Sometimes it's hard to filter out the truth from conflicting testimony. People, conconsciously or unconsciously, shape what they say to fit a vision of the truth. For example, I just watched part 1 of the ABC special on The Road to 9/11. The movie showed CIA and Northern Alliance people hiding just outside a camp where bin Laden was meeting with cohorts. They had no doubt that they had him now and would get him. All they needed was a GO order from Washington. The movie then showed a series of vacillations by Sandy Berger and George Tennent that resulted in a NO GO decision. It was clear from the movie's vision that the men in the Clinton administration didn't have the guts to take responsibility and do what was clearly needed.
But, hold on, after the movie, they interviewed a Clinton staffer who was at this meeting and said the reason they didn't go ahead was because a) there were civilians around who might have been killed and b) there were machine gun nests and two tanks. He said the the assault squad would have been massacred if they had tried the attack.
Two versions of the truth. Were Clinton's people cowards, were the attacker's rash, all of the above or none of the above? This situation is the very reason that NO account of anything can be taken at face value. The first account was framed around the vision that the Clinton Administration was cowardly or indecisive. The second version was based on the vision that the same people were prudent in protecting civilian and military lives, not rash like the people on the ground.
I think some detailed, skeptical questions would have been in order. For example, "How many machine guns were there? Where were they located relative to the attackers? Where were the tanks? Could the assualt have been successful despite the enemy weapons? How do you know? How long would it take? What complications could have happened? What plans for mitigating these contingincies did you have? How many civilians would likely have been killed? Why did the men on the ground think they could succeed? How did you know it was bin Laden? Was it legal to kill or capture bin Laden? "
There is wisdom in the way court trials are structured--testimony, cross-examination, decision by impartial jury. In the 9/11 movie and follow-up interview, we had testimony only, and no impartial jury.
To bridge to a different matter, too bad we can't have a similar method for examining religious scriptures. We have the testimony, but where is the cross exam and the impartial jury? So, how is it that we think we know the Truth when we read any scripture? It seems that truth based on human testimony is very hard to come by. Mostly what we see is our own vision of what the world is like.
Below is the original nude image in watercolor. The idea was to explore the curves and lines--the geometry of the female form. Using digital manipulation brought in the dimension of texture--polished stone (middle) and sandstone (top). Fun, eh?
