The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has invited the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, to Moscow next year to mark the 70th anniversary of the Soviet defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war, the Kremlin’s spokesman said on Friday.
It would be Kim’s first foreign visit since taking the helm of the reclusive east Asian state in 2011. His personal envoy travelled to Moscow last month as part of efforts by the two Cold War-era allies to improve relations.
Hollywood didn’t even dare to kill Hitler, the most evil of all dictators, during his lifetime. When Charlie Chaplin made The Great Dictator at the height of World War II, he lampooned the world’s most dangerous man without even considering the possibility of offing him.
The International Club of Bad Little Boys has been mightily insulted.
You don’t even have to show the movies even though the head-vaporizing clip has been making the rounds of the web for hours.
It may be enough for the malignantly narcissistic to know what they look like in America and, perhaps, how some of their people may be perceiving them via their own private adventures across the World Wide Web.
From The Awesome Conversation (FTAC) earlier today when asked where North Korea got its madly skilled IT hackers:
KGB–>VEVAK–>SSD Russian purpose or cover has been replaced by Putin’s neo-feudalism, but, possibly, probably, old relationships persist. China (–>MSS) is also not the west’s best buddy. As regards IT in general and possibly demonstrated by Assange and Snowden, the arc of despots seems quite capable of seducing western talent as well as producing prodigious security dictatorships sophisticated in every aspect of computer science concerned with the control of information.
Say it ain’t so, if you can.
It appears to me the United States — and, in general, the open democracies — is under attack in myriad ways daily, internally via foreign investment in influencing the nation’s intellectual assets, externally through means better known to James Bond movies — and now wild cinematic sendups, temporarily suppressed (one hopes) — than to foreign affairs readers.
I revise the axis “Putin-Assad-Khamenei” (“together they are defending political absolutism”) to Putin-Assad-Khamenei-Jong-Un.
He sent out plenty of “signal” by way of prior crude verbal behavior and visible crime, but the targets of his mentality and those who share it have been slow to promulgate or reinforce sedition and treason laws and to inaugurate detention / investigation without charge in some form. In legally egalitarian liberal democracy, what is done to one must be applicable to all of a class of offender (abortion clinic bombers, for example, are terrorists too), and that may be impeding reaction.
I suspect Muslim-majority states have a deeper quandary as regards identification with these aggressors on two grounds: one is fear of mafia politics in force by these gangs — the feudal seem accustomed to doing away with critics and rivals; and the other involves buy-in and getting something out of the program (and that, apparently, equals some 63,000 Facebook “Likes” for a garden variety narcissistic murderer).
Carlos Bledsoe, Little Rock
Nidal Malik Hasan, Fort Hood
Dzhokar Tsarnaev, Boston Marathon (he’s in Yahoo news today)
Michael Zihaff-Bibeau, Ottowa
At best: an incomplete list.
I hesitate to coin a term in what seems to me, online at least, an ambivalent and confused field: the study of narcissism. However, in relation to Bledsoe, Hasan, Tsarnaev, and Zihaff-Bibeau, on might suggest the existence of internalized narcissistic scripting. Each discovered laid out (just for them) a ready made mission in “political Islam” (Erdogan’s Islam, Baghdadi’s Islam, Qaradawi’s Islam, all Islam where either autocratic official or dependent fascist follower endorse civilizational Islamic supremacism). Once convinced by example and much reinforced by al-Qaeda or Brotherhood-type community-wide communications composed to encourage and incite bloody murder, these “lone wolves” (it has been claimed Monis had more than 60,000 “Facebook buddies”) are primed to deploy themselves and steal from the world the lives of innocents.
‘‘Like I said’’ there’s an all out war against Islam and Muslims in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Waziristan, Chechnya, Somalia, Palestine, Phillipines, Yemen etc. And Muslims have to fight back. Like I said before in a past interview we believe in an eye for eye not turn the other cheek. Now it’s a all out war on America and I’m on the other side. The side of the Muslims Yes! The side of Al-Qāeda Yes! Taliban Yes! Al-Shabaab Yes! We are all brothers under the same banner. Fighting for the same cause which is to rid the Islamic world of Infidel and Apostate Hypocritic regimes and Crusader Invaders and re-establish the Caliphate, the Islamic Empire and Islamic Law as was ended officially in 1924 by the fall of the Ottomans.”
Update – December 23, 2014
We allowed Iranian Man Haron Monis into our country on a business visa and then welcomed him as a political refugee. Charged with fraud at home, the Iranian government asked for him back. But we said no to the Iranians. When Monis wrote inexcusable letters to the families of soldiers who died in Afghanistan, describing them as pigs and Nazis, we excused that — delivering only a slap on the wrist of 300 hours of community service. Some called for his Australian citizenship to be revoked. We said no to that, too. We allowed Monis to remain an Australian citizen, a gift sought out by millions of refugees who are keen to embrace and respect Australia as an open, generous and free country.
To the left of this tile, the reader may find the more formally correct version of the epigram that goes, “Those who would be kind to the cruel are in the end made to be cruel to the kind.”
As noted, The so-called “lone wolves” among terrorists are not quite alone nor unknown to authorities.
The one thing they are not before committing murder: stopped.
A Gaza salafist group which has sworn its loyalty to the terrorist Islamic State organization has posted a video showing the bombing of the coastal enclave’s French cultural center late last week, NRG News reported Thursday.
The Guardian understands the text to be a compromise between Jordanian and French resolutions.
Israel’s prime minister said the moves in Europe were an example of “staggering hypocrisy”. Speaking before a meeting with the US senator, Joni Ernst, Binyamin Netanyahu invoked the Holocaust: “In Geneva they call for the investigation of Israel for war crimes, while in Luxembourg the EU court removed Hamas from the terror list … It seems that too many in Europe, on whose soil 6 million Jews were slaughtered, have learned nothing.”
Nonetheless, the essentials: ISIS appears to have appeared on the Gaza Strip; the “French Cultural Center”, which provides some diplomatic services, appears to have been bombed; and the European Parliament, “in principle”, supported this week the concept of Palestinian statehood, which is fine, but would be even better if any of the talk and underlying anti-Semitic raving actually served to liberate the residents of Gaza rather than continue and actually reinforce their enslavement by Hamas and others.
From my node on the World Wide Web’s “Second Row Seat to History”, I cannot connect the dots from a Taliban assault on an army school in Peshawar to any of the myriad halls of power owned by dictatorships that In the Name of People engage in breathtaking exploitation of the property and productive capacities of the same. Confusion and corruption rule those worlds. Try to trade it on the ground — good luck with living to report the story; try to get at it from a computer terminal, the data is not extant and remoted relationships may want for a much improved security framework too.
One such remote Pakistani contact writes now and then of the visible presence of known Taliban operators on the streets where he lives. He says there seem to be “good Taliban and bad Taliban” and when asked to tell the difference says the good Taliban operate in Afghanistan and the bad ones in Pakistan.
The concept that is “frontier” is no longer a place — there’s no “over those mountains” or “beyond that river”: frontiers are instead spaces containing some mix of geopolitical content, and the worst contain the worst in some “observable-measurable” way but not conveniently visible way.
This piece got confused along the above lines — indirect connection, virtual space disconnectedness — but I’m going to publish it anyway just to have it off my plate.
As a first answer, revenge may serve a small and now embattled circle of Islamic militants certain to have drawn another broad intelligence and military response to their communities and operational redoubts.
That’s one story — the local-to-regional Taliban story — that should corroborate easily now and in the days ahead.
Beyond that story, one may wonder about the Taliban’s “handlers” — those who are not Taliban but help sustain their machinery, motivation, and organization: who are they?
Did what happened at the Army Public School in Peshawar today distract from events elsewhere in some meaningful way?
Target center for western interests has been Iran’s theokleptocracy and its efforts to wrap its mitts around a nuclear war making capability that it might use to leverage concessions (first) and theft (later). The Iranian regime as a focal point also has arranged around itself the Syrian-to-Russian axis and through Putin’s post-Soviet and now neo-feudal channel another line of political influence and power through Crimea and Hungary’s general drifting around fascist urges signalled both, albeit separably, by Jobbik and by Viktor Orban’s administration.
Call it the International Club of Bad Little Boys, the New Assembly of Global Autocrats — Assad, Erdogan, Khamenei, Orban, Putin Yanukovych (although he seems way off stage today): how far off as approvers, backers, enablers, instigators where they from what happened in Peshawar?
They don’t have to conduct the loud — most apparent — sections of their orchestras — direct control has limits, and I don’t go in for grand conspiracy theorizing — but they may countenance and encourage the chaos and suffering that distracts attention from their own quarters and their state-based thieving. As much aligns with their shared pathology as malignantly narcissistic leaders, each atop his own dizzying pyramid.
(posted to YouTube 11/10/2014)
He has increased the number of substantial directorates of the presidency from four to 13. New units include internal security, foreign relations, economy, defense, energy and investment monitoring. Previously there were only the directorates of administrative and financial affairs, institutional communications, information technology and human resources. The president, whose main function was to approve draft bills, used to sit around the table with his advisers and ask for their opinions.
According to the authors, Putin has overseen a phenomenal expansion in the awarding of presidential perks. At his disposal are 20 palaces and villas, a fleet of 58 aircraft, a flotilla of yachts worth some 3bn roubles (£59.2m), a watch collection worth 22m roubles and several top class Mercedes.
“We did not publish data on the cost of the clothes and things that Putin regularly uses: the suits, shoes and ties worth tens of thousands of dollars – mere trifles when compared to the villas, aeroplanes watches and cars,” they wrote.
Add “Setad”, the Iranian Entity with an estimated worth of $95 billion, privately held, and certainly not subject to public oversight: “It is not overseen by the Iranian Parliament, as that body voted in 2008 to “prohibit itself from monitoring organizations that the supreme leader controls, except with his permission”. It is, however, an important factor in Khameni’s power, giving him financial independence from parliament and the national budget, and thus “insulating him from Iran’s messy factional infighting” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setad).
One might continue with this kind of thematic gathering — as regards dictators in general: man, how those cats do live! — because living high (on the backs of the low), from the junta in Burma to Paul Biya in Cameroon to Mugabe in Zimbabwe and back to Khamenei-Putin-Assad, living off the land (and all who toil upon it) is what they believe themselves designed to do “in name of the people”.
We know who financed the Afghan guerrillas 25 years ago. But who foots the bill for the Taliban now remains unclear. In the third part of his series about the lessons that can be learnt from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, Vladimir Snegiryov poses question about the Taliban’s mysterious financial side.
Vladimir Snegiryov posed the question from the Russian perspective, and here more than five years later, I pose the same from the American stance: if it ain’t the devil (and well it could be the Devil, but if it’s not, lol), who is keeping the Taliban schedule loaded with assault plans?
Here is the latest: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/16/us-afghanistan-kunar-idUSKBN0JU1QB20141216 – 12/16/2014 – “Taliban fighters mount offensive near Afghan border with Pakistan”.
From November: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-29871077 – “Pakistan bombing: Wagah suicide attack near Indian border.”
*Between publishing this post and today, January 19, 2015, the Wikipedia page has been altered. This table appears to have appeared on the page up to December 23, 2014 (and this blog post was first published on December 16, 2015).
As regards the general impression of the Khamenei regime (and the wealthy of Iran), there’s plenty online (that appears to be staying online) for maintaining the various impressions that predominate in the west.
“While it’s true that part of Riyadh’s actions respond to the energy renaissance in North America, the greater motivation is breaking Iran’s will.
The Saudis believe they can no longer rely on the US to contain Tehran’s imminent nuclear threat, so they’re out to do what our lukewarm sanctions couldn’t.
There’s no love lost between the Saudis and the Russians, either. The Saudis want the Assad regime in Syria to go. Moscow props it up.”
I am very proud to be the first Pashtun, the first Pakistani, and the first young person to receive this award. I am pretty certain that I am also the first recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize who still fights with her younger brothers. I want there to be peace everywhere, but my brothers and I are still working on that.
Sociopathy — lack of compassion, connection, empathy, feelings integrated with others — may feature in “narcissistic personality disorder” and what I consider its political relative, ‘malignant narcissism”, which are both interwoven with personality. Grandiose messianic delusion, manipulation (gaslighting is symptomatic of that), willful control of others (why it’s so important to own the press, put on a show, destroy rivals, and inhibit critics, educators, and journalists) become features of population- or state-exploiting dictators. The banners above them matter a lot less, lol, than how they’re wired on the inside. Overlooked feature in this area: “narcissistic mortification”. Whatever the injury was, the memory of it is private.
Oh, really?
Yes, really, but, sigh, also for this writer, intuitively.
I’ve no idea what the latest news may be from the psychology and social science sector, and, sans funding for research, I don’t care to look (but will take a glance in a few moments)
Empathy, imagination, and intuition serve this writer as well they may.
Surprising to me, and I meant nothing malicious by this, the Google search “Putin, narcissist” indeed yields results. I had cringed with the thought that this blog might come up tops on that — having some ideas Out There is different from having some statement Way Up There 🙂 — but Joseph Burgo’s piece in The Atlantic took the top spot: “Vladimir Putin, Narcissist?”(April 15, 2014).
And BackChannels, the blog you’re reading: it doesn’t exist.
😉
Putin may do okay. Transference . . . reparative narcissism . . . maturation — even the leaders of powerful states will grow older and may grow wiser (would that Obama would catch up with the Other Great Leaders in this regard). Given the descriptions of the possible sources of Putin’s possible “narcissistic mortification”, self-preservation cathected to ethnolinguistic cultural security seems to me a clear good path.
Reparative.
And “reparative narcissism” is also a term of art in this arena.
“Reparative” or “destructive” narcissistic leaders:
“Narcissism,” of course, is not a “bad word” and is as normal in human psychology as are sexual or aggressive desires and natural anxiety about internal conflicts. Indeed, healthy narcissism is necessary for anyone to survive, work, and maintain a solid identity. But narcissism is also subject to frustrations, which may lead to unhealthy weakened or inflated self-love (Weigert, 1967.) It is when people have exaggerated love of self that they exhibit the repeated thought, behavior, and feeling patterns that in combination are called narcissistic personality. Such individuals think that they are unique and grand, which causes them to feel omnipotent and to act as though they are better than anyone else. But people with narcissistic personalities live in a paradox: while they love themselves too much and feel grandiose and omnipotent, they also, in the shadows so to speak, possess an aspect that is devalued and “hungry” for love. Periodically, this hunger asserts itself into awareness and creates anxiety, shame or humiliation in the person. Accordingly, such individuals’ personality organization splits between a grandiose self and a hungry self. The splitting in the personality organization reflects a lack of cohesive identity. The personality characteristics reflecting the grandiose self are overt, while those characteristics reflecting the hungry self are covert (Akhtar, 1992; Kernberg, 1975, and Volkan and Ast, 1994.)
That’s what happens when one noses into academese online.
Blocky text.
The style is much friendlier paper-based and supported by sofas, tables, highlighters, and coffee.
Nonetheless, and to access a Jewish trope, one has always the choice of making things a little bit better — not a great revolution, great war, great “grandiose delusional messianic” (an NPD term of art) image, but a little more fair and just, a little more comfortable and strong.
Volkan has been practicing political psychoanalysis for over two decades. His first “patients” were high-level delegations from Israel and Palestine, with whom he engaged in “unofficial diplomacy” for six years. He credits the late Egyptian president, Anwar Sadat, with opening the field with his 1977 declaration that 70 percent of the problems between Arabs and Israelis are psychological. Ten years later, Volkan established the Center for the Study of the Mind and Human Interaction, the world’s only conflict resolution organization housed in a medical center. Because Volkan’s brand of therapy depends on individual breakthroughs to affect mass behavior, it is difficult to quantify “progress.” The clinical effects of his work, by nature, may never be proven. Such is the persistence of man-made trauma.
BackChannels 