Experience is valuable only if it's imbued with meaning from which one can draw salient conclusions. Otherwise, experience becomes imprisoning.

Colombia is in a risky position. They've got a peace process that's going nowhere, and a drug production problem that's skyrocketing.

We say in a democracy that good ideas will drive out bad ones, so if the good ones aren't there, we're left with the bad ones

I'm a professor of national security studies, and I know a lot more about fighting than Rumsfeld does.

When I get a very generous introduction like that I explain that I'm emotionally moved, but on the other hand I'm Irish and the Irish are very emotionally moved. My mother is Irish and she cries during beer commercials.

If you want to fight a war on drugs, sit down at your own kitchen table and talk to your own children.

Extremely disappointed that corruption may have reached such a level in Mexico.