Communism still tops list but ...

Submitted by Jason Pappas (United States), Jan 29, 2012 at 07:46

Rummel has since increased the total for China from 35 million to 78 million (see here).

You raise an interesting point. Communist still top the list. We may have contained the spread of communism across borders (but not the slaughter within borders). Since the fall of the Berlin Wall our policy has changed. With Bosnia we sent the message that we would respond to democide. It has cost us dearly. But it has made regimes hesitant to engage in mass slaughter. Even "baby doc" Assad doesn't do what his father did in Hamma ... at least not yet. I believe we are shedding the role of "world policeman" and we'll see the return of vicious dictators. It will take time to go back to the old ways.

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