Of Terror and Torture

“Fear drove American policymakers to abandon practices they deemed as too cumbersome for protecting Americans from terrorists. Their assumption was both right and wrong. I do believe that the CIA’s torture program helped to break otherwise implacable terrorists in time to save some American lives (and give other viable intelligence on terror operations and organization).”

The New-Old World Order is Here (Part VI)

“Obama campaigned against Mr. Bush’s unilateralism. George W. Bush opposed nation-building. Bill Clinton was averse to George H.W. Bush’s purported “coldness” in foreign policy. The elder Bush, for his part, was a much better tactician than he was a strategist (George H.W. Bush famously quipped that he lacked an understanding of that whole “vision thing”). As you can see, American foreign policy has not only unmoored America from its hard-won dominant position atop the international system, but U.S. foreign policy itself has become unglued by America’s political leaders over the last 30 years.”

The New-Old World Order is Here (Part V)

“Basing our foreign policy on hard-to-discern ideals–or conflating the ideals that must define the American citizens’ relationship with his government with the kind of brutish action that is often necessary to preserve the national interest abroad–is idiotic.”