You don't hear Hitler described as great too often do you? Those that do tend to have troubling tattoos. Was 9/11 a great event? Sounds like a party we should a

You don't hear Hitler described as great too often do you? Those that do tend to have troubling tattoos. Was 9/11 a great event? Sounds like a party we should all attend. An unadorned "great" is a compliment with connotations of admiration. To scrub this from your meaning, you have to be more specific e.g. "great evil", "great nuisance", "great disaster" etc.