You're bound to lose, you fascists, you're bound to lose

Having devoted yesterday's post to possibly the greatest American of the 20th century (and make sure to check out dkon's post immediately beneath this one for more on why he was a great liberal), we'll now turn our attention to some of the world's worst, people for whom Godwin's Law does not even apply (it states that an argument is over when you compare your opponent to Hitler or the Nazis). Our inspiration, such as it is, comes from a truly disagreeable quote from Martin Peretz, the looney-tune sewing-machine-heir-marrying owner of the New Republic. He writes, in smearing an interesting editorial by James Carroll about Martin Luther King, Jr. (if you really want to see the Peretz post, then google it; I wouldn't link to him if you paid me):

And on another clumsily related point by Carroll: "Expect the mantra of 'Socialism!' chanted last week in Venezuela to grow louder... Socialism, compared with possible anarchy, is benign." This was the identical apology to the one made for Stalin and Mao, Pol Pot and Castro. And what about Hugo Chavez's friends, Ahmadinejad and Kim Jong Il? Are their regimes better than anarchy?

Holy category mixing, Batman! This list includes four deeply evil men (Ra-di-cal-ly E-e-e-vil, for those who know Leon Botstein and his cadences), one minor league dictator, one wannabe badass with a bark much worse than his bite, and one deeply troubling but morally ambiguous leader. Let's consider them in turn.

1. Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, and Kim Jong Il: Mao killed tens of millions, through violence, repression, and forced famine. Stalin claims a comparable total, by many of the same methods. Pol Pot only rings up 1.5 million deaths or so, but not for lack of effort; Cambodia only had roughly ten million people to kill. Finally, Kim Jong Il has overseen the forced starvation of a couple million people, and takes his rightful spot among the infamous.

2. Castro is a guy that some people on the right think all liberals like. Here's an example from National Review:

But...you know what? Fidel Castro is going to die sooner rather than later. And when that happens, you're going to hear crickets chirping in certain quarters of the left before you hear similar denunciations of Castro, who remains more of a tyrant than Pinochet was. And, you can be sure, conservatives will suddenly sound universal and idealistic in their condemnations of human rights abuses under Fidel.

Umm, no. Castro is in many ways a very bad man. Cuba imprisons dissidents, bans free speech, and represses gays and lesbians. There are numerous reports of mistreatment and beatings/torture in Cuban jails, although it can now be easily argued, thanks to our wonderful administracion and Presidente, that the most infamous prison on Cuban soil is the one at Guantanamo Bay. Pinochet, on the other hand, had a thing for attaching electrodes to people's testicles, and then dumping their bodies out of helicopters into the sea after they were dead, or in some cases, before they were dead. I could give a shit about what you or he thought about the free market; he was a deeply evil man and it's a good thing that he's dead. I don't know what you have to be smoking to defend Pinochet, or Castro for that matter, but if there are levels in Hell, look for Pinochet to be a couple of extra floors down from his Cuban fellow traveler.

3. Ahmadinejad is an anti-Semite and a holocaust denier, even if he claims he is not. He is famous for saying that Israel should be wiped off the map, though some have questioned the translation. In any case, if he had one tenth the power that people attribute to him, he might actually be dangerous. Thankfully, this is not the case. Foreign policy in Iran, including the nuclear program, is controlled by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the true Iranian figure about whom you should worry. Ahmadinejad talks a big game, but he's something of a figurehead, without the power to do a goddamn thing to Israel other than to make ridiculously offensive speeches. He's also largely a problem that we had a hand in creating. His predecessor, Mohammed Khatami, was a true reformer and moderate. Just today Khatami has a measured, thoughtful piece in the Washington Post about the Iraq war, criticizing the "great nation of America" (yes, he says that and it's not sarcasm) but calling for increased dialogue and a drive for peace. Washington treated Iran with nothing but hostility once Bush came into office, dooming Khatami's government and giving rise to the movement that brought Ahmadinejad to power. The "Axis of Evil" speech has seen our problems with all three nations get worse, in at least two cases due in no small part to our own actions (the North Koreans are crazy, who knows what they want).

4. Chavez isn't even demonstrably evil. He's undemocratic, and again not a big fan of free speech, but that doesn't boost you into the ranks of "evil". What's more, our government has taken to referring to him as a huge threat, by which they mean that he has oil and we want it but don't like him. I have never seen any evidence that he regards the US as an inevitable enemy; rather, it seems as if he and the Bush administration have mutually decide to be antagonistic, benefiting his status personally but very few people else in either country. Lost on our neocon brethren is the distinction between "people who control oil and don't have right wing views" and "evil men". Chavez, until he does something significantly worse, is in the former category. I'll happily admit that I think his repressive tendencies cannot be morally justified by his actions on behalf of the poor, but the latter do serve as a moral counterweight of sorts, and we shouldn't forget it. Ideally, if we elect some grown-ups, we could actually try talking to him and, gasp!, to some of our antagonists in the Middle East, and see if we actually have some common interests, rather than rattling sabres at them constantly. Until 2009, I'm not holding my breath.