This is my year in review. Last year's is here: Scrubby Things, 2005 Edition; you can also review 2004.

The best way to fight terrorists is to go at it not like G-men, with two-year assignments and query letters to the staff attorneys, but the way the terrorists do, with fury and the conviction that history will turn on the decisions you make -- as an obsession and as a life style.

"If I were a Muslim, I’d probably be a jihadist."

He has lost hope for his country. All anyone can do, he said, is laugh.

"It's kind of like a vibrating 24/7 secretary."

... the tawdry, laconic demeanor of a pimp on weed ... "I make good tea okay?" ... We’re country.

"As the president has said, cut and run is not his cup of tea."

If you can play tennis as well as you claim to for as long as you say, you can patrol a village in the Sunni Triangle.

Life grinding against death, and losing. Nobody wins, finally.

For Muslims you cannot say, 'I’m a Muslim, but—' That 'but' does not work.

Their eyes are full of tears out of sadness that they are still unable to contribute.

This one is from late 2004, but it resurfaced in 2006:

People say to me, "Whatever it takes." I tell them, It's going to take everything."

Back to 2006:

Those little yellow ribbons aren't really for the troops. The real purpose of those ribbons is to ease some of the guilt we feel ...

Karzai: "Those who cause us to suffer will burn in hell with us."

"We will bring you down, but it will be your own fault."

"I believe with every bone in my body that free people, exposed to sufficient information, will, over time, find their way to right decisions," Rumsfeld said.

At the time, you thought he was talking about the Iraqis. In fact, he was talking about Americans.

Is more ... [ Read More (1.3k in body) ]