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Dr Hervey Cleckly spent years studying psychopaths up close and personal. His book, The Mask of Sanity, shows that, outwardly, the average intelligent psychopath bears no resemblance, neither in appearance nor actions, to Hannibal Lecter or Ted Bundy. Neither is he in jail. On the contrary, the average psychopath appears to be conscious of the fact that he lacks the basic human ability to feel deep emotion and empathy for another. Early on in his life, the psychopath learns that displays of complete indifference to the suffering of others are reacted to with concern and sometimes anger by his family and peers. So he learns to conceal it. At the same time, he recognises and gravitates towards others who share his deficiency.

It is not hard to imagine that psychopaths do very well in business and politics where the promotion of self-interest and the accrual of personal and group power is the name of the game. Where you or I, in possession of a conscience, would surely balk at, for example deliberately getting a work colleague fired for no reason other than facilitate our own ascent of the corporate ladder, no such impediment to success exists for the psychopath who simply cannot put himself in the place of another human being and therefore feel empathy. While it has been estimated that approximately 6% of the global population falls into the category of psychopath (about 360 million people), their extreme self-interest and the fact that such "ambition" is a key ingredient of success in the world of politics and business, we assume much more than 6% of top level corporate, government and military positions are held by people who possess no ability to empathise with the needs or suffering of another human being.

A perusal of the last few thousand years of the history of our world quickly reveals to us that, more than anything else, war has defined our 'evolution' (if it can be called that). Equally obvious is the fact that, in war, soldiers and civilians die while the men and women responsible for waging war (on both sides) generally neither fight in the war nor are punished for their part in it encouraging it.

Does that tell you anything?

Throughout history, small groups of people have risen to power over the masses, and by the promotion of religious, ethnic or political divisions, they have set large groups of ordinary human beings against each other in order to further their personal goals. More often that not, ideologies such as 'freedom' are used to rally the masses to fight. But history testifies that the only real net result of war is the consolidation of power into the hands of an 'elite' few. After the allies were victorious in WWII, Stalin went on to murder 50 million Russians. World War II led to the creation of the state of Israel and the ongoing persecution of Middle Eastern Arabs. World War II also facilitated the USA's rise to a position of global preeminence, a situation which has caused more death and suffering over the past 60 years than at any other time in our recent history.

Now more than ever, there is an opportunity for each of us to recognise who the true enemy is. Why should we or our sons and daughers continue to fight and kill each other on the command of a small group of people whose only contribution has been to enrich themselves at our expense, at the expense of our very lives? Are we stupid? Or are we just misinformed? The reality of our world has always been a very clear case of Us and Them, yet we have failed to see it. We fail to see the predatory, unfeeling nature of these people because we ourselves lack such a nature. We project on to them our own human values of empathy and conscience when, time and again, they have proven that they possess no such qualities. We have allowed them to divide us, and set us at each others throats in the name of freedom, a value that we hold dear, not they (save for their usefulness in manipulating us).

Now more than ever, the very real yet hidden phenomenon of psychopathy needs desperately to be uncovered. We need to avail ourselves of the evidence that suggests that many of our political leaders are clinical, yet very smart and careful psychopaths. There is no other plausible explanation for their smug brutality, their deadly lies, their utter indifference to the pitiful sight of the lifeless body of small child for whose death they are responsible.

Lest anyone begin the process of rationalising what I have said, realise that to do so is evidence that your own humanity is being robbed from you by the propagation of our 'leaders' psychopathic values and ideologies. "War is peace", "Black is White" "Muslims are Terrorists" "Our government is protecting us". Before you fall for such paramoralisms, know this; psychopaths feel no empathy for any other human being. Race or creed does not figure into the equation. There is significant evidence that the psychopaths in power in the US and Israel knowingly murdered 3,000 American citizens on September 11th 2001, few were Muslim. At present the Israeli government is placing the lives of Israeli Jews in clear danger precisely because they simply cannot care about the life of any other human being, Christian, Muslim, Jew they are concerned for none but themselves.