"Martin Luther King Jr. aptly likened the Vietnam War to a “demonic suction tube.” And demonic suction tubes can’t be boxed. In the real world, war’s ripple effects lead to a kaleidoscope of terrible consequences, near and far. You can’t keep a war in a box any more than you can deliver a government in a box."

"The problem is the message from Washington to Israel has been far too ambiguous. The Israeli government, addicted to gobbling up Palestinian land, is taking every opportunity to exploit this ambiguity and embarrass American and Palestinian officials while they are at it."

The United States has not only increased its arsenal of unmanned aerial vehicles by twenty five times over the past decade, it has massively increased the range and lethality of its hunter-killer drones. A recent report disclosed that beginning in 2008 the Air Force Research Laboratory started to "build the ultimate assassination robot," described as "a tiny, armed drone for U.S. special forces to employ in terminating 'high-value targets.'”

"The perpetrators of the crime against the passengers and crew of Pan Am Flight 103 had intended that it crash at sea, leaving no physical evidence and no bodies to tell the tale. But turbulent weather over Heathrow Airport had led the pilot of the giant Boeing 747 to steer slightly more northward than usual, so the plane was still over land when it crashed at Lockerbie, Scotland."

"The real question therefore now is, will this American administration and the EU, as well as other interested and active members of the international community, really allow Israel to get away with it again? If yes, then there can be only one outcome of this process: further encouragement for the right-wing in Israel and the Hamas opposition in Palestine and further radicalization in both societies."

"There are specific allegations that many journalists in Guwahati, who are among the lowest paid in India with starting salaries as little as US$50 a month, enjoy regular payments like monthly lump sum compensation from politicians in power. Licenses for wine shops are offered to reporters (and accepted happily by many) with the inherent understanding that they only write positive stories and if possible, kill negative reports against their politician-financers."

"If the US would get behind any or all of these alternatives more energetically, we might conceivably see positive, confidence-building results that could in future make an Israeli-Palestinian two-state solution more feasible than it is today."

The 2010 Winter Olympics was like a huge economic and public relations prize carrot that the organizers dangled in front of us and expected us to chase after. The games was not so much a 17-day sports event that happened to take place in my corner of the world as it was the climax of an enervating four-year sensory assault of cheerleading, advertising and sloganeering.