Has Japan killed more foreign civilians in WWII than any other country in history ?

[Keoland]

So what exactly is your point?

My point was that Maciamo was excluding outright the possibility that the spaniards could have killed more than 20 million amerindians, on the grounds that there were not 20 million amerindians to beguin with.

Since the data avaliable points otherwise, I pointed that out - what Spain did in the early XVIth century probably rates as the biggest wiping out of humans ever in terms of the percentage of the total population (I don't recall a bigger one).

So what exactly is your point?

Actually, the 16 million include millions of european settlers. Also the 37 millions are just the mesoamericans plus the population of the Inca Empire. It does not include the rest of South America. The total amerindian population of central and south america in 1519 was probably around 50 million people, perhaps more.

And the eliminations occurred (in the spanish part) in the very first years of the colonization, not over 250 years - the 16 million people in 1750 already include some recovery by the native population. The data points to the elimination of around 80-90% of the natives in the first 100 years.

The point is to show the hypocrisy of many which point to the atrocities of the XXth century and show them as "the greatest ever", but at the same time are totally blind to the fact that other peoples (which have a good international standing - there is no international movement against the portuguese or spanish) have done things that make whatever the Japanese or Germans did in WW2 look like small things in comparison. Which happens to be quite relevant to the title of this thread.

It also makes us often wonder why the Germans and Japanese are so often accused, while nobody seems to care about us

Do the Iberians have the capacity to rise above the narrow peninsular mentality or the Eurocentric mentality for once?

Funny you ask that. In the XVIIIth century, Montesquieu wrote something he called "Persian Letters", which were done as if someone from Persia was visiting Europe. The idea was to show the cultural difference between the two civilizations.

Regarding us iberians, his fictional persian character wrote:

"I have, in six months time, run through Spain and Portugal; and I have lived among a people, who despising all others, do the French alone the honour of hating them".

http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/HTML.php?recordID=0959

(Letter LXXVIII)

To be honest, we have background from the days of the Romans. The numbers advanced by Julius Caesar in his De Bello Gallico indicate that he wiped out one third of the population of Gaul during seven years of war. Whole tribes were anihilated.

He also presents exact data one some points. The Helvetii and their allies, which migrated to Gaul in 60 b.C., numbered exactly 368 000 souls, according to their own census. After he clashed with them for some months, and especially after the Battle of Bibracte, Caesar notes that only 113 000 were left to return to their original country. The soil of the Hill where the Helvetii made their final stand was soaked in human blood from men, women and children. That is the equivalent of the Massacre of Nanking, but done in just one day, out of a much smaller population and just with swords.

The Venetii in Brittany (250 000 people), for that matter vanished totally from History after their rebellion. Caesar wanted to make an example out of them.

These cases are recurrent in Latin History. Yet most people point to the Romans as an example to be followed. And Caesar is a very respected leader

Can you laugh at them in that safty of your home because you lack the imagination ?

I don't need imagination, I lived in Africa for some time and saw a fair share of butchery myself. Have you ever seen women who had their limbs chopped off and then were impaled by their vaginas after having been raped by dozens?

Or people gunned down the streets by the police just because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (namely, when the police was passing by?).

Or having to pass over a line of corpses to get to work, after the disco next door was attacked by the guerilla? (I stepped on many teeth who were on the ground - the people tried to flee, and many were stomped to death - they left their teeth there when their heads were stepped on by the fleeing crowd).

Or waiting for transportation while the person which was previously there just had their brains blown off? (and the fresh corpse is still there, because it will take many hours until someone even bothers to pick it up).

I do have these experiences. Unlike what you think, one does not become insensitive to human death by never experiencing it - it is when it becomes a familiar everyday sight that we stop caring. Either that, or we go insane.

Regards,
Keoland