16 Quotes by Rosa Brooks

It takes a whole government to really screw up a war. A dollop of American hubris goes a long way too.

It has often been our best instincts, not our worst, that have led us to do harm in the world

My point here is not that the Iraq War was a bad idea in the first place (though it certainly was). My point is that this cynical, foolish, arguably illegal war might still have come right in the end—if only we had tried a little less hard to fix everything that struck us as broken.

What line separates the lawful wartime targeting of an enemy combatant from the extrajudicial murder of a man suspected, but not convicted, of wrongdoing? (p8)

If your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” The old adage applies here as well. If your only functioning government institution is the military, everything looks like a war – and when everything looks like war, everything looks like a military mission.

When war transcends all boundaries, do the legal and moral categories we have relied upon to channel and constrain violence and coercion lose all value? Do we lose the checks and balances essential to preserving individual liberty and the rule of law? Or.

It has often been our best instincts, not our worst, that have led us to do harm in the world.