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throw in 800,000 dead in the mid-90's in rwanda if you need something more current. not that it absolves enabling and funding genocide, but nobody makes luxury goods and booze like them.



I don't see how the Rwandan Genocide can be entirely blamed on colonial history. The Hutu v Tutsi tribal rivalry pre-dates colonization, although the colonial government did make the situation worse. I have to say we can't blame the French. Especially since it wasn't them, but the Germans and then the Belgians who colonized it...

Algeria was one of the bloodiest colonial wars ever, and an incredible anachronism. France was still trying to hold on to it's empire, and willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives to do it, at a point in time when most of the developed world had grasped the concept of self-determination.

By the way, Melissa I'm not actually on an anti-French trip here. I just couldn't stand by while you try to claim the moral high ground for France, when history speaks otherwise. Surely getting rid of a tyrannical dictator like Saddam Hussein, with the clearly stated intention of eventually withdrawing and allowing the people of Iraq to govern themselves democratically, is a better reason to fight a war than denying a country it's independence?
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