How does it make sense to remove an option, to tell your enemy before you go into a conflict, that you will not exercise whatever options are necessary in order to achieve victory?

Bin Laden’s death and the debate over torture.

Subjecting prisoners to abuse leads to bad intelligence, because under torture a detainee will tell his interrogator anything to make the pain stop. Second, mistreatment of our prisoners endangers U.S. troops who might be captured by the enemy – if not in this war, then in the next. And third, prisoner abuses exact on us a terrible toll in the war of ideas, because inevitably these abuses become public.

If you talk to these young men and women who are fighting, they'll tell you that they think it's a worthwhile cause, and they're fighting for freedom, and they-well, they-all I'm saying-the overwhelming majority of them do.

Thousands of Americans have given their lives in Afghanistan and Iraq upholding their oaths and defending this nation. Chelsea Manning broke her oath and made it more likely that others would join the ranks of her fallen comrades. Her prison sentence may end in a few months' [time], but her dishonor will last forever.

But we have a war of ideals and ideas, and that is to sell democracy.

We have a lot of work to do and I‘m afraid that it‘s a very hard struggle, particularly given the situation on the Iraq/Pakistan border.