If you look at history, even recent history, you see that there is indeed progress. . . . Over time, the cycle is clearly, generally upwards. And it doesn't happen by laws of nature. And it doesn't happen by social laws. . . . It happens as a result of hard work by dedicated people who are willing to look at problems honestly, to look at them without illusions, and to go to work chipping away at them, with no guarantee of success — in fact, with a need for a rather high tolerance for failure along the way, and plenty of disappointments.

Well before September 11, it was understood that with modern technology, the rich and powerful will lose their near monopoly of the means of violence and can expect to suffer atrocities on home soil.

Historically, several policy domains, including that of foreign policy towards the US and India, budget allocations etc, have been controlled by the Pakistani military, and the civil-military divide can be said to be the most fundamental fracture in Pakistan's body politic.

Terror became a big issue when the Reagan Administration came in. They immediately announced [their plans] and kind of disparaged Carter's alleged human rights programs. The main issue is state-directed international terrorism. Right at that time that big industry developed. That's when you start getting the academic departments on terrorism.

Every wave of immigrants who came [to America] were treated pretty badly, but when they all finally became integrated, all of us became Anglo-Saxons.

What was the invasion of South Vietnam, for example, in 1962, when Kennedy sent the Air Force to bomb South Vietnam and start chemical warfare? That's aggression.

If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.