Word: ruthless
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...nation, who overturned centuries of humiliation at the hands of foreign powers. Of course, America's Founding Father heroes have warts of their own. (George Washington was imperious; John Adams was a grouch; Thomas Jefferson had that affair.) But as recent biographies have made apparent, Mao was not merely ruthless but his ruthlessness is practically unmatched in history. If iconic, socialist-chic Mao once seemed cuddlier than, say, Stalin, the record now makes clear they were rivals in brutality. Both men, through murder and misrule, were responsible for tens of millions of deaths...
...seen. In Damascus, the Syrian President is often spotted dining at a smart restaurant with his wife Asma or driving his family to their weekend retreat in the mountains. Since succeeding his father Hafez as President in 2000, Assad has left the dirty work of running Syria's ruthless intelligence and security organs to two members of his clan--his brother Maher, 37, commander of the Presidential Guard, and his brother-in-law, Assef Shawkat, 55, chief of Syrian military intelligence. They haven't always got along. About five years ago, Maher shot Shawkat in the stomach during a family...
...story of a ragbag of bizarre, damaged, retired superheroes reunited by the murder of a former teammate, Watchmen is told in fugal, over-lapping plotlines and gorgeous panels rich with cinematic leitmotifs. A work of ruthless psychological realism, it's a landmark in the graphic novel medium. It would be a masterpiece in any. --By Lev Grossman...
...pored over the interrogation transcripts of would-be attackers in jail. In the end, it was not the mass killings or the suicides that most disturbed him. It was how ordinary the attackers were. "I was shocked by my own stupidity," he says. "You think suicide bombers are ruthless fanatics. But they were very similar to you and me." That sense of recognition makes the film more grueling to watch - even for audiences who have grown inured to the near-nightly footage of suicide attacks in Baghdad. Here the dissection of the phenomenon is a lot more intimate and painful...
...taking shape that blends imperial nostalgia with the occasional careful nod to the Soviet Union's greatness under Stalin. These days the Kremlin honor guard wears 1812-era uniforms, and attending Orthodox church services is a good career move. Even the Stalin-era national anthem is back. Lenin, a ruthless but austere revolutionary, an enemy of empires and religion, is out of fashion. Denouncing him allows members of the new élite to recast themselves as standard bearers of imperial nostalgia...