Letters to the Editor
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What "they" know that we don't
Whenever those in charge don't have a supportable reason for doing what they're doing the response is that "they" know something we don't. They have secret information, or claim that they understand the situation better than we do; they then assert that we must agree with their decisions because "they" know.
My answer: B.S. Short of constructing some highly technical gizmo, there is nothing so difficult to understand about the basics of virtually any situation. It's not hard to understand Vietnam. It's not hard to understand the missle defense shield. It's not hard to understand Iraq either. We went in under false pretenses; had no plan of governance and have made one mistake after another. The situation was unwinnable from the start( when has the west ever had any success in the middle east?) because the necessary political institutions for good governance were not in place from the start. Besides,the Middle east powers that be had no interest in changing; their only interest is in maintaining their power. How hard is this to understand? I'm neither a political scientist nor a middle east expert, yet I think I've got a pretty decent understanding of what's going on. Anyone who reads Slate, Salon and the NY Times will probably come to the same conclusions I have.
When we review our follies of the past 50-60 years we pretty much come up with the same answers over and over again: politicians who have no sense of history; leaders who have a paranoid perception of reality who unfortunately have access to a huge military force.
Our leaders may have some details that we don't have but they are not smarter than we are nor do they have better judgment
than we do.They simply have the power, which obviously turns otherwise intelligent people into morons.