King Donald and the Black Mullahs |
So we may safely disregard them and their pitiful obfuscation.
Where then to find reliable reporting and prognostication? The media perhaps?
Alas. CNN, BBC, The New York Times reported almost before it started that the intervention was a quagmire, the mission doomed to failure even if it succeeded in destroying Iran’s armed forces and economy, and Trump a deranged, clueless, unhinged, or too easily influenced buffoon. Their outcome was predetermined. We lost. Whatever the outcome, we lost.
Seek elsewhere for objectivity and guidance, Pilgrim.
Perhaps we should start listening to the Mullahs. It’s never a bad idea to find out what the adversary is saying when you don’t fully trust your own leaders and media.
But before we get there, we should consult one of the more reliable quasi-historical accounts of famous battles. The past is prologue and, as Santayana may have said more pithily, there is much to be learned from history if we do not desire unwelcome results to recur.
When the creators of Monty Python were in school they were introduced to the legend of the steadfast Greek wrestler who had been fighting so long and so arduously that he could do nothing more than lean against his opponent, who, eventually finding himself unable to continue, surrendered. Only then was it discovered that our hero had died in the course of the match, but emerged victorious nonetheless, effectively winning posthumously. According to John Cleese’s teacher, the lesson was, “if you never give up, you can’t possibly lose.” Cleese recalls that he found the statement “philosophically unsound.”
His reaction was later translated into the morbid brilliance of the Black Knight episode in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”........