Because I didn't see war in Iraq through the partisan lens that seems to dominate a lot of the perspective today with Fox News on the one side and MSNBC on the other, I didn't see it as Democrats good, Republicans bad. I saw it as a situation where the United States is a force that engages in these military operations around the world, and it's the job of journalists to provide the American people with information they can use to make informed decisions.

I also think that we [Americans] are operating out of fear in our country. It's not that terrorism is not a threat, but it's not an existential threat. It is not the preeminent threat facing most Americans on any given day, and yet the power of nightmares is so strong.

You can do as much diligence as possible before you go somewhere to try to protect yourself and the people around you.

Now, here we are, and we have Obama in office, and he has drawn down forces in Iraq - which is a plan that was on Bush's desk the day that he left office. The forces in Afghanistan, he's going to draw down, too. But at the same time, Obama has also expanded a lot of the more unsavory, covert aspects of the wars, with the drone strikes and some of the night-raid missions.

My philosophy about journalism is simple - that we have a job to hold those in power accountable, to give voice to the voiceless, and to provide people with information that they can use to make informed decisions about what policies they want enacted in their name and what policies they don't.

My fear, as an American, is that our own actions are going to contribute to an inspiration for terrorists to want to harm us or kill us.

The first week I was in Iraq, I said, "This is what I want to do. I want to be a reporter and to tell stories of people whose stories would not be told if we don't gather them." It's part of what I think of as the one-two punch of journalism. You're trying to give voice to the voiceless, and then you're also trying to hold those in power accountable, regardless of what party they're in.