If the thumbnail version of the Iraq war was that Bush lied about WMD, the thumbnail version of Obama's war in Afghanistan is that the generals pushed him into a war he didn't want to fight.

There's this talk that we're asking soldiers to make the greatest sacrifice, but the reality is that civilians bear the burden of war more than the combatants. You're much more likely to get accidentally blown up or killed by a death squad than you are to die in a firefight.

The way the Pentagon and its defenders have pushed back against this story is to say: "They weren't doing psychological operations, they were doing information operations and public affairs. They were just helping us spin senators like we normally do."

The humanitarian argument is so selective I find it difficult to swallow. It's not even so much about the choice as to where we should get involved and where we shouldn't.

General McChrystal wanted to be on the cover of Rolling Stone.

The minute you start arming people in these conflict zones, things don't go as expected. We also need to look at precedent before making these decisions. Instead of listening to Muammar Qaddafi's rhetoric, we should look at how he's behaved. The fact is he's been making concessions recently. He gave up his nuclear weapons. He allowed hundreds of Americans to evacuate Tripoli. Did he crack down on his people who revolted? Yes, but that's not so unusual.

During the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the military conducted only a handful of drone missions.