I made this bad joke on Twitter saying, "I want to put in my first no-bid contract to train the Libyan army and police force." These counter-insurgency guys like to say, "We don't do the big F-16 or big boondoggle projects, we're not pulling this stuff because it's good business." But in fact it turns out there are tons of business opportunities involving counter-insurgency operations - and it's not like we're getting rid of the boondoggle programs either, we're just doing more of everything.

A woman I loved [Andi Parhamovich] was killed in Baghdad in January 2007 – al-Qaeda in Iraq took credit for it … The memorial service with me crying over an empty coffin.

I thought Gen. McChrystal was unfireable, that his position was secure.

I think when war becomes your life, I think its very difficult to have the proper perspective to be able to create a fully balanced policy.

I have a deep-seated skepticism about the morality of violence. Violence is almost always morally corrosive.

By the second sentence of a pitch, the entirety of the story should be explained.

The fact is, psychiatric help is not widely available to CIA agents - and as in the military, there is a stigma attached to admitting post-traumatic stress.