One cannot say that it will never happen again, or that it cannot happen. - William Pfaff

The problems of elites is an old one for which Americans have found no solid answer.

The accounts that history presents have to be paid. Past has to be reconciled with present in the life of a nation. History is an insistent force: the past is what put us where we are. the past cannot be put behind until it is settled with.

It is one of the perceptual defects of Western government and press to assign Western-style motives to what people do in non-Western societies, as if these are universally relevant.