Torture takes over someone's nervous system. Torture takes over what they feel. Torture takes over and penetrates into their mind and into their body. It's not only illegal, it's immoral.

I think that the first point to be made is there is no "solution" in Afghanistan. Solution I put in quotes. We live in an op-ed culture, which is to say, you always need to have a solution. The last third of that op-ed piece needs to say, "Do this, this, this and this." There is no this, this, this, and this, that will make Afghanistan right.

The problem is that the things demanded by an empire, which is staying power, ruthlessness, the ability and the willingness to use its power around the world, it's something that democracies tend to be quite skeptical about.

I would not like to be in President Obama's position in making choices on Afghanistan.

One is the goals of 9/11 itself, of that attack was to draw the United States into Afghanistan to fight a counterinsurgency as the Soviets had done before them.

What is evil? What is - where does the evil come from that lies behind someone like Saddam Hussein, or Radovan Karadzic, or General Claude Raymond in Haiti. As I say, I've tended to find these people - I mean, Saddam, I've never met or interviewed - but these other people to be rather disappointing. Their political goals were mundane. What they had working for them was opportunism, was very often cleverness and was ruthlessness.

I think if you're looking for a pure expression of evil, torture is pretty - is a pretty good candidate.