Human Shields and Choice

[Moldran]

One of the most barbaric crimes in history, certainly. *The* most? Probably not. Read about how Tamerlane treated Persia, Afghanistan and Northern India. Or what Genghis Khan did to the Arab world. Or the Roman "final solution" for Carthage.
Again, we arrogantly think that everything near us in history is the worst, the best, the biggest, the most important. Actually, all it usually is is recent.

I regard the Holocaust as *the* most barbaric crime in history.
There are alot of terrible mass-killings in human history, and in some, maybe even more people got killed. But in almost all cases, people were killed "for a rational purpose" (power, goods, etc), as cynical as it may sound. The Holocaust is historically unique, because it combines the modern industrial execution with the specifically ideological motivation. As some people say, it is the culmination of anti-enlightenment.

Moldran