Americans, Not Mongols

While the liberals and radical Islamics yammer away about the American caused death and destruction in Baghdad, they should think Iraq quite lucky to have American invaders. Genghis Khan and his Mongols had a go at what is now Iraq and didn't spend time rebuilding its infrastructure. He sacked the city of Bukhara, cultural center of Islam, shredded the manuscripts of the Koran to make litter for his horses which he stabled in the Great Mosque. Later in 1258 his grandson Hulagu captured Baghdad, which had been the treasure city of the caliphs for five centuries, murdered the last of the royal line of caliphs, massacred eight hundred thousand of its inhabitants, and allowed his Mongols to burn, rape and plunder the city for a week. Imagine, 800,000 causalities! Saddam is accused of killing "only" about 300,000 of his own people. By comparison, the entire American liberation has taken less than 20,000 Iraqi lives and some of those were at the hands of fellow Iraqis.

-- The New Millennium, June 2004.