The second thing I find fascinating is the fact that in 1979, Taylor led a demonstration at the Liberian mission to the UN, protesting then-president of Liberia William Tolbert, who was on a state visit to the US at the time. Taylor was reportedly upset about Tolbert's corruption. But when Taylor got to be President of Liberia, he allegedly stole $100 million from the Treasury. It's ironic that someone who is destined to be corrupt feels the need to protest the corruption of someone else.

Tolbert was later overthrown by Samuel Kanyon Doe (who had been trained by US Army Special Forces). Legend has it that Doe disemboweled Tolbert. That is gross! Why you gotta disembowel the guy??? Why not just send him into exile or something? Or just kill him without disemboweling him? See, this is why I would be terrible at being a warlord... I just don't have the stomach to watch a disembowelment take place, let alone carry out a disembowelment. Tolbert was a complicated guy. He severed Liberia's relations with Israel after the Yom Kippur War, and he spoke out in favour of Palestinian rights. But he was for the Vietnam War.

Some people may not know this: Liberia was founded as a colony for freed African American slaves in 1847. Tolbert was an Americo-Liberian, i.e. a descendent of those freed slaves. They had ruled Liberia since its founding. Doe was not an Americo-Liberian, and when he overthrew Tolbert, he ended 133 years of Americo-Liberian rule. Eventually, Doe was overthrown as well... he was tortured to death. His ear was cut off. Reminds me of that scene from Reservoir Dogs... I love that scene because I love the song that plays during the scene... "clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am stuck in the middle with you." It's hard to feel sorry for Doe; he disembowled a guy, for cryin' out loud!

The third thing that fascinates me about Charles Taylor is his professed Christian faith. Puh-leaze! The man responsible for the First Liberian War is a good Baptist Christian??? Apparently, he was able to convince Baptist civil rights icon Jesse Jackson, Baptist former President Jimmy Carter, and Baptist televangelist Pat Robertson. But then I read that after Taylor was arrested and taken to The Hague, his wife claimed that he had converted to Judaism. I guess he wanted to cover all his bases. The fourth thing that fascinates me about Charles Taylor is that he once escaped from a US jail by sawing through the bars of his jail cell. Now, I've never been to jail... but is it really that easy to escape??? All you have to do is saw through the bars??? Did none of the prison guards see him or hear him sawing away??? How does a prisoner get a hold of a saw anyway?

The fifth fascinating thing is that Taylor trained in one of Muammar Qaddafi's Cold War guerilla training camps in Libya, in which he met future war criminals: Sierra Leoni's Foday Sankoh and the Congo's Laurent Kabila. Sankoh's movement was famous (or should I say infamous) for hacking the arms and legs off civilians during Sierra Leoni's civil war. And Kabila played a major role in the Congolese civil war... in which 4 million people died. Classy guys (not). Fun fact about Kabila: when he was a young man (about 22), he met Che Guevara, who was interested in supporting socialist revolutions across Africa. Guevara felt that Kabila lacked "revolutionary seriousness" because he was always getting drunk and banging a different woman each night. I would imagine warlords get a lot of tail. But Guevara did say praise Kabila's leadership skills.

The sixth fascinating thing about Taylor is that he could have had a decent life, but he chose to become a warlord. Taylor once worked in Doe's government... as the person isn charge of the treasury. And when Doe accused him of stealing $1 million from the treasury, Taylor fled to the US. And that's where he was arrested (and that's when he sawed through the bars of his jail cell). If Taylor had not stolen from the national treasury, he could have remained a government employee and led a fairly good life. Even after he had fled to the States, he still could have chosen to stay away from African politics and found something else to do. But he chose to return to Africa and train as a guerilla in Qaddafi's camp.

The seventh fascinating thing about Taylor are his balls of steel. On Christmas Eve 1989, he led a small band of men from Ivory Coast into northern Liberia... and started a war that lasted until 1996. That is 7 long years! And this brings me to the eighth fascinating thing about Charles Taylor: his tenacity. He fought for 7 years. If I were a warlord, and I didn't achieve victory in the first year, I'd call it quits. There's no way I'd fight for 7 years. With each passing year, you gotta be thinking to yourself, "Is this ever going to succeed? Why am I still at it?" But Taylor somehow managed to pull it off.

He became President of Liberia in 1997. And that's the ninth fascinating thing: how in the world did Taylor manipulate the Liberian people into voting for him after he killed thousands of Liberians??? For starters, he would prey on young boys who did not have enough bridal wealth (or dowry) to get married. Single guys make ideal foot soldiers for war crimes; you can't get a married man to spend his life committing merciless, criminal acts against innocents. These young boys would be recruited into Taylor's army and told to kill off their parents. Taylor knew he had to undermine traditional respect for elders. What better way to do that than to get your (child) soldiers to murder their moms and their dads. They would then be given drugs and then set loose... to rape and plunder throughout the land. Do you know what Taylor's campaign slogan was in 1997? You're not gonna believe this: "He killed my ma. He killed my pa. I'll vote for him." Unbelievable!!! If somebody killed my Mom and my Dad, voting for that guy would be the last thing on my mind.

The tenth (and last) thing that fascinates me about Charles Taylor is... his accent. I haven't heard it, but a news story that I read described it as an "East Coast-inflected American accent." The reason I bring this to your attention is that Taylor may have been the only African leader in history to have an East Coast-inflected American accent. I'm reminded of Chris Matthews of Hardball talking about how Benjamin Netanyahu is the only world leader with a Philadelphia accent. I also want to mention this about Charles Taylor's religious hypocrisy... he once said, "Jesus Christ was accused of being a murderer in his time." WTF?!?! No, he wasn't! Who accused the Prince of Peace of being a "murderer???"

One last thing... the heinous crimes that Taylor had his soldiers commit against innocent civilians are beyong reproach. He would get them to chop off civilians' hands, legs, and even lips. There are people in Liberia today with no hands, no legs, and no lips... all because of Charles Taylor. What a reprehensible fellow! And he encouraged cannibalism... literally! He thought it would be a neat way to instill fear into the hearts of his enemies by convincing his men to eat the corpses of the people that they massacred. And this man is a good Christian?