richard cohen gives one of the few actually thoughtful treatments of a rich theme: the role of revenge in, let's say, international affairs.  it's there. and when people say it's not - when, for example, they try to draw some hard-and-fast distinction between vengeance and justice - and portray themselves as advocates of the latter and not the former - they lurch into extremely palpable dishonesty. "justice" in a criminal or war-type sense, is a slightly rationalized or systematized or delegated revenge, and by the same token, the sense for revenge harbors within it a feeling of a universe that rests on a balance which, disturbed, ought to be restored.