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It’s fascinating because it’s a fine example of political propaganda — released as it was shortly before the US mid-term Congressional elections, showing how (apparently) the Democrats have caused more death than the Republicans. Watch and learn…

It’s ridiculously naive to say that “World War II was a Democrat war”. That’s like saying the Port Arthur Massacre was a Liberal massacre because John Howard just happened to be Prime Minister at the time — a point made by some of the people who commented on this map and only poorly defended by the maker:

History is not some bedrock of truth, it’s gossip. It is the version of past events that people have decided to agree upon. I have no responsibility to adhere to our current perception of ‘history,’ but only to faithfully uphold the hard facts of past events.

My work is not propaganda — it is fact.

Note ‘history’ in quote marks, whereas his version is “fact”. And then, of course, that magnificent tactic: completely ignoring the specifics of the criticism and wrapping up with:

Where is my argument flawed?

Well, as one commenter pointed out, the facts are wrong and the presentation is flawed. The US debacle in Somalia started under George Bush Sr, but is shown as happening on Bill Clinton’s watch, a Democrat. And the circles showing the wars are not scaled to reflect the number of deaths — so there’s undue visual emphasis on the little wars.

But none of that matters, because as propaganda it works well. There’s enough detail to make it look factual — “Wow all those wars I’d never heard of, gosh, this is well-researched!”. And there’s still the Big Red Blotch of the “Republican” American Civil War so the cartographer can claim he wasn’t biased — but that’s a long time ago, and we all know that the Civil War ended slavery, right, so it was a “good” war?

Our cartographer might gain more credibility if he wasn’t anonymous. “Maps-of-War is created by a Flash-Designer hobbyist and professional history-buff,” he says. A “history buff” who’s being paid? By whom, I wonder?

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