When Evil Means Evil

What is evil anyways? During the Bush years, this term was thrown around a lot and often mocked by, well, nearly everyone. It produces an image of a bogeyman, Satan personified, something so wicked you couldn't attach it to any state or person. So when the “Axis of Evil” list came out, I laughed. The list had “bogeymen” on it that were supposed to be feared and despised. Yet it didn't work. To me at the time, it was equivalent to the James Bond organization SPECTRE, something that could easily be made into a caricature. The media scorned Bush and Jon Stewart of The Daily Show made fun of the description. Hitler was dead, people responded, the “true” evil figure, and these were just people and states the U.S. hated.

Yet is the term not accurate in describing the actions committed by these “Axis of Evil” members? Are acts of genocide not evil? Is mass murder not evil? Whether the term “evil” is appropriate or not does not take away from the fact that state sponsored killing is wrong.

This brings me to this article on North Korea, where mentally and physically disabled people are being horrifically murdered in the name of Kim Jong-Il’s biological and chemical weapons program.

But among the accounts they carried with them is one of the most shocking yet to emerge -- namely the use of humans, specifically mentally or physically handicapped children, to test North Korea's biological and chemical weapons.

"If you are born mentally or physically deficient, says Im, the government says your best contribution to society... is as a guinea pig for biological and chemical weapons testing."

Even after settling into the relative safety of South Korea, for 10 years Im held on to this secret, saying it was too horrific to recount.

What are we to draw from this? Is this not…evil?

I recently watched a speech by Christopher Hitchens on this subject, which got me thinking about descriptions of “Evil” and whether or not the term should be used to describe state and non-state actors.
Here is an excerpt:

What do you think?

Source for North Korean article: Hot Air