Technology can also be used so that private individuals will have access to the way centralized decisions are being made.

The missile defense component is a minor feature that nobody takes very seriously. Nobody really believes that the US is trying to protect itself from North Korea. That's not serious. But the militarization of space is quite serious.

The Bush administration has created an unimaginable catastrophe in Iraq. This should've been one of the easiest military occupations in history and they succeeded in turning it into one of the worst military disasters in history. They can't control it and it's almost impossible for them to get out for reasons you can't discuss in the United States because to discuss the reasons why they can't get out would be to concede the reasons why they invaded.

The intellectual world is deeply conformist... We talk a lot about the crimes of others. When it comes to our own crimes, we are nationalists in the Orwellian sense.

We have a record for Nawaz Sharif but not the others. And judging by the record, it's pretty hard to be optimistic. His [Sharif's] previous governments were very corrupt and regressive in the policies pursued.

Personally, I am uneasy about the notion of "a politically engaged university," for reasons I wrote about over 30 years ago, at the height of protest and resistance (reprinted in For Reasons of State).

Colombia is potentially a very wealthy country. It has tremendous resources, but its wealth is highly concentrated. Most of the population lives in misery, which has led to violent confrontation throughout the century.