywhere, not the Jewish soldiers who had retaliated against his soldiers.

The defendants included the County Sheriff, a deputy, and the Imperial Wizard of the Mississippi KKK who had ordered the murders. Cox, an inveterate racist (See {637614}.), gave the two men convicted of 1st degree murder, including the Klan leader, to only 10 years, and the 2nd degree murderers were only sentenced to 3-5 years as the trial was Federal for Civil Rights violations but the judge did not even impose the maximum jail sentence.

The Armenian-Turkish enmity was vicious to the point that each people tried to kill and exterminate the other—men women and children. The atrocities committed by the Armenians were unfortunately greatly exceeded by the Turks in what is now often referred to as the “Armenian Genocide”—see {51838}, {631062} and {61904}. Armenians were in the minority yet each side slaughtered members of the other whenever they could. The Ottoman Turks were much better at it. The hatred still prevails – see {588211}. And Turks and Armenians both still accuse the other of atrocities during the period and appear in denial about their own violence.

Peter was the first Russian Ruler to ever leave Russia. While he was gone, there was a rebellion of the Streltsi—the Muscovite Guard. Peter was the most urbane and sophisticated of the Russian rulers, but he was also capable of a traditional response of force. True to his word, he hung over 500 Streltsi from the Kremlin walls.

It turned out that it was that particular forester had approved the “use” of the national forest. FDR transferred much land from the Forest Service which was cozy with large economic corporate interests to the Park Service which then was not. Later, both would be or not depending on the leadership at the time.

After the Russian Revolution he fought both the Whites and the Reds. He finally lost to the Reds and was banished. Both the Red and White armies went on pogroms and attacked Jews. The Whites were the worst and did so with the complicity of their officers by and large. The Reds, under Symon Petliura issued orders {617892} against pogroms but didn’t enforce it much. Makhno’s troops had some minor anti-Semitic activity but he disciplined them harshly. Specifically he had them shot. None the less, the few incidents were publicized by both the Reds and the Whites who were themselves engaged in the worst anti-Semitic behavior used their exaggeration as propaganda against Makhno and his army.

The Abenaki Indians from Canada had come South and raided many of the settlements of upstate New York. In the process, they committed many atrocities killing civilian men, women and children. Amhurst ordered Robert Rogers and his rangers to attack the Abenaki home villiage in Canada on a famous punitive raid. The Rangers, did indeed, raid the Abenaki and wiped out all the males of the tribe that were in the camp at the time. Amhurst hated Indians, but still had his standards regarding the killing of women and children, but was perfectly willing to kill all the mature males. There were no Geneva Conventions at the time. The same general introduced biological warfare by giving Indians smallpox infected blankets. See {619646}

The Union government had resorted to printing Greenbacks {619940} to finance the war. However, that left two different U. S. currencies in circulation, and speculators soon began buying one and selling the other as the Greenback ‘market’ flourished or sank with the results of each battle. This caused substantial economic dislocation in the Northern Economy and was thought to be of great help to General Lee’s war effort. Lincoln had little charity toward the speculators.

These kinds of inflammatory sermons are delivered with the approval of the king and royal family who crack down on any cleric who preaches what they do not approve of.

At the time, most Muslims and Jews of Andalusia lived together very amicably. Ibn Hazm was a brilliant scholar of philosophy, law, theology, and science and the leading Islamic intellectual of Andalusia. However, he had one major rival, a Jew named Samuel ibn Naghrela who was just as brilliant a scholar, but also one of the best military leaders, and physicians of the kingdom. (See {623786} & {623774}) Ibn Hazm was very jealous and tried to turn the Muslim Berber King Habbus al-Muzaffar against ibn Naghrela and other Jews. The king however made Samuel ibn Naghrela his hajib (prime minister / vizier) of Grenada in 1037. He was also made military commander and excelled at both areas while continuing his scholarly activity. Samuel ibn Naghrela held his political and military positions for 17 years and both these intellectuals wrote brilliant books in several field which added to the reputation of this era as the Golden Age of Islamic Spain.

Dagestan was the poorest of the Soviet States, It was then mainly populated by feuding Muslim sects who were in constant conflict with each other and an Islamic nationalist group that wanted independence from Russia. There were also a large number of bandits in what was a frontier culture of banditry and lawlessness.

The Nazis did not create German anti-Semitism for the first time. Germany had a long brutal history of murder and torture. Luther was a virulent Anti-Semite. But he was not always such. See {629231} for totally contradictory writing earlier in his career. The Modern Lutheran Church does not currently follow any of Luther’s anti-Semitic dicta and has repudiated his views on murder for the glory of the religion, although many did support it in WWII. What is stunning about this quotation is that this religious leader was advocating burning houses of God, schools and people for the “glory” of God and Christianity. However all major religions had viscous and bloody pasts. Most adherents have rejected that past as being misguided, primitive and incompatible with the modern, more noble view of the religion while only a few religious extremist fundamentalist still adhere to the darker history and interpretation of the religion.

While there were atrocities committed by both sides in the Civil War, the proportion tended to be heavily weighted by Confederate perpetrations. The Confederate officers were not appointed by the command structure and under strict military discipline, but they were elected by the troops and could be so removed (except for the general officers who were appointed by the confederacy). Also, the confederate troops were not as well fed or supplied as the North and they had fewer resources with which to fulfill their obligations to prisoners. In a number of battles, ill-clothed soldiers stripped the Union dead, wounded and prisoners, often naked to use their shoes, blankets and clothing, Union prisoners of war were much more badly abused in the prisoners of war camps like Andersonville which were not under the command of Robert E. Lee.

These battles with the Irish—in this case the MacDonnell clan—were brutal atrocities where the winners of the battle killed all the losers and the women and children with them in the case of the Irish.

The Lockout was a major industrial dispute between approximately 20,000 workers and 300 employers which took place in Ireland's capital city of Dublin. The dispute lasted from August 1913 to January 1914, and is often viewed as the most severe and significant industrial dispute in Irish history. The Employers Association, intent on breaking the Unions, told workers that if they did not resign from the Union, they would be fired. With the exception of the Guinness company, all the major employers fired most of their employees and brought in scab labor from England. The Union workers and their families were starving and only food from English labor unions kept them alive. The workers finally had to give in and for signing pledges to refrain from joining unions, they were allowed to have their jobs back. Although it seemed a victory for the employers, as this letter explained, the price was paid for years thereafter and soured Irish labor relations for most of the 20th century. While the locked out workers were both Protestants and Catholics, the Irish Catholic Church sided with the employers and even opposed a plan whereby children of Irish strikers would be temporarily looked after by British trade unionists in England, Scotland & Wales. The church protested that Catholic children would be subject to Protestant or atheist influences when in Britain.

A number of the American soldiers refused to obey Calley's illegal order. Some helped some villagers to escape, and a helicopter pilot landed betreen Callery's men and the villagers they were shooting at, and ordered his helicopter machine gun crew to fire on the soldiers if they did back off. The soldiers stopped firing at the civillians. However, his and other reports of the massacre were covered up by the military for a few years. Mai Lai was not the only major war crime perpetrated by Americans in the Vietnam War; there had been a few others. But given the years of fighting and the many opportunities war crimes violations under orders were quite rare. The Viet Cong had many more war crimes that they perpetrated, and our South Vietnamese allies repeatedly committed war crimes against their own people.