DAS Blog

On NPR they made a very good point about why Iran might not trust us (btw -- the poker player pointing out about Iran's possible bluffing was right on the mark, except he also might have pointed out that America has a tradition of playing bluff-based card games and the majority-Christian "Western" culture, if not America per se, is quite obsessed with martyrdom, albeit in the past, not so much the present): we helped arm Iraq during the Iran/Iraq war.

Of course, though, this'll 'cause most folks to dismiss NPR as "liberal": "how dare they point out that Iran might not be entirely irrational? stupid, liberals trying to 'understand' our enemies ..." (don't people read Sun-Tzu anymore, though -- sheeze ... and if it weren't for liberals -- e.g. in the Truman admin -- trying to construct rational, coherent, long term foreign policies based on knowing your enemies, would we have won the Cold War? This know-nothing-ism of our body-politic is taking us to hell in a handbasket, that's for sure ...). And if NPR were truly liberal, they'd remind folks that, at the same time Rumsfeld was hugging Saddam Hussein, Reagan's admin was also helping to arm Iran.

If our country goes to hell in a hand-basket, it'll be because we never did fully root out the whole Iran/Contra mess, and to this day too many turn a blind eye to what really happened. This is why justice is important -- not for vengeance, but to make sure the mistakes of the past are not repeated. According to some, we cannot criticize the conduct of a war while it's happening lest we demoralize the troops or something (and these are the same people who idolize Harry "Investigating War Profiteers" Truman, if only because he defeated Henry Wallace, so they mis-interpret the rabidly partisan Truman as some proto-DLC type?) and afterwards we cannot criticize it as it's water under the bridge. So punditocracy: when is the right time? Is there ever a right time for justice?