It was well known by everyone, including the US government, that the system as constructed invited kickbacks,

If we had waited for the government to get us out of there, we would have died. It took the citizens there to get us help.

It would be difficult for us to argue against the government without a reasonable disclosure of the documents. We can't prove our case without access to the government's rationale.

There was a real sense of solidarity among the neighboring states, a desire to see this work and send a signal to all the Afghan factions that they were no longer to receive assistance if they did not adopt this accord.

We're going to have to face the fact that there are strong centrifugal forces in Iraq that have the potential of tearing the country apart.

Voters are not looking for creative, forward-looking candidates, they are looking for people who they think can protect them. They fall back on the familiar and the powerful. The same thing happened in postwar Bosnia, where the parties that fed the conflict in the first place got most of the vote.