Sparks: South Korea president says regrets drones sent to North

If admitting involvement changes nothing in the practical conduct of surveillance, then what real difference does the initial denial make to the lived experience of these nations?

Regret is a turbulent wave against the shore of what has passed; others have denied, others have admitted, and all are now dust.

The sophisticated explanations for sending metal birds across a border and then denying it sound like the polite lies told in drawing rooms, while the peasant simply knows a lie when he hears one.

The habit of public denial, even when truth is later revealed, erodes the very trust necessary for a democratic people to govern themselves without constant suspicion of their own institutions.

When the government, instituted to secure the public trust, engages in deception concerning its activities, it violates the self-evident principle that informed consent is the basis of legitimate governance.

How charming it is that a government, in its infinite wisdom, first assures us of one reality, only to later confess to another, as if the truth were a mere suggestion.

When the body of the state speaks with a forked tongue, first denying and then admitting, it reveals a disharmony within its own spirit, a sickness that spreads doubt like a fever.

In these lands, as in many others, the words of rulers can shift like desert sands, first stating one thing, then another, making the true path of events difficult to discern for the ordinary traveler.

A nation's moral character is stained when its leaders, rather than upholding truth, engage in dissimulation that they must later retract, setting a poor example for the common man.

One must admire the precision with which they first stated a thing was not so, before later confirming, with equal gravitas, that it was, in fact, precisely so.