Engagement is not appeasement. Engagement is not surrender.

We live in a world of absolute immediacy. It is an interconnected, combustible world, where technology and many other actions have given nonstate actors a reach, into countries and societies, for both good and evil, that we have never seen before. So it isn't a matter of just state versus state challenges or conflict. The bigger problem is nonstate actors.

In a general way, if one cannot attribute to the Jew the whole responsibility of the situation, economic, political, and social, by which Algeria is being strangled, it is no exaggeration to recognize him as morally guilty, for the great part of his rìle here, still more than elsewhere, has consisted in corrupting, degrading, and disintegrating.

The Bush administration must understand that each American has a right to question our policies in Iraq and elsewhere, and should not be demonized or condemned for disagreeing with them. Suggesting that to challenge and criticize policy is undermining and hurting our troops is not democratic, nor what this country has stood for over 200 years.

All I can do is present what I think is in the best interest of this country and how I can best serve this country and the president of the United States. And I feel very good about that opportunity I've had.

I think this is the biggest lesson a president or any of us who has responsibility to govern have to learn: There are always consequences to actions that you take. There are consequences to inaction.

There's always a balance, I think, any administration has to find in not just the military but in any agency of government.