. . . or, Monsters and Their Enablers. There has been much interesting mail concerning my Oslo Journal, which reports on the Oslo Freedom Forum. (Part III is on the homepage today, here.) Check out this letter, from a reader particularly well-versed in Latin America:

Dear Mr. Nordlinger,
. . . In most discussions I’ve seen about human rights, the focus is on the leaders of the oppressing countries. There’s plenty of criticism of Castro, Chávez, Mugabe, Ahmadinejad, et al., but not of the lower echelons.
While I understand, and agree, that the leaders must be held accountable, the lower echelons are equally guilty. . . .
Dictators rely on others to do their bidding. Public shaming of dictators, which is a regular part of human-rights campaigns, helps preserve the lives of dissidents and political prisoners. But naming the lower echelons may help undermine the internal support that dictators need to maintain power. Shouldn’t both the dictators and their lackeys be exposed?

When the letter-writer says “lackeys,” he means such people as prison directors, and, below them, guards – the ones who do the actual torturing. (Some leaders like to do the torturing themselves. Guevara, for example – who, though not the top dog, was pretty high up — was a hands-on guy.) This is a complicated, multifaceted question, as our reader recognizes in his long and thoughtful letter. I think we can say this much: Dictators never rule alone; they acquire the complicity of a great many in the country. There will always, always be people willing to help the charismatic or ruthless leader who wants to enslave the entire country. And dictatorship gives people the power, the opportunity, to be little dictators: to express their inner dictator (not to be flip). Solzhenitsyn has been eloquent on this subject, Sharansky has been eloquent – many others have.

To be continued . . .