Insanity and the Death of Kim Jong Il: Kim Jong Il, the narcissistically neurotic “Dear Leader” tyrant of North Korea, died yesterday. It would be nice if N. Korea could have a N. Korean spring. I doubt very much that will happen or that things will significantly change if the tyrant Kim Jung Il "groomed" a successor son, Kim Jung Un, to be his clone. Still, one can wish a ray of hope shines through to that sadly beleaguered and hungry nation. No one will know the true metamorphosis of this event for quite some time.

It is interesting that few Communist states have survived under the so called cult of personality. When one thinks of the Soviet Union under Stalin and a line of others, or China under Mao Zedong, states which were supposedly of utmost threat to US freedom, one sees barely a remnant of those states existing in Communist form today. Castro's Cuba may ultimately, after his death, go the way of China. The Eastern Communist block exists no longer and even Vietnam, where 50,000 US dead bled on its soil, is on a capitalist track. Why? Because Communism as an economic philosophy is unworkable. It stifles competition, impedes progress and slaughters or politically imprisons its own people.

So why did the US round up so many so called "Communists" in its own witch hunts of yesteryear anyway? What was so frightening that this country had to spend billions/trillions in treasure and tens of thousands in gallons of blood fighting this "menace" which was in truth no menace at all. It was an excuse, as extremist Islam is now, to ramp up a US military/industrial Goliath that is capable of striking preemptively at will and has.

I submit the few Communist states remaining and now certain Islamic extremists states have more to fear from the US than we do from them. 9/11 never would have happened had one George W. Bush taken his Presidential Daily Briefing seriously which warned him bin Laden ready to attack the US. In true cerebral brilliance his response: “Thanks, now you've covered your posterior” and then decided to go on vacation.

How many more US soldiers will volunteer to be used to fight phony wars for trumped up rationales? Let's hope from all of this, including the utter failures in Iraq, we have learned a bitter lesson. Perilously, though, the American historical memory is exceedingly short and it people's knowledge of history sorely lacking. Some day, in the not too distant future, an American president will dupe its people again into the Bush-like six gun mentality of preemptive war shooting first, asking questions later convincing us that certain nations are an imminent threat and we must invade. The nation then will follow blindly like sheep to the slaughter and repeat the same mistakes over and over again. Albert Einstein (according to Snopes.com) is often credited with the maxim, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."