"War is not glamorous - it is not romantic- and it is not necessary. In war there are no winners. War is hell. Just ask Tomas Young."

"...the rich can afford to escape Cairo’s heavily polluted air on weekends to relax at their Mediterranean villas; but for those of the general population who must stay within the city day in and day out, cancer rates are rapidly increasing. The rich continue to send their children to private schools and universities and these lucky few know they are guaranteed jobs after graduation in companies owned by their parents, families, or their families’ friends; meanwhile unemployment among the so-called middle class and below is reaching more than 50 per cent."

"Food staples, when available (and often, they are not) are distributed through monthly ration cards, while at the same time, Iraq’s oil resources are being robbed -- literally from under the nation’s feet – by American interests who are providing no fiscal accountability to anyone. Not surprisingly, Iraqis believe that the U.S. is financing its $3 trillion war against them by looting their oil."

"Time and again, Obama has displayed a remarkable instinct and ability to rise above "politics as usual." Even when goaded, he has not entered the fray. What he demonstrated in his Philadelphia speech was that it is precisely because of the resentment of Geraldine Ferraro and the pain of Jeremiah Wright that America needs to confront the corrosive and persistent issue of race; and that he, Barack Obama has "the right stuff" to do it."

"Real friendship means: when you see that your friend is drunk, you don't encourage him to drive. You offer to take him home. I am longing for an American president who will have the courage and the honesty to tell our leaders: Dear friends, you are drunk with power! You are speeding along a highway that leads to an abyss!"

"After seeing Petra, one poet wrote admiringly: "Under the arch of Life where love and death, terror and mystery, guard her shrine, I saw beauty enthroned; and though her gaze struck awe, I drew it in as simply as my breath."

"The historical record on partitions illuminates dos and don’ts for any soft partition of Iraq into a loose confederation--the most important of which is that the Iraqis must do the dividing themselves for it to have crucial legitimacy in their eyes. In 1947, in partitioning India and Pakistan, Britain found out the hard way that the location of the partition line is vitally important and that an outside power drawing such a border arbitrarily can have disastrous and violent consequences."

"It is time for real change, but it will only come with a social movement of reform in the tradition of the progressive, labor, civil rights, anti-war movements of the last century. We need to use all of our activist, legal, and political resources to reverse these threats to freedom."