They Call This Pragmatism (I guess)

Today’s NYT reports the US is holding Iranians seized in raids inside Iraq. This comes after a day when Ahmadenejad sounded more defiant than ever before not to alter the Iranian nuclear course.

At this moment I got nothing to offer in relation to Ahmadenejad or the US holding Iranians in Iraq, but I was instantaneously reminded of a reversal of this headline, which should have featured on NYT, but I guess never did.

The Marines called it, in an MSNBC report, ‘operation airlift of evil’ and Seymour Hersh titled his piece on it ‘The Getaway.’ Most recently, Barnett Rubin came out saying it happened. I am talking about the Kunduz airlift of November 2001. The US allows one country to salvage thousands of fighters who are fighting for roughly the same ends, and bluntly denies even having any knowledge of such repulsive act. In a different theater, Iraq, it holds four not so different dudes and throws them into headlines.

Believe me when I earnestly say that I am not the usual guy with an accent who would yell double-standards whenever a US foreign policy issue is debated. But on this occasion, I just wonder what you call such an inconsistency in behavior. Pragmatism?

If this is pragmatism, then lets go back to the good old days of black and white—and either and or. I just don't think pragmatism helps if this is what it is like.

---I was in the middle of sketching a piece on the US’s lousy record in relation to Taliban, and I saw this headline…couldn’t stop myself from exhausting some of my vital research links for that piece on this rapid response.