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

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

At the end of the day...if your army won't fight, it's because they don't trust their incompetent, corrupt generals, they don't trust each other. This is an enduring civil war between the Shia, the Sunni, and the Kurds. So I don't think we've got any options and we'd be ill-advised to start bombing where we really can't sort out the combatants or understand where the civilian population is.

Thank God we're going to try to continue and effectively defend our frontiers with the Border Patrol, with the Customs Department, with the Coast Guard, with the Armed Forces.

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

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

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