When Americans look back years from now, what will shame us most is that our country abandoned a bedrock principle of civilized nations: that torture is without exception wrong.

The reason that you have this principle is not to be soft on terrorism. It's because that's who we are. That's what we're protecting.

It's not about left or right, it's about right and wrong.

Limiting the CIA's interrogation methods to those in the Army field manual would be dangerous because the manual is publicly available and easily accessible on the Internet.

What if warriors -- or prisoners of war -- could selectively disable their pain sense -- or their sense of decency?

It didn't take long to understand why so many soldiers were taking antidepressants.

You can't beat the Axis if you get VD.

What a beautiful little war!

Other people's culture wars always look ridiculous.

A war born in spin has now reached its Lewis Carroll period.

The more Pakistanis I talked to, the more I came to believe that the most reasonable explanations were not necessarily the most plausible ones.

FRONTLINE goes to war with a platoon of National Guard soldiers to see the war through their eyes, as they filmed it using their own camcorders.

A sudden wail pierced the night sky. It was Slasher, an AC-130 gunship, firing bullets the size of Coke bottles.

In my opinion, the moral imperative at the end of every war is reconciliation.

Bush's War will be the definitive documentary analysis of one of the most challenging periods in the nation's history.

If the United States waits for a dramatic, 9/11-style attack on its critical infrastructure to act, it will be missing the real threat.

Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner passenger jet may have a serious security vulnerability in its onboard computer networks that could allow passengers to access the plane's control systems.

Terrorism and War | Another Noteworthy Year

Homer: Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol must be working like a charm.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, dear.

Don't get me wrong - the abstract moral argument is important too. But as the perspective of time sets in, what I hope people also see is that abandoning the rule of law had real concrete harm -- not merely to the poor souls we tortured, but to our country and its status in the world.

Yet once you adopt a risk-management perspective, then uncertainty becomes a reason to do something rather than a reason not to do something.

Now don't get me wrong, this is not going to be a rant about how great the old days were. I love my leash.

You can't argue against the fact that there are more bears now than before. There are more bears and more humans. I believe that most attacks are due to the wrong bear being at the wrong place at the wrong time. People have to keep things in perspective.

"One bear will teach another bear, and then that bear will do it. There are bears that peel and bears that don't peel. We target peeling bears."

Don't get me wrong, I like ponies and rainbows like everybody else ...

"You can't argue with his security success," said student Col. Steven Williamson.

Don't get me wrong -- tools have their place.

While I can't argue with his logic, there's something ghastly about its inexorability.

“When you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

At a panel discussion Monday at the Harvard Kennedy School, Maleeha Lodhi evoked Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat to describe the situation on the ground in Afghanistan.

From the archive:

A war born in spin has now reached its Lewis Carroll period. (“Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”)

The court's opinion ridiculed the government argument, comparing it to the statement of a Lewis Carroll character: "I have said it thrice: What I tell you three times is true."

Is Afghanistan Lost?

President Bush took credit yesterday for "keeping America safe" from terrorists since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, arguing that his administration had prevented more bloodshed at home through aggressive policies and that such a result should outweigh any second-guessing of his methods.

The speech was the latest in a series of appearances aimed at highlighting accomplishments during Bush's tumultuous presidency.

Bush listed a series of terrorist plots allegedly foiled by U.S. officials since 2001, including some, such as a fanciful plan to topple the Sears Tower in Chicago, that counterterrorism officials have called aspirational at best.

The president focused on the defeat of the Taliban and the holding of elections in Afghanistan, making no mention of the rapidly deteriorating security situation there.

From the archive:

He 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."

Officials seem to think urgency to act absolves them from considering the longer-term implications.

He always tries, he said, to get his students to sort out not just what is legal but what is right. However, it had become increasingly hard to convince some cadets that America had to respect the rule of law and human rights, even when terrorists did not.

Overestimating the threat, when you're lining people up against the wall without due process, does have a cost, and frankly it's your soul.

Those who flourish in this environment are those who can sit through long meetings without falling asleep. The people who can peer through the darkness and see the truth are either sucked into the surreal world of modern management or shunted aside.

Bush Says His Post-9/11 Actions Prevented Further Terrorism

Anand Giridharadas:

Many told themselves and each other that this time would change things, just as Americans had told themselves after 9/11. But they knew their own history, and America’s, and they seemed, even as they spoke the words, to disbelieve them already.

The Special Sting of Personal Terrorism

Nir Rosen, in Rolling Stone:

"You Westerners have your watches," the leader observed. "But we Taliban have time."

Freeman Dyson:

That's the kind of thinking that comes naturally in such a place, where 100 years is nothing.

It's very important that we adapt to the world on the long-time scale as well as the short-time scale. Ethics are the art of doing that. You must have principles that you're willing to die for.

Also:

To be sure, time marches on.

Yet for many Californians, the looming demise of the "time lady," as she's come to be known, marks the end of a more genteel era, when we all had time to share.

Tom Friedman, in 2005:

Lance Armstrong and his team's abilities to meld strength and strategy -- to thoughtfully plan ahead and to sacrifice today for a big gain tomorrow --- seem to be such fading virtues in American life.

Maybe we have the leaders we deserve.

How We Lost the War We Won

This is an excellent analysis of the situation that Petraeus confronts in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The original article at Japan Focus includes hyperlinks to all of the quoted material, as well as photographs and annotated maps of the region. The author, China Hand, runs the China Matters blog.

All parties agreed that the only solution to Afghanistan's conflict is through dialogue, not fighting.

It appears that the key job before General Petraeus will be to co-opt the regional impetus toward a negotiated settlement, prevent Saudi Arabia from mid-wifing a power-sharing arrangement favorable to the Taliban, assert American control and direction over the process to assure America's continued presence at the center of Afghan's security equation, and spike the loose cannons that threaten his plan.

First, from 1973:

The Art of Fighting Without Fighting

Now, some selections from the archive.

Steve Coll, from 2004:

If at first you don't succeed, at least learn from your mistakes.

Google's Eric Schmidt:

Failure is an essential part of the process.

NYT's Eric Schmitt, from May 2006:

"I'm more concerned in the long term about the results of the drug war in Afghanistan than I am about resurgent Taliban," said the NATO military commander. The government and its NATO allies have not lost the people yet, officials say. But it is getting close to that.

Carlotta Gall, reporting after the late 2006 peace deal:

Javed Iqbal, the newly appointed Pakistani secretary of the tribal areas, defended the North Waziristan accord:

"We have tried the coercive tactic, we did not achieve much. So what do you do? Engage."

Steve Coll, reporting shortly after Bhutto's death (also, audio):

I asked if the local Taliban played favorites at election time. “The Taliban have no part in politics,” Paracha answered emphatically. “They are totally against democracy and the ballot. They will decide everything under the Holy Koran or with the bullet.”

General Rashid Qureshi, Musharraf’s spokesman, said the notion that Pakistan might support the Taliban was “a ridiculous argument, really. We have lost over a tho... [ Read More (0.3k in body) ]

'We're not going to win this war'

Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan Pakistan

Pakistan.

Pakistan

"The idea in the jihadist forums is that McCain would be a faithful 'son of Bush' -- someone they see as a jingoist and a war hawk," Raisman said. "They think that, to succeed in a war of attrition, they need a leader in Washington like McCain."

I wonder what they think of Palin.

Consider:

"Underwear should be the normal type that people wear, not anything that shows you're a fundamentalist."

...

Conduct a media campaign to fight the enemy's publicity. The campaign should focus on the following important points:

a) Attempt to cause a rift between the American people and their government, by demonstrating the following to the Americans:

* That the U.S. government will lead them into further losses of money and lives.

Recall:

Father: Martin, here's $10 to invest in the futures market.

Martin: "Soy! Soy! Soy! Soy! Soy!"
Father: "Martin, you're up $1 million."
Martin: "Yes!"
Father: "And now you've lost all but $600."
Father: "You got greedy, Martin."

Yes, Father, but Martin is still up six thousand percent ...

On Al-Qaeda Web Sites, Joy Over U.S. Crisis, Support for McCain

If terrorism has become boring, does that mean the terrorists have won?

Milk has few enemies.

Nuns on a trampoline for instance.