Amitav Ghosh:

There is no such thing, Gandhi tells us, as a means to an end: means are ends.

It affords me no satisfaction that the "incendiary circumstances" of these essays are no longer exceptional anywhere in the world. But their contemporary relevance lies, I hope, not merely in the circumstances they address but also in the renewed urgency of the question of means and ends. For if there is anything instructive in the present turmoil of the world, it is surely that few ideas are as dangerous as the belief that all possible means are permissible in the service of a desirable end.

From the archive:

After 9/11 the gloves came off.

We also have to work, though, sort of the dark side, if you will.

Bush said he wanted to be remembered "as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process."

Mind you, he's not denying that he sold his soul (and yours). He's just saying he wasn't motivated by a desire to be accommodating.

"While there's room for honest and healthy debate about the decisions I've made -- and there's plenty of debate -- there can be no debate about the results in keeping America safe."

Bush's offer of "room" for debate is fallacious. There is only one debate. Means are ends. While the ends to date are "inarguable", which is to say indisputable, their status as historical fact is not the subject of the essential debate. The questions are moral questions, and the consequences are predominantly ahead of us, not behind us.

According to one who was present, Churchill suddenly blurted out: "Are we animals? Are we taking this too far?"

This is a cross-generational issue. It's caring for children, grandchildren. In some cultures you're supposed to be responsible out to the seventh generation -- that's about 200 years.

And now this current generation is pretty much fucked.

So his self-praise for "keeping America safe" is just a polite, roundabout way of saying, "I hope you all have enjoyed the past eight years of comfort and joy, because the next eighty are going to be rather uncomfortable."

Incendiary Circumstances: A Chronicle of the Turmoil of our Times