A trip back in time: Khomeini and the Revolution (Part I)

The New Neo Posted on by

One of my favorite verses from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (the Fitzgerald translation of the Persian original) is this:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

Ah, but if only we could go back, to wash out a few of the most terrible words! That’s the deep desire that propels most time travel fantasy: to undo some event that you know led to untold suffering.

The answer given by science fiction—and life—is that it just can’t be done. Even if it could, doing so might cause a cascade of other unforeseen effects. But the wish remains, especially for those happenings that seem to have been unmitigated tragedies for humankind.

One of those events was the triumphal return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Iran from his long exile in Iraq and his short sojourn in France (and Khayyam is an especially apt source to quote for the occasion—since modern day Iran is, of course, ancient Persia).

I was around when Khomeini made his return trip, one that propelled Iran’s own trip back in time to some horrific amalgam of the Dark Ages crossed with the tools of a modern totalitarian state. I noticed Khomeini’s arrival in Iran, although I had no idea of its significance. Neither did most.

He seemed and dark and brooding figure from some stern and gloomy ancient past. Or the sorcerer from Disney’s “Sorcerer’s Apprentice:”


It was difficult to understand the veneration the Iranian people seemed to have for him. In this photo, taken on his return, he looks as though he’s already become a statue:

Here’s an article that chronicled the event. Reportedly, “up to” five million people lined the streets of the capital to witness it. The revolution he had helped orchestrate from Paris (how apropos!) was in motion; its Reign of Terror was about to begin.

The Iranian revolution took almost everyone by surprise, including many of its participants. It was an amalgam of several of the strangest bedfellows in the world—a religious movement to impose a theocracy of strictest Islamic law, a group dedicated to Westernization and classical liberal human rights, and an active Marxist contingent.

All in all, a heady concoction that couldn’t fail to explode. The only question at the beginning was which faction would win out, because they certainly couldn’t all coexist. Khomeini was pretty sure he had an answer to that question. While in exile he had carefully played to the crowd that believed in human rights, but he made it crystal clear once he had consolidated his power that he had no intention whatsoever of following through on that score. Au contraire.

Khomeini addressed the assembled crowd at the Cemetery of Martyrs a few miles south of Tehran on February 1, 1979:

I will strike with my fists at the mouths of [the current Iranian] government. From now on it is I who will name the government.

Khomeni had learned his French lessons well: L’etat, c’est moi.

Shapour Bakhtiar, the newly-minted and ineffectual Prime Minister of Iran at the time–he had less than two weeks to go in that position—replied as follows:

Don’t worry about this kind of speech. That is Khomeini. He is free to speak but he is not free to act.

I almost wrote, “the ineffectual and clueless Bakhtiar.” But I’m glad I didn’t, because when I started to do some research on Bakhtiar himself, I found a man of rare courage and no small prescience, a tragic figure in history who made at least one fatal error.

[Part II.]

Must-read: on Israel, chosenness, supercessionism

The New Neo Posted on by

Richard Landes of Second Draft and Augean Stables has written what just might be the definitive answer to those who–like Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder–accuse Israel of heinous crimes and intents based (among other things) on the accusers’ complete misunderstanding of certain principles of Judaism such as the knotty problem of “chosenness.” There’s also a clear and concise discussion there about what’s known as “supersessionism,” and how various religions stack up on that score.

One of the many problems with discussions on these topics is that people of good will often feel they are starting with a basic agreement on concepts. They are not. A phrase such as “chosen” is one that people often think they intuitively understand. Because Christians and Jews have a common history that goes way back, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that the religions have more in common than they actually do.

The problem is compounded by the fact that many–if not most–Jews in this country and elsewhere consider themselves secular and have very little grounding in the tenets of their own nominal religion. Therefore even most Jews probably share the misconceptions common among non-Jews about some basic Jewish concepts such as that of having been “chosen.”

So, please read.

We are all investigative reporters now–or should be

The New Neo Posted on by

David Frum has summarized some of the hoaxes perpetrated on and by the media in recent weeks. From Reutergate to counterfeit bills passed by Hezbollah, from Green Helmet guy doing photo ops at Qana to the Ambulance Hoax, the MSM has been at the very best disingenuous and at the very worst complicit in the spread of lies and fraud. If not for bloggers, none of this would have been exposed.

Also, please check out Richard Landes’s latest efforts at Second Draft, entitled “The Birth of an Icon.” As you watch more of the footage of the alleged death of the boy Mohammad al Durah (“caught in the crossfire”), it becomes ever more likely that the entire thing was a hoax–and a very influential one at that, especially in Europe, where al Durah’s death became a rallying cry for sympathy with the bloody Second Intifada.

So, what’s up with the media? Frum lists the possibilities: they are gullible, they are biased, they are in collusion, they are frightened of retaliation, they are some of the above, they are all of the above.

Here is my call to the MSM: put the “investigative” back into reporting. Traditionally, investigative reporting–in which the writer deeply questions the obvious, and brings an attitude of skepticism and critical thinking to the story, almost like a detective researching a case–has been limited to local scandals and corruptions. But it needs to be more broadly applied these days. What used to be a straight news story of war reportage–a photographer comes upon a bombed vehicle, is told by the locals what happened, and takes a photo–is no longer so straightforward. Perhaps it never was. And local stringers, who are often used as photographers and reporters in war torn areas–even those who’ve worked a long time with a news agency– might be found to have their own political agendas that distort coverage.

It makes for a lot more work, to be sure. And if the reporter isn’t ideologically inclined to doubt the sources, the healthy skepticism that’s a prime requirement of all investigative reporting is going to be especially hard to bring to the story. But at this point it couldn’t be more clear that it’s necessary to do so. No, not just necessary; it’s absolutely vital.

The Palestinians: loving death, loving life

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It’s been said before in parts of the Arab world, by Hezbollah leader Nasrallah and others: “We are going to win because [the Israelis] love life and we love death.”

Loving death: what an amazing thing to brag about. It’s a boast that’s meant to make the listener cower in awe of the bravery of the speaker, and to feel as though opposing such a person would be futile.

How can one deter or fight an enemy with such determination, one who’s not even wary of death? And this love of death is not just a macho pose or hyperbolic rhetoric (although it’s at least partly that); suicide bombers have definitely put their money where their mouths are in that respect. The Palestinian indoctrination of children has been an education in the veneration of death, and has borne fruit in this desire for martyrdom.

It goes without saying that such an attitude isn’t healthy for a society. In a less looking-glass world, it would in fact be a sign that such a culture was about to get its wish–that it was on the brink of extinction. Why? In the past, self-preservation and the desire to live, both as individuals and as a group, was one of the basics for societal survival.

It’s true that all societies require a certain amount of sacrifice, as well. For example, in order to keep both internal law and order, as well to defend the group against attacks by outsiders, there always needs to be a certain number of people who are willing to give their lives in order to protect the others (these people can be conceptualized as sheepdogs, in a metaphor that was discussed previously, here).

But in most societies, these protectors are far from eager to give up their lives. As General Patton famously said, “The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

Exactly and precisely. Patton was one of the least PC military men who ever lived. He was controversial even back in WWII, when political correctness was hardly a gleam in the Left’s eye. But now even the military is far more PC than it ever was; in recent decades, the military has become more reluctant to make “the other bastard” die for his. Like it or not (and Jacksonians don’t like it), the gloves are on when we’ve fought the wars of this century, at least so far.

One can only conclude that if the Palestinians, Hezbollah, and Iran had the weaponry the US has, they would not hesitate to obliterate anyone they perceive as having wronged them, shamed them, or gotten in their way. Their love of death is not limited to seeking their own deaths; they definitely embrace the deaths of their enemies.

And in a more Darwinian and less PC world, the Palestinians’ love of death, their lack of advanced weaponry, and their aggressiveness towards an enemy who does possess that weaponry would long ago have resulted in their getting their wish: death. Their own deaths, and the death of their society.

But in a strange ironic twist, such a culture can continue to exist if it faces an enemy that has such a love for life that it refuses to unleash its own arsenal on those who would seek to destroy it. So Palestinian society is protected by the reticence of its enemy, even as it declares that enemy to be ruthless and evil. It counts on that reluctance, that “love of life”–even the life of the Palestinians–to allow Palestinian society to live to fight another day.

The picture is a dismal one, to be sure. So I’m going to clutch at a tiny ray of light; I’ll take it wherever I can find it. This time it’s from Hamas spokesman Ghazi Hamad, of all people (hat tip: Captain Ed.)

An article in the Jerusalem Post quotes Hamad as complaining that Gaza is “caught in anarchy and thuggery.” What’s new about that? Simply this: Hamad isn’t blaming the Israelis, he’s blaming the Palestinians themselves.

This is different, especially for a Hamas spokesman. Those in Israel who advocated the withdrawal from Gaza hoped this would be one of the benefits: Palestinians taking responsibility for their own failures. Without the convenience of being able to blame the occupation, the Palestinians would have to face their own flaws (I wrote about this previously, here)

Here’s a quote from Hamad:

“We’re always afraid to talk about our mistakes,” he added. “We’re used to blaming our mistakes on others. What is the relationship between the chaos, anarchy, lawlessness, indiscriminate murders, theft of land, family rivalries, transgression on public lands and unorganized traffic and the occupation? We are still trapped by the mentality of conspiracy theories – one that has limited our capability to think.”

It’s not that Hamad has suddenly become an Israelophile (if he had, it might be his own ticket to death). Perhaps he just wants Palestinian society to reform, the better to attack its old enemy.

But perhaps not; I like to think not. And this final quote from Hamad lends credence to that possibility. It sounds to me as though it might even be a crie de cour, his reassertion of the energy of life rather than death:

Addressing the various armed groups in the Gaza Strip, Hamad concluded: “Please have mercy on Gaza. Have mercy on us from your demagogy, chaos, guns, thugs, infighting. Let Gaza breathe a bit. Let it live.”

Dr. Sanity channels Elton

The New Neo Posted on by

My esteemed colleague Dr. Sanity is at it again.

Here’s another wonderful song parody of hers, this time of Elton John’s “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues.”

To refresh your memory (and to better appreciate Dr. Sanity’s–dare I say it–yes, her genius), here are the words of the chorus of the Elton John original:

And I guess that’s why they call it the blues
Time on my hands could be time spent with you
Laughing like children, living like lovers
Rolling like thunder under the covers
And I guess that’s why they call it the blues.

And here’s Dr. Sanity’s version:

And I guess that’s why they all hate the Jews;
Blame them for their failures; and kill them for news
Blow up their children, bask in confusion
Believe that their strengths are just an illusion–
And I guess that’s why they all hate the Jews.

Read the rest, and sing along.

Hezbollah: still Miss Congeniality in Lebanon?

The New Neo Posted on by

Our modern asymmetrical wars, post-Tet, no longer seem to consist of strategic battles fought on the ground by the military, with the winners declared through the gaining of territory and the loss of fighters and equipment. Rather, they are mainly propaganda wars, won or lost in the press and the field of public opinion.

In this country, views about foreign wars are largely shaped by the MSM. So the basic perception here is that Hezbollah, despite its losses in men and materials, won last month’s round with Israel handily. That opinion is probably widely held in Europe, for similar reasons, not to mention Europe’s greater sympathy to the Hezbollian cause.

And perhaps, after all–as that North Vietnamese colonel famously told the American negotiator at the end of the Vietnam War–winning battles isn’t so very important, but rather irrelevant; perception of victory is all that matters.

I don’t pretend to know whom the Lebanese perceive the winner to have been. One thing I think we can safely say is that they don’t regard themselves as the winners. But there do appear to be rumblings in Lebanon, among the people who experienced this war up close and personal rather than filtered through the giant maws of the MSM, that the verdict on Hezbollah is becoming a bit harsh.

Here’s Amir Taheri’s take on the subject. He points out that criticism of Hezbollah in Lebanon has been growing since the war, not shrinking, and that public opinion is against those rightly perceived as starting a useless war in which the Lebanese people suffered. Nor were those Lebanese people consulted, and they appear to be quite angry, despite the payoffs Hezbollah has tried to mount–featuring crisp new money from Iran–to buy them off.

Then there’s Michael Totten, who made a lot of friends during his lengthy prewar sojourn in Lebanon. He sees the unprecedented statements by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora accepting the possibility of peace talks with Israel as a watershed. Prior to the war, to breathe even a hint of the possibility of peace with Israel was committing political suicide.

And of course, perhaps it is; Siniora may have signed his own death warrant, as Alexandra speculates.

To those who say I’m picking and choosing articles that support my own wishful thinking, I plead guilty. But at least I’m acknowledging that fact. Yes, it is indeed my hope that Hezbollah has lost face and support in Lebanon. And it’s my fervent wish that this loss of popularity will end up mattering, that the people and government of Lebanon will muster both the will and the force to excise this entity from their body politic and their society.

And I have another hope, and that is that our own MSM would stop doing the propaganda work of the enemy. I can dream, can’t I?

[ADDENDUM: It’s not short, and yet it’s concise and well worth reading–an article that concurs with the notion that it’s only in the MSM that Hezbollah won this war. Hat tip Pajamas Media.]

{ADDENDUM II: And then there’s this.]

If you only read one thing today…

The New Neo Posted on by

…it should be this (hat tip: too many sources to list).

The Red Cross Ambulance Incident appears to have been an influential hoax, picked up by an uncritical, unthinking, and uninformed MSM and then disseminated around the world to great effect. It took blogger “zombie” a great deal of time and effort to deconstruct the story.

One of the advantages the blogosphere offers is that–and this is no secret, nor is it a criticism–many bloggers have some form of OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder). Now, OCD in its milder form isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s only really a problem if it’s over the top and out of control, such as the Jack Nicholson role in the movie “As Good As it Gets.” But the milder form of OCD merely lends those who demonstrate it an enhanced ability to tend to detail, to persevere and follow through on a line of questioning and research.

And this tendency, marked in many bloggers, allows them to have uncovered a phenomenal phenomenon, to wit: the number of hoaxes perpetrated both on and by the media. From the debunking of the Rathergate memos to Pallywood to Green Helmet Guy to the present sordid and alarming story, the Red Cross Ambulance Hoax, it took the time and perspicacity available to bloggers to uncover some exceptionally disturbing–and historically influential–trends.

How long has this deception been going on? How much of world opinion has been formed by what amounts to deliberate lies, spread and perpetrated by either a naive or actively colluding media (I vote for naive, but others may differ)?

“Unsatisfactory” is diplomatspeak for bad, bad, bad

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France gives Iran quite the tonguelashing: Foreign Affairs Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy describes Iran’s refusal to halt its uranium enrichment program as “unsatisfactory”.

“Unsatisfactory” is such a tepid way to describe what Iran is actually doing, which is to defy and mock the entire international community, and to continue blithely with its nuclear brinksmanship.

“Unsatisfactory.” It’s a term that conjures up my grade school report cards. Remember those report cards, fellow boomers?

Well, I happen to have one of mine from third grade, circa 1950-something:

Not an “unsatisfactory” among those grades, I’m proud to state. Satisfaction all around. And note that my better marks were in reading, writing, and spelling. There’s a certain consistency in my life, I guess.

As there is consistency in diplomatic life. That’s probably why John Bolton isn’t regarded as the diplomat’s diplomat; he’s much too blunt for that. Diplomacy is all about nuance and appearances, about allowing others to save face while deals are cut behind the scenes.

I hope that some deals are being cut behind these dismal scenes, because there’s absolutely no evidence that Iran is negotiating in good faith. Here are a few clues that there might be at least some sort of method behind what appears to be the diplomatic madness:

State Department officials, on the other hand, pressed to “keep the temperature down,” as one American put it….”The thinking was, even though we all know the Iranian response doesn’t amount to much, before rejecting it out of hand we should remember that at least two members of the group have a Security Council veto,” one European diplomat said, referring to Russia and China and their historic aversion to penalties. He referred to the strategy as “giving Iran the rope to hang itself.”

Even though diplomats–especially European ones–are not known for hyperbolic rhetoric, this “enough rope to hang itself” routine seems an exaggeration, to say the least. And speaking of exaggerations, I think the UN could give Iran an infinite amount of rope without there being quite enough for it to “hang itself.” Because all of this delicate diplomatic maneuvering leads, in the best-case scenario–to what? Sanctions.

And to “weak sanctions,” at that. China and Russia both have substantial economic interests in Iran, and are loathe to shoot themselves in the foot, to coin another hyperbolic metaphor (but then, I’m not a diplomat).

What are some of these sanctions China and Russia might be persuaded to get behind? Why, “a ban on travel by Iranian officials and curbs on imports of nuclear-related technology.”

I am sure that the mullahs are shaking in their robes. I was probably more terrified of getting an “Unsatisfactory” on that third-grade report card than they are of whatever the diplomats might impose on them in the way of penalties.

To editors: thanks for all the fish

The New Neo Posted on by

Back in the 80s I read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series by Douglas Adams.

I opened the first page of the first book in the series without much expectation, started reading, and immediately realized I was encountering a most unusual and almost endlessly entertaining and quirky mind, one that could truly be described with that overworked word, “unique.”

I’m not sure what made me look Adams up yesterday. I was tired of thinking about politics, perhaps, and the phrase “So long, and thanks for all the fish,” was roiling around in my head for some reason. I remembered that Adams had died suddenly and way too young some years ago, and I became curious to read more about him.

Despite a wide-ranging and probably frenetic mind, and varied interests, Adams’s creative output was narrow rather than wide. His lasting oeuvre, his literary contribution, was the Hitchhiker series itself. That’s not anything to be ashamed of; it’s a great accomplishment to have entertained and amused people at such an extraordinary level of wit.

As a writer and ideaphoric myself (although admittedly one of a lesser degree than Adams) I wondered how he managed to harness his freewheeling brain long enough to do the sort of sustained work necessary to create so many novels.

I got my answer in Wikipedia:

While working on the radio series (and with simultaneous projects such as The Pirate Planet) Adams developed problems keeping to writing deadlines that only got worse as he published novels. Adams was never a prolific writer and usually had to be forced by others to do any writing. This included being locked in a hotel suite with his editor for three weeks to ensure that So Long, and Thanks For All the Fish was completed. He was quoted as saying, “I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.”

Locked in a hotel suite with his editor. So he got by with a little–or perhaps a lot–of help from his friends.

That’s true of a number of authors, I believe; we just usually don’t see the workings of the behind-the-scenes handlers and shapers and coaxers and helpers. Editors, for example, are often very instrumental in forming the work, even in motivating the writer, but only the insiders know for sure.

Spouses can act as literary helpers, as well. As inspiration, of course, but also in more practical ways. Some day I may write a piece on the marriage of Tolstoi and his wife (that’s quite a segue, Neo–from Doug Adams to Tolstoi). I happen to be a minor expert on the subject of the Tolstoi marriage, having read a number of books many years ago on the subject, notably this one.

The story isn’t pretty, although it starts the way most marriages do, with love. The relevant part in terms of this essay, however, is that Tolstoi’s wife Sonya, who was responsible for overseeing the day-to-day matters of his estate, who gave birth to and raised thirteen live children as well as having several other pregnancies, was also Tolstoi’s scribe and sometime editor.

Yes, in those days before there was Word there was the written word, penned by the human hand. Every night after her other duties were done (not that they were ever done; you know what they say about women’s work, and she had more of it than most) Sonya carefully transcribed a fair handwritten copy of what her husband had penned in messy draft form.

Here is a description of Sonya’s efforts, based on a book William Shirer wrote about the Tolstoi marriage:

Sonya had the burden of copying her husband’s almost illegible scrawls into her meticulous handwriting. She copied War and Peace seven times. Shirer calculates, “Since it runs to 1,453 printed pages in my edition that means that her fair copy came to at least 3,000 manuscript pages. So she must have written down in her own careful handwriting 21,000 pages.” (Actually, Sonya’s burden was much greater than Shirer envisions. Like most English translations, Shirer’s edition is well shy of the Russian original. My Russian-language edition of War and Peace contains 1,544 pages; an equivalent English version would have more than 2,000 pages.)

I think Adams’s editor probably had it easy in comparison.

Please allow me to introduce myself: the Klinghoffer case and sympathy for the terrorists

The New Neo Posted on by

Thomas Sowell writes with clarity and succinctness on one unusual and especially troubling characteristic of the enemy we now face: its undeterrability (hat tip: Pajamas Media). Undeterrability makes this fight different from previous ones. It makes efforts at peaceful negotiation directly with that enemy worse than futile; it makes them dangerous.

There was one sentence in Sowell’s column that especially caught my attention. In describing the nature of the enemy, he harked back to the 1985 Achille Lauro incident, in which 69-year-old wheelchair-bound Leon Klinghoffer was murdered by Palestinian hijackers and his body dumped overboard.

Sowell asks:

What kind of people would throw an old man in a wheelchair off a cruise liner into the sea, simply because he was Jewish?

What kind, indeed? Human beings, for starters, not devils. But that doesn’t mean we need to sympathize with them. And certainly we would be well within our rights to call Klinghoffer’s murderers Nazi-esque, in targeting this particular man and treating him with such brutality merely because of his Jewishness.

I recall hearing the news of the hijacking and the shocking manner of Klinghoffer’s death. At the time I had no context in which to place it; it seemed an inexplicable atrocity that chilled my blood. But it was incomprehensible, and so its significance as a signpost to the nature of the enemy was muted and blurred. It’s only in retrospect that I’m able to say, “But, of course.”

There’s another thing I neither noticed nor comprehended at the time, but that I’m certainly aware of now. And that was the almost immediate post-modern interest of some in understanding–empathizing with, and even sympathizing with–Klinghoffer’s murderers.

The opera “The Death of Leon Klinghoffer,” produced in 1991 and written by composer John Adams and librettist Alice Goodman, includes beautiful arias for the terrorists. It was received with accusations by some that it glorified terrorism, and kudos by others for its evenhanded treatment of the perpetrators’ grievances.

In previous years, an opera on such a theme might have featured the terrorists as traditional villains steeped in evil, with thunderous and dissonant music to signify the horror of what they did. But in this version, they were given sonorous and lovely melodies to sing and sympathetic words to portray, whereas the Klinghoffers and their associates were apparently portrayed as petty and materialistic bourgeoisie.

To have taken this particular incident–in which a helpless and innocent man in a wheelchair was murdered in cold blood, his body dumped overboard–and somehow turned it into a vehicle for Palestinian grievances seems to me to be multiculturalism gone mad.

Who wrote the opera? The librettist, Alice Goodman, is an interesting tale herself. Born and raised as a Jew in Minnesota, educated in literature at Harvard, married to a British poet, she became an Anglican priest and opera librettist.

You can listen to Ms. Goodman discussing the opera here, in a BBC interview that features part of an aria from it by one of the terrorists (or maybe it’s a recitative; I’m no opera expert). Despite having read about the opera fairly extensively prior to hearing the clip, I was still surprised at the emotional tenor of the singing. Yes indeed, without even being able to decipher the words of the libretto, just hearing the music and the voice of the kidnapper made it clear that he was being given a respect and a certain esthetic elegance and dignity that could only serve to elevate him in the eyes of the listener.

Then I listened to Ms. Goodman speak (an aside: why does she have a British accent? Is this some sort of affectation, is it a requirement for the Anglican clergy, or has she resided in Britain so long she’s taken on the speech patterns?).

Ms. Goodman’s answer to the question of whether the opera is anti-Semitic or an apology for terrorism is an interesting one. She says no (no surprise there); she believes that the charges of anti-Semitism and the rest are a result of her showing the terrorists as “human beings.”

I disagree. I happen to think that terrorists are most decidedly human beings, as were Hitler, Pol Pot, Stalin, and–well, every other human being who’s ever lived. We all know how Hitler loved dogs, and was a vegetarian. To be evil does not require that one be a devil; being a human being who does evil will suffice. I believe in treating people as human beings, but that does not require giving evildoers a forum and writing lovely arias for them to sing.

Ms. Goodman says she speaks not just as the librettist, but as a priest, when she recognizes the perpetrators as human beings with ideals–wrongheaded, yes, but idealistic nevertheless–as though idealism somehow has a value in and of itself. Perhaps she’s never heard about the road to hell, and what it’s paved with.

Ms. Goodman acknowledges that the music and the words Adams and she wrote for the terrorists who committed this atrocity were lyrical and heartfelt, and she understands that this fact created “a dissonance difficult for some people to take.”

Count me in as one of those people. I guess I’m just not highly evolved enough to understand the convoluted mental gymnastics required in comprehending how that doesn’t constitute some sort of sympathy and apology–if not for the devil, then for the human beings who perpetrated this heinous act.