There’s a world of difference between stupid decisions and soulless evil.
As blatantly self-evident as that statement may seem, I think the distinction sometimes gets lost in passion and rhetoric. A quick review:
Invading a country with neither the resources required nor a plan for the invasion aftermath is abysmally stupid.
Deliberately blowing up children is evil:
A US defense official said the incident occurred on Sunday in Baghdad’s Adhamiyah district, a mixed neighborhood adjacent to Sadr City, which is predominantly Shiite.
After going through the checkpoint, the vehicle parked next to a market across the street from a school, said the official, who asked not to be identified.
“And the two adults were seen to get out of the vehicle, and run from the vehicle, and then followed by the detonation of the vehicle,” the official said.
“It killed the two children inside as well as three other civilians in the vicinity. So, a total of five killed, seven injured,” the official said.
A dose of reality every now and again can do wonders for one’s perspective.
Stupid can become evil, though, when the stupidity is inexcusable. For example, if you had experts warning you about the mistake you were about to make, but you ignored them; if you kicked off the reconstruction efforts by filling slots with political appointees without experience in their positions and ignored what more knowledgable people were saying; if political gain figured into your motives; etc.
It is a different kind of evil than your second example, but I don’t think the stupid/evil distinction is quite so clear in the first.
By, Jove, John has a point. Especially when a civil servant decides to usurp the authority granted to her, in an attempt to thwart the stated will of the people, and by trickery and deceit supplant the policy of the nation with her own political positions, it can be difficult to separate the abysmally stupid from the soulless evil.
~EdT.
Oops, I misspoke - meant to say “…in an attempt to substitute her own political agenda for the policy of the elected representatives of the American people…”
~EdT.