"Bush, like the fool we love to excuse, nonchalantly brushed off the encounter with substandard jokes and reassured the American public that this incident is evidence that democracy is in full effect. TIME Magazine's Mark Halperin responded to the episode on Anderson Cooper 360, "[y]ou know my reaction to it, without taking sides…I think the president should be a little more sensitive to what this man was protesting, which was in effect, the death of innocent civilians in Iraq." MSNBC's Rachel Maddow also ended her segment discussing the deaths of Iraqi civilians over the course of the last two days and inferred that the last minute reframing of the war was itself a tragedy."

"Muslims have been indoctrinated, intimidated, and cowed into believing that Islam is the reason they are “uncivilized, barbaric, primitive, illiterate, and unproductive” both by our dictators and the West. Both fear that true Islam will liberate the masses from their tyranny, oppression, power, and riches."

"Everybody knows that the only way to find out who your true friends are is by noting who stands by you when you are down and out. Political principles work the same way. If you are prepared to throw them out the window when times are tough, then you never really held them in the first place. Principles are intended especially to guide our behavior in difficult circumstances. If they don’t do so, then our proclaimed principles stand revealed as having been nothing but rhetoric in the worst sense of the word."

"Over the years, with the Bush administration being only the latest installment, the U.S. government has continued to have a tin ear toward the counterproductive effect on U.S. security of using frequent and excessive military force. One can only hope that Barack Obama will glean the lessons that Generals Templer and Petraeus leaned on the battlefield and adopt a policy of military restraint."

"Real democracy in the USA could help achieve real democracy in other places, especially by not interfering in their political economies. Ending our foreign meddling will help bring international peace and a stop to what is called global terrorism. That is simply the bloody action taken by native amateur killers to defend their nations and cultures from the bloody action of foreign professional killers, and when those foreigners back off, terrorism will end. Then and only then will there be a chance for real peace in places like the middle east, where apartheid Israel can become democratic Palestine, with immigrants and natives living as equals and not as colonial superiors and colonized inferiors."

"When people invoke the hardships our troops face, I think of the dead Iraqi mother, the splattered torsos painting the pavement, and the .50 caliber bullets that have hollowed out the bodies of Iraqi children. Each American has a distinct face and a tale that chokes us up, but our government and media have systematically dehumanized another people, whittling their presence in the world down to a nuisance that drains our budget, as though Iraq is a welfare state that strips our society of health care, education, and gas for cross-country vacations."

"Foreign affairs are unlikely to be a major priority for Obama in the first years of his presidency; he has more urgent fish to fry closer to home for the time being. But the policies he will pursue, both now and when he has more time for them, are unlikely to be as different from those of the defeated and discredited neo-cons as some might hope and expect."

"Unfortunately, Western media do not routinely cover the growing issue of how many Indian politicians are calling for a Hindu-ized India and who habitually spout hatred against India’s minorities, especially Muslims. In fact, Western media prefer to focus on "Islamic" fundamentalism, while turning blind eyes to the growing threat of Jewish, Christian and Hindu fundamentalism."