CINCINNATI (TDB) -- The Sunday newspaper supplement doesn't venture an opinion on the identity of the world's best dictator. But you can view Parade Magazine's annual list of the globe's Top 20 tyrants right here. Two of President Bush's best buds -- Saudi King Abdullah (No. 4) and Pakistan's Pervez Musharref (No. 8) -- landed unenviable ratings on the despot scale. The king gets credit because his nation "has the most oppressed women in the world." Musharref made the dictatorship A-list because he "suspended Pakistan's constitution."
North Korea's Kim Jong-il is No. 1 and Chad's Idriss Deby is No. 20 -- which earned him a dishonorable mention. Parade said it has picked the world's worst for the past six years:
"The dictators were chosen and ranked based on their human-rights abuses, the level of suffering that their leadership has caused and the amount of absolute power they wield. Sources include the U.S. State Department, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders. Despite all of the atrocities, however, the United States continues to do business with many of the dictators' countries."
Eighteen of the dictators are in Africa and Asia. Aleksandr Lukashenka of Belarus (No. 16) is in Europe; Cuba's Raul Castro (No. 18) is in the Americas.
Isn't it interesting that eleven out of the twenty dictators listed are in charge of Islamic régimes?
ReplyDeleteBy contrast, of the remaining nine, two are Christian, two are (nominally) Buddhist, and the remaining five fit under "Other" (including atheist)?
Does anyone see a pattern here? There is only one functioning democracy in the Middle East, and it's not a Muslim nation.
Not to mention Uzbekistan (torture partner of the U.S.) and China (economic partner of U.S.), and turning a blind eye to the mass killings in Sudan (to which China is selling beaucoup military arms.)
ReplyDelete