Whatever Happened To Hindsight

Seeing the reaction to a post by Instapundit

We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within Iran, putting the mullahs' expat business interests out of business, etc.

is pretty funny given certain facts most weighing in seem to have forgotten. Punditry has the ability to become an echo chamber of your own first thoughts and less the act of observing reality and basing your judgments and conclusions on that.

Feb 5th: A senior nuclear physicist involved in Iran's nuclear program has died under mysterious circumstances two weeks ago. A report on a US website is saying that he was killed by Israeli's Mossad

Professor Ardashir Hosseinpour, was a world authority on electromagnetism. He was until recently working in one of the central processing sites in Iran's nuclear program. Professsor Hosseeinpour was working on enrichment of uranium at the facility in Isfahan.

Governments, like the Lord, perhaps, can move in mysterious ways ... or not. The trick is in the not knowing. But since the death of the Iranian nuclear scientist, Hezbollah has not attacked Israel and Iraq has not somehow deteriorated.

So, are the pundits criticizing Reynolds doing so based upon reality, or the position of their own personal moral compass, which, however noble, might not get the job done? I don't know. But I've yet to see one of them post that they wish we could bring that Iranian nuclear scientist back.

Finally, even if Iran did know something, they'd be reluctant to take a position on it as it would only make them look weak. That isn't a look dictatorships, or religious zealots are quick to embrace.

Comments

[scarshapedstar]

In another news, all those "Iranian" anti-tank grenades have been pretty decisively outed as complete fabrications, and shockingly inept ones at that.

http://uggabugga.blogspot.com/2007/02/manufactured-evidencein-immediate.html

And these are the guys you think know who and where the Iranian nuclear scientists are, and can kill them all without getting caught?

[Bithead]

Bill, it's like I've been saying for the last several years, and catching hell for it; your moral compass or mine, doesn't mean a damn thing if the enemy wins. If that happens, the only moral compass that matters anymore, is theirs. Thereby, not fighting to win upholds nobody's moral compass but the enemy's.

[Purple Avenger]

"pretty decisively outed as complete fabrications"

Might be an interesting conspiracy theory if the US actually made such a weapon...

[silkworth]

dan thank you again. this is so important it is frightening. keep up the unbelievable work, you are onto a lot here. agree with his policies or not, bush was correct in his statement that as of yet, we cannot "meet" with ahcmenijad. isn't this the one who was the cruelest of the captors of our diplomats and expatriates in the 1979 kidnapping?

[templar knight]

PA, let me see if I can get my liberal friends to wrap their mind around this concept. If Iran has the scientific ability and intelligence to build nuclear weapons, wouldn't common sense tell you they had the ability to alter the way they put dates on their munitions in an attempt to keep themselves from being caught? Or would it make more sense to them to put "Made in Iran" on munitions they are illegally sending into Iraq, you know, in an effort to throw us off their trail.

[Purple Avenger]

"wouldn't common sense tell you..."

Common sense is something in very short supply when liberals start talking about weaponry.

[Kite]

Yep, they haven't figured out that "Weapons of Mass Destruction" doesn't nescessarily have to mean "nuclear device". Hell, back in late 03-04 the U.S. military showed footage where they conviscated RDX compounds and another explosive agent out of underground bunkers.

Sure, they weren't assembled yet, but they were agents used in creating large explosive devices. I mean....technically a roadside bomb that kills 100+ people could be a device that caused "mass destruction".

But i'm sure i'll just be accused of "denial" by the left. Whatever.

[James Stephenson]

Even looking at that picture. First of all it is a russian style Anti-Tank round. Secondly, the blow up letters really do not look like the letters on the smaller picture. It alsmost looks photoshopped on the munition. Look at how the last 2 characters look on the first line. That is an awful lot of black for a - in the picture, compared to the blow up. Could it be that if this was a pic used by the military that they have maybe translated what it said?

Or could this pic just be a hoax.