The Second-Most Megalomaniacal Dictator on Earth

[Valin]

Dispatches:

Michael J Totten

4 June 2015

 

Everyone knows the world's most megalomaniacal dictator. That would be Kim Jong Un of the North Korean hermit kingdom, also known as “The Precious Leader,” son of the “The Dear Leader,” Kim Jong Il. His grandfather, Kim Il Sung, is still known today as “The Great Leader" for being the man who invented inventing things.

 

Funny that hardly anyone has even heard of the second-most megalomaniacal dictator on earth. We're all groaningly familiar with the likes of Syria's Bashar al-Assad, Russia's Vladimir Putin, and Iran's “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenei because they all enjoy blowing things up in other people's countries, but not even Putin is as full of himself as Gurbanguly Mälikgulyýewiç Berdimuhamedov.

 

I can't pronounce his name either.

 

He's the ruler of—where else?—one of the 'Stans.

 

Turkmenistan, to be exact, where the post-Soviet period is exactly like its Soviet period.

 

Berdimuhamedov just erected a 69-foot statue of himself in the center of Ashgabat, the capital. He's up there on a golden horse atop an enormous slab of marble that looks like an iceberg.

 

He's compensating. Two years ago he fell off a horse at an official race. The only reason we even know this is because a brave person in the audience captured it on amateur video and uploaded it to the Internet. All the other riders rode past him as he lay flat on his back in the dirt, but he was declared the winner regardless and awarded an 11 million dollar prize for his “performance.”

 

(Snip)