Mad or bad?
The easy answer to everyone we don’t understand is to call them the “C” word
Saying that Donald Trump is a slime ball is likely true, if it reflects your definition of slime balls. Saying he is corrupt is probably a sign that you believe his actions on the stock markets and his ability as president of the US to affect those markets may well make sense. But calling him crazy lacks a basis, so far as we know, in science. He does crazy things and he says crazy things, but how does that make him crazy?
Image: Mugshot of the Yorkshire Ripper, Peter Sutcliffe1
Several years ago, I was in conversation with a Ukrainian lady and asked her, openly and honestly, why it was, she thought, that Vladimir Putin’s Russia had invaded her country, prompted by a question put by an Arab student in Germany, who asked, “What is the nature of the misunderstanding between these two neighbours?” I thought that was a very good way to ask the question. So, I asked the lady, what did she think the answer was?
Her reply was to the effect that Putin is crazy. She offered no other explanation than the man’s mental state of health. Since the Russian invasion of her country in 2022, various reasons have been put forward as to why Mr Putin did it. Some say it was in order to reconstruct the Soviet Union’s empire. Or because of the slow encroachment of NATO up to the borders of the sphere of Russia’s influence. Or, perhaps, because Putin is crazy. Some say he over-reached himself, because he thought it would all be over in a few days. As I write this in 2026, it still isn’t over, so maybe he did over-reach himself. Being wrong about how long the special military operation would last is not, however, an explanation for having done it: you don’t invade another country for the sole reason that you think you can get away with it very quickly. Do you? There has to be some other underlying cause.
The Putin’s crazy explanation stands in stark contrast to Peter Sutcliffe, a serial killer known as the Yorkshire Ripper, who murdered 13 women and attempted to murder seven others between 1975 and 1980. At his trial, Sutcliffe pleaded that he had been impelled to murder his victims by the voice of God, his mental state being called into question in terms of mad or bad? The judge found that Sutcliffe was not mad, but bad, and he was convicted on that basis. However, only a few years into serving his sentence, Sutcliffe was transferred to Broadmoor, a secure institute for the criminally insane. The lingering suspicion has to be that the court that tried Sutcliffe only found that he was bad in order to satisfy the baying public’s demands for justice, while the same public was privately dismissing him as crazy (which, it transpires, he was the whole time).
Now, we do live in a world of double, and double-double, bluffs. If it is permissible to defend yourself against an attack, then it becomes permissible to pre-empt an attack when it is imminent in order to ward off the attack itself; and it becomes permissible to invent the need for a pre-emptive strike, even if the pretext is a false one. Therefore, it is at least feasible that, when a major geopolitical act like invading another country on what might seem a valid, or perhaps invalid, pretext is written off simply as craziness, that some other underlying cause is nonetheless at play. Which brings us to Iran.
We can conjecture as to why it is that Iran is putting up such seemingly resilient defences. We can base our conjecture on known facts, like its preparations for exactly this kind of situation over some 20 years and more, its decentralised command structure, and the apparent devout nature of its population. But guessing why its attackers have attacked it is a little easier: most commentators will tell you the reason lies anywhere except where the Israeli and US governments say it lies. They tell us that damage to their territory and bases is minimal, but will send you to prison for five years if you photograph the non-damage. There’s nothing to see, but if you photograph it, we’ll imprison you. Some commentators refer to Mr Trump as a buffoon, as crazy. They ask, Why would anyone send thousands of troops to Iran, to the Island of Kharg, where they would at best be unnecessarily exposed to extreme danger, and at worst would be entering a meat grinder? So, what if the answer were Because that’s exactly what Mr Trump wants?
It’s a view put forward by Emmanuel Pastreich:
The first goal is to create a situation so dire, so completely out of control, that it includes attacks (real or fake) on the United States and as a result the vast number of Americans who are opposed to this war will be forced to support it just as Germans were forced to support the Nazi campaign against the Soviet Union because they thought they will be destroyed if they do not. In the German case, it eventually became a reality. Creating such destruction and ill will in Iran, Russia, China, and elsewhere will mean that no diplomats can step in and fix this problem at a later date. There will be no possible settlement. The struggle will play out as a world war until all that is left is smoldering ruins.
The second goal is to create such divisions in the military that a civil war, real or bogus, becomes a reality starting from within the military, and this real struggle can be used as an excuse to lock down the entire world. That real struggle in the military itself will be combined with the end of access to petroleum and natural gas which will shut down the entire economy. It is important to note that nothing is being done to stop the dependency on petroleum.
The third goal is to destroy those parts of the military and civil service that could serve as a counterweight, or opposition to, the mercenary troops known as ICE. ICE is poorly trained and organized at present. If ICE went up against the best of the US military in a rigged up civil war, they would be decimated and something like the rule of law could be established again. If those troops are sent to die in Iran, however, ICE will be able to take over a lot more than airports, and do it quickly. The forces in the United States that would be able to stop them will be dying in Iran.
In short:
Troops dying in a far-off land will turn opponents of the war into supporters, because opposing it thereby becomes unpatriotic;
Splits in the military could trigger civil war;
If ICE is Trump’s SS, it would stand more chance against a weakened military.
That might sound crazy, but, aware that it could be a double bluff, or even a double-double bluff, how crazy does Mr Trump need to get before everyone agrees out loud that he’s off his rocker? Doesn’t it make more sense to assume that the reasoning for something we ascribe to madness is a rationale that we just haven’t yet comprehended?
By Dewsbury Police Station - Original publication: Dewsbury Police Station on 2nd January 1981Immediate source: Photoscan, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=65947731.