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SPEAKING
FREELY
Delusional dictators not to be
ignored
By James Zumwalt
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online
feature that allows guest writers to have their say.
Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
Several
weeks ago, Australia was added to the list of countries
receiving threats of a nuclear strike from bellicose
North Korea. These threats followed Australia's
agreement to participate in an international maritime
monitoring force called for by the United States to
inspect ships involved in North Korea's weapons trade,
especially in weapons of mass destruction. By declaring
its willingness to participate in such a monitoring
force, Australia - the North Koreans now claim - is
subject to such a strike at any time.
Such
outrageous threats resonate from the North Korean
leadership much as they did from the former Iraqi
leadership. Listening to such rhetoric, one wonders
whether delusional dictators such as Saddam Hussein and
Kim Jong-il suffer from what might appropriately be
called "detached-reality syndrome".
Detached-reality syndrome is not a genetic
disorder and is not found in the medical dictionary. But
it is this author's best description of a disorder that
seems to afflict such leaders. It is a product of the
environment that is self-inflicted. It occurs when a
brutal dictator purges his leadership circles of
independent thinkers.
During Saddam's reign of
terror, he surround himself with "yes" men - people who
told him only what he wanted to hear but never what he
needed to hear to make an informed and rational
decision. Those unfortunate enough to express their
independent thought in his presence, such as the
inner-circle member who suggested just before Saddam's
ouster that he consider seeking asylum in another
country, soon discovered their leader had zero tolerance
for such thinking. From the beginning of his regime,
Saddam left no doubt he was judge and jury and, on some
occasions, even executioner, ensuring everyone thought
only as he thought. Few were willing to say anything to
provoke Saddam's wrath. Undoubtedly, in the days prior
to Operation Iraqi Freedom, as was probably the case
prior to the first Persian Gulf war, Saddam was assured
by those around him that the Iraqi army would fight the
good fight, extracting a heavy toll on the Americans and
achieving victory in the end. Detached from reality,
Saddam's bravado prior to both wars probably was not
false - for it may have reflected what he firmly
believed based on what those around him had been saying.
That such advice came from advisers predisposed not to
object to their leader's conditions had no rational
bearing in Saddam's mind.
Suffering from this
malady as well is the North Korean leadership. It is
less surprising that Kim Jong-il is so afflicted because
his is a country that has succeeded in thoroughly
isolating its people from the outside world - not only
from Pyongyang's foes but its friends as well - for more
than half a century. Aptly called the Hermit Kingdom,
North Korea for generations has served its leadership as
a laboratory experiment in mind control, a control
practiced upon its people, causing them to believe life
there is utopia. Years of famine have provided the North
Korean people with a bitter dose of reality, claiming
the lives of more than 2 million of their countrymen.
But all the while, the North Korean leadership remains
detached from this reality, failing to take the steps
necessary to alleviate such suffering. In fact, at a
time of devastating famine, in a country where only 20
percent of the land can be farmed, the government
further reduces domestic food production by dedicating
some land to the cultivation of poppies to further its
"cash cow" drug trade.
In any other country in
the world where 5-8 percent of its population had died
as a result of governmental neglect and disdain for its
people, civil disobedience would erupt. But the absolute
and brutal control exercised by Pyongyang's leadership
makes this highly improbable. Thus, the North Korean
leadership chooses to resolve the country's famine
problem either by relying on the outside world to feed
its people or simply by waiting for enough of its own
people to die so that the problem goes away.
Detached-reality syndrome is so firmly
entrenched within the North Korean mindset that
government officials there try to hide the truth even
when it is too obvious to hide. This deception is openly
evidenced by the official line put forth by the regime
over what is the most dominant feature on the capital
city's skyline.
Those who visit Pyongyang cannot
help but notice a unique and towering structure there.
It is a hotel, shaped like a narrow pyramid, stretching
toward the sky more than 100 stories high - so high, in
fact, that it casts a shadow over parts of the city. The
last time I visited Pyongyang, in 2000, I received the
same explanation for the building's lack of completion
as I did when I first visited there in 1994 - it was
still under construction. Yet, even in 2000, the hotel
was no closer to being finished than it was when I first
saw it. Begun before the death of Kim Il-sung, the hotel
will never house a single guest. The truth is, that the
state of the hotel, like the state of the North Korean
union, is one of ongoing deceit. Unwilling to
acknowledge that their own engineering errors have made
the hotel uninhabitable, North Korean government
officials continue to promote the lie, stating that it
is simply a work "in progress". One only wonders how
long Pyongyang will continue such an obvious untruth
and, ultimately, which will collapse first - the hotel
or the North Korean regime. Sadly, it may well be that
the latter survives the former.
The world
community should be immensely concerned when a dictator,
clearly living in a world of detached reality, makes
threats to employ weapons of mass destruction -
developed in violation of international accords -
against those who seek only to enforce those very same
agreements. Logic and reason have no impact on such a
leader. If he fails to respond logically to the
suffering of his own people, why should he respond
logically to concerns expressed by the world community?
Extreme measures are now required to deal with
North Korea, starting with the multinational monitoring
force proposed by US President George W Bush to ensure
not only that weapons of mass destruction are curtailed,
but that Pyongyang's drug trade is retrenched as well.
Should this generate a belligerent response from North
Korea, the United States must be prepared to respond in
kind. If we fail to take these steps now, Pyongyang's
delusional dictator will make good on his threat, either
directly, by fully developing the capability to deliver
a weapon of mass destruction, or indirectly by selling
the capability to a terrorist group similarly
determined.
James G Zumwalt is a
retired US Marine lieutenant-colonel and former senior
adviser to the assistant secretary of state on human
rights and humanitarian affairs under president George H
W Bush. Since 1994, he has made 10 visits to the
Democratic People's Republic of Korea in an effort to
help bridge the differences between the US and the DPRK.
A veteran of the US-Vietnam and Persian Gulf wars,
Zumwalt now acts as a private consultant to foreign and
domestic clients in exploring and accessing investment
opportunities in global markets.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have their
say. Please click here if you are
interested in contributing.
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