Kim Jong-il is a madman. Ahmadinejad is a madman. Chavez is a madman.

[No Exit]

Quaddafi is a madman. Arafat was a madman. Castro is a madman. Saddam is a madman.

I have been leaving cable TV on lately. I know I shouldn't do that. American cable TV brands all sorts of foreign leaders "madmen". Whoever pisses off our powers-that-be is a "madman".

This is such crap. I'm not defending all those guys. But hell, it's getting to be a bit over the top.

We are sitting here in a country with a president who appears to suffer from creeping, early dementia resulting from his former practice of routinely pouring hard liquor down his throat until he passed out. A president who is reputed to be building concentration camps which will allegedly hold American prisoners who will be able to be held in secret, with no recourse to trial or counsel. A president who gratuitously attacked a sovereign country which had not attacked us, and which did not pose a military threat to us.

And leaders of nations on his shit-list act kind of nervous or panicky or blustery, and this makes them "madmen"??

We have no room to talk about "madmen".

And this North Korea maybe-bomb, maybe-earthquake. Truly, if you listen to cable, our commentators sound like a bunch of frightened little girls who think they saw a roach run across the fucking floor. Pathetic. R.I.P.: "Live free or die."

:rant:

[volstork]

1. bush is the REAL madman

[GreenTea]

16. !!

[Marie26]

24. They have so much in common

You'd think they'd all get along. *sigh*

[Hand]

30. Dang! Ya beat me to it!

And welcome to DU, volstork! :hi:

[malaise]

53. BIngo n/t

[PassingFair]

2. Who are you, some kind of MADMAN?

Why do you hate America?

:sarcasm:

Good post!

[No Exit]

23. I applied for the Axis of Evil, but didn't get in!

I feel so inadequate!:crazy:

[PassingFair]

25. Will you settle for one of the Asses of Axels?

We have a position open...

[No Exit]

40. Asses... of... Axels...? What is that, some sort of guy pride group?

Is Dennis Hastert a member?:wtf:

[jberryhill]

39. You could try to transfer credits

After spending a few semesters at the Axis of Naughty.

[No Exit]

57. Oh, wow, good thinking... oh, but, damn... it lost its accreditation...

I just heard that its chancellor, Rep. Mark Foley, resigned in disgrace.

:argh: AARRGGHH!!! Is it too much to ask that there be a decent Evil Axis available when one needs it????

[babylonsister]

3. Great rant, and we have no room to talk. nt

[Malikshah]

4. As were Nasser, Tito, Nehru, etc.

Anyone in the non-aligned countries were deemed madmen...

Lovely little thing to write them off so one didn't have to deal with the intricacies of foreign diplomacy...

Been done in the past and continue until today...

[lvx35]

5. Here's my response:

Who has Kim invaded?
Who has Ahmadinejad invaded?
Who has Chavez invaded?
Who has Castro invaded?
HEll, who has Saddam invaded the century?

The answer is the same for all, nobody. Only Bush has a different answer.

[KyndCulture]

6. Sorry

Chavez is not a madman.

[Selatius]

11. Well, Bush's allies say he is a madman

It must be true! Good old Christian Bush and his Christian friends would never lie to us, would they?

[ComerPerro]

35. You really need to read the whole post before posting

honestly

[razors edge]

7. 1st rule of salesmenship...

Never talk bad about the competition to the customer.

If just one of your claims turn out to be wrong the taxpayer, oops, customer will never believe you again.

[Kagemusha]

8. They're crazy... but they're not stupid.

'Nuff said.

[eallen]

9. Ahmadinejad is just a charismatic fundamentalist. Were he American...

He would be competing with Pat Robertson for audience, or going a slightly different route, would have be serving in the Congress, jowl by jowl with Frist and Santorum. I see no reason to think him crazier than any other fundamentalist.

[BlooInBloo]

10. Let's not lose all perspective - kim jong il really IS a madman...

... not that I draw any specific consequence from that (other than the fact that letting him have a nuke is stupid).

[hogwyld]

17. And how do you come to that conclusion?

By the RW MSM? Nobody really knows much of anything about him. Ms. Albright thought of him as a intelligent man. Sure he doesn't trust the US, but can you really blame him?

[YOY]

20. Actually I've talked to a former North Korean and plenty of South Koreans

He's pretty much batshit...a solid consensus. Don't try and stick up for him too hard.

Chavez has his merits as do a couple of others on that list (Castro comes to mind especially.)

Whereas quite a few of the others are nothing nice, but hardly madmen.

[spoony]

33. He claims to have set off a nuke.

Whether he did or not, he's intentionally created problems for his neighbours, and the world. Anyone who says "screw all of you I'm exploding my nuke" is a madman, afaic.

[hogwyld]

46. He's not necessarily a madman

He's just showing the world that if the * junta comes after him, like we did Saddam, there will be a high price to pay. More crazy like a fox than a madman.

[spoony]

47. Not to me.

He can rattle sabers all he wants to, everyone else does. But when you go that extra step and launch missiles near Japan and set off nuke(s?) you're not just messing with *, you're screwing with the world. To me, that's the work of a madman.

[hogwyld]

48. But he hasn't attacked anyone

We didn't get this worked up when India and Pakistan demontrated theirs, and that was between two countries that previously went to war with each other. About the only thing hurt by NK was some fish and groundworms. Can't say the same about us.

[spoony]

49. I'd call them mad too

I remember the tension in 1998 that caused. The US and Russia were mad too. Anyone who brings the world closer to nuclear war is mad.

And I am not convinced that earthworms are the only victims of these tests. We have no idea of the geology of the area, if groundwater could be contaminated or if there was a radiation leak. It's impossible for us to know, and I'm not comfortable taking their word for it.

[muriel_volestrangler]

50. Kidnapping a film director is pretty loopy

What followed, according to Kingdom of Kim, Shin's memoir, was an experience that revived his career in an unbelievable way. Shin and his wife were kidnapped by North Korea's despot-in-training, Kim Jong-il, who sought to create a film industry that would allow him to sway a world audience to the righteousness of the Korea Workers' Party. Shin would be his propagandist, Choi his star.

North Korean apparatchiks have tried to cast doubt on Shin's story, claiming he willingly defected to North Korea and absconded with millions. But Korea experts find Shin's story believable. Eric Heginbotham, a senior fellow at the US Council on Foreign Relations, is one of many

Kim-watchers who say it's consistent with what is known about the regime. Pyongyang now admits it captured 11 Japanese citizens in the late 1970s and 1980s to act as cultural advisers. Several died in captivity, some in suicides.
...
Ten years after writing that book, the playboy author of On the Art of the Cinema sat across the glass table from Shin and Choi, two real film-makers. He blamed misunderstandings by thoughtless officials for their unfriendly four-year North Korean welcome. He also apologised for taking so long to get back to them personally, saying it had been busy at the office.

http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,4120,929182,00.html

[hogwyld]

52. So is reading "My pet goat" while the country was attacked... n/t

[No Exit]

58. Thank goodness that couldn't happen here!

We in the United States do not kidnap!!!

(cough)

[alcibiades_mystery]

18. They're all REALLY madmen when they're the focus of MADMAN

rhetoric.

That's the thing about manufacturing consent. It's all so damn plausible...at the time. If it wasn't so plausible, it wouldn't be a problem, see?

[No Exit]

22. Well, if you say so, but their madman is smarter than our madman.

(Sorry, Kim, dude, didn't mean to damn you with faint praise there...)

[leftchick]

60. Bill Richardson does not think so

He has met him and says his is extremely smart and shrewd and should not be underestimated.

[leesa]

12. Our Prez has murdered about a hundred thousand Iraqis for absolutely

no reason at all, yet he's not a mad man. His Daddy and Reagan mowed down tens of thousands for unclear, dollar-wise presumably reasons, yet they were not mad men; Nixon, Johnson, the Bastard Kissenger murdered millions for little or next to no reasons that we know of yet they are not mad men.

Do you think there might be a pattern here? Specially when places like Iran haven't attacked ANYBODY....

[EFerrari]

26. Lancet's new estimate is 600.000 dead Iraqis.

:(

[Imagevision]

13. Bush creates 'madmen' dilema and Foley mess fucks that up too

[buff2]

14. Your post was short and to the point

I agree with you on everything you said. Out of all the "madmen" in this world,moron bu$h scares me the most. I think he's more evil and sadistic than Saddam Hussein could ever DREAM about being. I am so ashamed this Hitler wanna be is pRESIDENT of our country.What terrifies me even more is the fact we have two more years of this horror. Can you imagine the amount of harm this idiot can accomplish in the remainder of his two+ years??? God help us all. :scared:

[knowbody0]

15. Kim feels very threatened for very good reason

I am sure he paid close attention to our famous "shock and awe".
I kinda understand him sticking out his chest trying to look defiant and brave in the chaos our "dear leader" has created on this planet. I am sure if he had oil fields, we would have already deposed him.

The crazy thing is, he may just have a far reaching rocket headed for our own west coast, and if he is backed into a corner, I hate to imagine what would come of it.

I imagine he monitors our cable news, only adding to his sense of being disrespected and mocked.

[hogwyld]

19. So, can we trade madmen?

I'd take Chavez any day over the current madman in the WH. And just maybe, NK, Iran and others getting a nuke is a good thing in that it would be a check on our imperialist march across the globe.

[No Exit]

59. Sadly, it'd be like going down to the Lexus dealership with our old Duster

[earth mom]

21. Happy to give this a 5th recommendation-Thanks for the VERY SANE post. nt

[EFerrari]

27. We have madmen, too, according to the Noise Machine.

Al Gore, Howard Dean, Bill Clinton come to mind.

/typo

[Fire Walk With Me]

29. And the Micheal Savage book, "Liberalism is a mental illness".

The more they shake the "you should be very afraid" medicine stick of unification behind the only possible hope against them, the more the stated only possible hope against them appear to be shameless salesmen of zero merit.

Unfortunately, in the event of another terrorist attack, they'll paste "told you so" banners everywhere, meanwhile ignoring that they allowed another attack to happen on their watch. Anything to grab and maintain power.

[EFerrari]

34. They've done everything but go on teevee and beg for another

attack.

They are the lunatics.

[Cleita]

28. Maybe because we have been so quick to label anyone

a madman, whom we wanted to pick the diplomatic fight du jour with in the past, we are being punished by having to cope with our own madman. Could be? Maybe it's the Universe's little lesson in humble pie for us.

[spoony]

31. The mad seek power, and often get it.

Here, there, all over. Civilization has always faced their threat. But today they have toys that make big booms.

[Vexatious Ape]

32. Bush is the freaking madman and I think most of the planet

see's that, but why did John Kerry have to call Kim Jong Ill a madman yesterday? I don't have the quote but I could of sworn I heard him say something like. "...now a madman has the bomb.." something like that.

[ComerPerro]

36. Dean is a madman. Remember that? LOL

Same kind of stuff.

[No Exit]

42. Yes! How could I have left out the leader of Democrats?

After all, Democrats are considered "foreigners" of sorts by republicans. And of course they're part of the Axis of Evil.

And they also called GORE a madman, come to think of it. Seriously. They spread stories about "Gore takes several showers a day, blah blah blah", saying that he suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder.

[ComerPerro]

44. think they're projecting, just a bit?

[No Exit]

62. Projecting is downright honest, compared to what they're doing!

They know damn well who the real madmen are; they cynically pretend, day after weary day, that up is down, sane is crazy, war is peace, etc.

[Bluebear]

63. Was THAT a disgusting bit of projection.

[Swamp Rat]

37. Bushler is a psycho

[Spiffarino]

38. Kim IS a madman, and he's just like Bush

The evidence:

- Total disregard for the people he is supposed to lead
- Goes straight for his guns when angered
- Demands unquestioning loyalty from his subordinates
- He must always be right
- Needs constant "stroking"
- Convinced he was appointed by God

[No Exit]

41. W, meet Kim. Kim, meet W. You 2 guys have got a lot to talk about!

Maybe they can get to be good buddies and go waterboarding---uh, I mean SKATEBOARDING--together, or something. Anything to get them out of our hair!

(I'm sorry... spent too many years of organizing "play-dates" for the children, I guess...)

[rman]

56. I don't trust the info we get via our corporate media about nations

who's leaders are called madmen by our (mostly corporate) politicians.

[No Exit]

61. Thank you!!! Excellent point, and NEITHER DO I !!!

I keep trying to make that point whenever someone waxes indignant about "Saddam gassed his own people" or "Ahmadinejad is a mass murderer who wants to kill all Jews on the spot" (or "he makes Jews wear yellow stars sewn on their clothes"), etc. etc. How do we really KNOW these things?? We "know" them from the same media that was telling us right up to about 1989 that the Soviet Union could and would nuke us all any minute!

We don't even speak the same language as either of those two men. How in the HELL can we know what they are actually saying? I don't trust the media's translators.

To the first person who tells me, "But Saddam IS a murderer", or "But Ahmadinejad is really a bad guy", THAT'S NOT THE POINT. The point is, I want RELIABLE information. And I'm not getting it from the corporate/republican-owned media, and neither are you.

[cyclezealot]

43. glad, I forced myself to read this thread.

Hitler finessed the use of the word madman. Madman is a term used for mass control . Normally, I ignore sentences with such meaningless phrases. This time I agree. Those with awful human rights records need facts to prove a charge not epitets for the unthinking.

[eridani]

45. A Blast from the Past

http://www.satirewire.com/news/jan02/axis.shtml

ANGERED BY SNUBBING, LIBYA, CHINA SYRIA FORM AXIS OF JUST AS EVIL
Cuba, Sudan, Serbia Form Axis of Somewhat Evil; Other Nations Start Own Clubs

Beijing (SatireWire.com) — Bitter after being snubbed for membership in the "Axis of Evil," Libya, China, and Syria today announced they had formed the "Axis of Just as Evil," which they said would be way eviler than that stupid Iran-Iraq-North Korea axis President Bush warned of his State of the Union address.

Axis of Evil members, however, immediately dismissed the new axis as having, for starters, a really dumb name. "Right. They are Just as Evil... in their dreams!" declared North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. "Everybody knows we're the best evils... best at being evil... we're the best."

Diplomats from Syria denied they were jealous over being excluded, although they conceded they did ask if they could join the Axis of Evil.

"They told us it was full," said Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

"An Axis can't have more than three countries," explained Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. "This is not my rule, it's tradition. In World War II you had Germany, Italy, and Japan in the evil Axis. So you can only have three. And a secret handshake. Ours is wicked cool."

<etc.>

[hogwyld]

51. Thanks for making me laugh in this insane world!

ROLFMFAO :rofl:

[Philosoraptor]

54. DAMN STRAIGHT!........n/t

[Donald Ian Rankin]

55. Madman is overused.

The grasp on reality of both Kim Jong-Il and Ahmadinejad is clearly fairly weak. Quadafi, Saddam and Castro are all evil, and the moral characters of Chavez and Arafat leave/left a lot to be desired. However, with the conceivable exception of Kim Jong-Il, there's no evidence whatsoever that any of them have anything *pathologically* wrong with them.

That said, I don't think fear is in any way an unreasonable response to North Korea aquiring a nuclear weapon.