I think we should hesitate to label leaders of enemy countries mentally ill.

[howard112211]

I think we should not fall into that trap. Often the argument for some sort of action, be it in North Korea, Iran or now Libya, is "This guy is a mad man. He is unpredictable.".

I think rarely is this truly a case. I don't know of many political figures that I would attribute an actual mental illness, in a clinical sense, to, except perhaps a tendency towards narcissistic disorder, which they all share to varying degrees, or a tendency to sociopathism, lack of empathy, which also many of them share to some degree. Note however that these are tendencies but usually rarely a full fledged illness.

Hitler was manic depressive in the late stages of the war, likely due to the stress of losing a war. His radical views may have been fueled by PTSD from World War one, but he was no Schizophrenic, or borderline personality, or suffered of any other form of illness that would have impaired his decision making.

Stalin was definately not mentally ill. He was a perfectly healthy, ruthless, person.

The thing is, that people do not stay loyal to someone who is showing signs of being impaired in their decision making, which is what mental illnesses do. To remain in power over prolonged periods of time requires a great capacity for calculating behavior. Signs of paranoia of a dictator, in this sense, are not a sign of illness but a reasonable response to the very real threat of assassination.

I think the reason why "mental illness" get's tossed around, when we talk about people like Ahmadinejad is twofold: For one, we, or the warhawks on our side have a reason to push this, to prove that such people are beyond diplomacy. And the second reason is that such leaders themselves sometimes have reasons to present themselves as "madmen" to the outside world. If one assumed, for instance, that Kim Jong Il is a perfectly sane individual, one might conclude that one can do scirmishes on his territory, because he would not be so nuts to escalate things into a full scale nuclear war. He therefore has an interest in presenting himself as a "raging madman" who will simply start popping off nukes randomly, as a means of deterring aggression.

Most politicians are simply following the logics of power politics. If someone makes a statement such as "leader X is nuts" this is often a good sign that this person has some sort of agenda.

[Gravel Democrat]

1. KR for a great post. De-humanizing people DC doesn't like makes atrocities we commit acceptable.

anyone know how many "enemies" have been killed in Libya? Not to mention civilians.

No? They deserve it. Maybe signed up for duty because they couldn't get a job (familiar?) but they're working for a "madman", "batshit crazy" "genocidal tyrant" (that "we" were doing business with a few months ago)

It's a sign of the further moral breakdown of our population. It is disgusting. And proof that "we" have no right to parade around and talk of American Exceptionalism or whatever todays term is.

[Prometheus Bound]

2. It's nice to read your thoughtful voice of reason amidst the usual war propaganda.

[cali]

3. re Hitler. We really don't know

whether he was clinically mentally ill. Same goes for Stalin. And you're wrong in your claim that people do not stay loyal to someone showing signs of impairment in their decision making. They do- frequently. If that person has enough power, you bet people will stay loyal to them. And sorry, some leaders are indeed sick, even psychopathic. Some of it, to be sure, is a cultural gap or people with an agenda, but not all of it.

[howard112211]

5. When I say "stay loyal to him" I am not so much talking about the "common folks"

or "footsoldiers". Of course they will remain loyal. I talk about his top-level advisors, generals, etc.

Every leader needs some form of command structure, which involves delegating power to other individuals. At that top level in the hierachy there is always some element of power politics at play, where the ambitions of individuals may tempt them to grab for power themselves. If a leader appears weak or indecisive, giving erratic commands, likely at some point a top-level general will attempt to seize power for himself. This has happened, for instance in Russia, quite frequently in the not so distant past. The chain of command may be able to remain in tact in the short term, especially in times of war, but over long periods of time, it requires a lot of calculating behavior.

[cali]

9. no, I knew what you were talking about

and history is replete with psycho leaders who kept a command structure intact.

[howard112211]

10. I suppose Nero comes to mind and a couple of European monarchs.

I suppose it is easier when the power is inherited, and loyalty to a certain family has a long tradition. But who, among those who seized power that was not handed to them?

Edit: I suppose one has to also specifically exclude cases where a person formally remained in power, because it was convenient for another person who was truly in charge.

[Prometheus Bound]

4. The hypocisy: John McCain, 2009: praises Gadhafi in person; 2011: "Gadhafi is insane."

Senator McCain and the delegation with him expressed their deep happiness to meet the leader and praised him for his wisdom and strategic vision to tackle issues of concern to the world and his efforts to sustain peace and stability in Africa.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2011/03/recent-qaddafi-ranch-guest-thinks-obamas-too-soft-libya/36177/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheAtlanticWire+%28The+Atlantic+Wire%29

[Sherman A1]

8. Causing me to wonder more about McCain than

Gadhafi (beyond his selection of headwear, which I find to be a bit bizarre, but that's just me).

[hobbit709]

6. There's no proof that ANY leaders are 100% sane.

[HereSince1628]

7. It's unfortunately common to name call a member of the opposition.

The dynamic is generally used in the process of declaring that the opposition is one of "them" and not like 'me' or 'us.' The need to identify one of 'them' and to hold 'us' together are common drives in many higher primates that are gregarious (including us), it's well known to animal behaviorists (i.e. Van der Waals). Humans do it too, and because we have language, we tag our references to one of 'them' with something disparaging.

The dynamic of identifying an opponent is typically one wherein the opponent is seen as 'not as good' as 'us'/'me' in someway. To illustrate, here's a dissection of a popular phrase on DU "Sarah Palin is an idiot." The dialectic that this phrase sets up is between the explicit statement that 'the other is idiot' and the unstated but implicit statement that 'we' are smart. You can pick almost any situation of name calling and do this same examination of the dialectic between implied and explicit treatment of the 'me/we' and the 'other'/'them.'

The use of this dynamic is very very common, and also very unfortunate. Consider the following: He's so g**, She's a b*t*h, He's a dumb n**g**. The dynamic is exactly the same, used for the same purpose.

People of a progressive bent recognized these phrases as wrong, not only because they are blatant name calling, but because they install in society beliefs that are acted upon in the form of discrimination. Formally this 'we are better than the others' thinking is called chauvinism, though the term is often seen as applying only to discrimination against females.

Curiously, referring to opponents as mentally ill IS NOT recognized as wrong on DU. I've engaged in this fight for a long time, and it elicited a statement from the DU Admin that people could go on name calling our political opponents using various terms referring to the opponents mental health status. It's my opinion that the Admins saw this as a linguistic restriction that would be to difficult to enforce, because the chauvinism against the mentally ill is so deeply entrenched in American society. Even on a progressive message board.

Certainly people MAY be mentally ill. Most DU'ers have not the education or expertise to actually make a diagnosis of mental illness, but the need to say SOMETHING disparaging about opponents is very strong, and political opponents usually hold different beliefs and values than ours. So you see, their problems (as seen by us) are indeed cognitive! That rationale encourages the use of descriptors associated with cognitive/mental health problems.

Of course, the downside of this accepted practice is to entrench chauvinism and discrimination against the mentally ill, right here on good old progressive, liberal DU. The danger of this is of course that the dialectic of I'm superior and better than a mentally ill person can replace reason and fair judgment and lend a hand to pervasive discrimination. We can come to believe mentally ill are indeed not as good as us, and we act that out in our daily decision making. The mentally ill are highly discriminated against in hiring, promotion, and association. The mentally ill are wrongly seen to be more dangerous on average than the mentally well, although repeated studies say that isn't true (seriously mentally ill persons are less likely to do violence than a mentally well person who is intoxicated--EtOH or other drugs). Indeed, studies on violence show the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violence than the mentally well.

So, I support your desire to not call political or international opponents mentally ill. I've given this a fair amount of thought, and I think I understand why it's done and how it works. While I recognize free speech I would encourage enlightened posters on this board to raise the level of our rhetoric by exploring and freely using the myriad of adjectives in the English language that can describe opponents without chauvinism against groups that suffer unfair discrimination.

[JustAnotherGen]

11. Amen

I do have to admit - I refer to Hussein as Sadly Insane and his side kick Chemical Ali. . . but that has more to do with the genocide of the Kurds uh - a few decades ago. That said - I don't TRULY believe he was insane, just as I don't believe Hitler, Petain, Pol Pot were insane. They knew precisely what they were doing.

Just as Bush Co knew .. . precisely what they were doing.

[izquierdista]

12. I wouldn't hesitate at all

I would say Stalin was mentally ill. A sadistic paranoid psychopath with delusions of grandeur. Same description applies to Kim Jong Il.

The question to be asking is how do people with such severe anti-social mental illnesses end up in positions of power? And not just in one culture, but diverse ones all over the globe (e.g. Mugabe, Pol Pot, etc.). I think this is often the case. It seems to be independent of where they purport to be on the political spectrum. A ruthless psychopath who belongs under observation and medication can use any political system to work his way to the top and heap out misery for the people while he lives a life of luxury.

Politics seems to draw the mentally ill like flies to a cow-pattie. Once in, they leverage their "raging madman" behavior to their advantage and push the effective public servants concerned for the people to the side.

[hulka38]

13. Excellent post.

Ahmadinejad is a good example. The widely held belief that Iran would launch a nuke at Israel as soon as it made one is not plausible when one realizes the guaranteed response would be Iran's immediate and utter annihilation. So why would a leader (who btw would almost certainly not be making that decision solely himself) condemn his entire country to suicide? Why, he's a madman, of course! He's completely crazy and totally unpredictable. It's the only way for that scenario to be even remotely plausible. We heard the same exact claim about Saddam when the administration was trying to convince America that Saddam was going to hit the U.S. with WMD. The propagandists appeal to people's fears and manipulate their ignorance of foreign affairs and it works every time.

Thanks again for this important and thoughtful post.