تشبه العلاقة بين الإيمان والعقل والخوف أحيانا لعبة الأطفال التي تسمى الحجر والورقة والمقص، فالخوف يزيح العقل، والعقل يتحدى الإيمان، والإيمان يغلب الخ… - Al Gore

I believe that we must not waste this moment. A responsible foreign policy must look outward from a stance of forward engagement, to our broadest hopes for the world — not just inward, to our narrowest fears. A responsible foreign policy must harness all our economic and military might — but it must also make use of our values and principles.

Our founders were insightful students of human nature. They feared the abuse of power because they understood that every human being has not only "better angels" in his nature, but also an innate vulnerability to temptation — especially the temptation to abuse power over others. Our founders understood full well that a system of checks and balances is needed in our constitution because every human being lives with an internal system of checks and balances that cannot be relied upon to produce virtue if they are allowed to attain an unhealthy degree of power over their fellow citizens.

The war plan was incompetent in its rejection of the advice from military professionals and the analysis of the intelligence was incompetent in its conclusion that our soldiers would be welcomed with garlands of flowers and cheering crowds. Thus we would not need to respect the so-called Powell doctrine of overwhelming force. There was also in Rumsfeld's planning a failure to provide security for nuclear materials, and to prevent widespread lawlessness and looting. Luckily, there was a high level of competence on the part of our soldiers even though they were denied the tools and the numbers they needed for their mission.