"Our orientation has been wrong. We have been talking of aid to Britain as if Britain were a beggar at the gate, whereas, in point of fact, Britain has been our shield behind which we can pull up our socks, tie our shoelaces and get ready—and also our laboratory."

"I know her slightly. Amo ut intellegam. I love in order that I may understand. You try to do it backwards, and you never make it. I'm a Trad."

"Curiosity is the hunger of Reason."

"We like to think institutions distort people. But slavery is a frightening institution because it doesn't. It allows the most direct and unrestrained expression of human nature."

"Many observers, including myself, had long since ceased to believe there ever was any serious intention on the part of Israel to permit a meaningful Palestinian state to come into being alongside Israel; successive far-Right election victories have exposed the true face and end game of the Israeli Right — endlessly enabled by the charade of the so-called US “peace process.”"

"This latest act of “foreign policy by assassination” will be largely rejected by most in the world. Only a few craven Gulf kings and princes and Israel will applaud it. And worst of all, the US has now taken one more giant step towards convincing the world that the US has indeed become a “rogue nation” no longer willing to follow the rules of international law and procedure—and wisdom—that it claims to lead.... This was a blatantly political assassination, and, in the calculations of most practitioners of international law it was an act of war. One can only imagine the US response to a similar Iranian assassination of a top US regional commander."

"The trembling puffery and outrage on the part of most politicians and commentators in the US that “Soleimani was responsible for the deaths of any number of American soldiers in Iraq” reflects either childish naivete or massive self-delusion..."

"One didn't need to read the fine print to see the unwavering intelligence community consensus that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election and planned to do the same in 2018. In his opening remarks, Coats predicted that Russian operations "will continue against the United States and our European allies, using elections as opportunities to undermine democracy, sow discord, and undermine our values," and then added, "There should be no doubt that Russia perceived its past efforts as successful, and views the 2018 U.S. midterm elections as a potential target for Russian influence operations.""

"We kill people based on metadata."

"American intelligence professionals, through a process of self-selection and acculturation, much like their diplomatic counterparts, trend overwhelmingly internationalist. They view American involvement abroad as the natural order of things, and their life experience tells them that American disengagement rarely makes things better anywhere."

"Trumpism was a long time coming."

"Beyond the lack of truth telling, there was the question of inclusion, with the campaign's emphasis on the politically convenient but somewhat amorphous "other"- immigrants, illegals, Mexicans, Muslims, and so on- as the root of our problems. The campaign broadcast a palpable sense of America less as a welcoming Madisonian "we the people" than a nation defined by blood and soil and shared history. If the campaign hadn't been conducted in English, we would have routinely heard words that evoked blood and soil like the German Volk or the Slavic narod. Lacking a good English equivalent, the campaign settled on "hardworking Americans" as an adequate dog-whistle equivalent. The label preferred by some in the alt-right was "awakened whites.""

"The travel ban was stopped by the courts, the amicus comments from security professionals being cited as one of the reasons for its rejection, before a modified version was allowed to proceed. But the effects of even attempting to impose such a ban will not pass quickly. Insults rarely just fade away. Honor patiently awaits to be satisfied. In the meantime CIA will be left with more of the weak and the merely avaricious, agents who will cut a deal just for the money, the worst kind of sources- and ISIS and al-Qaeda will (with more justification than they once had) claim that America and Islam are inevitable enemies. And all of this, I firmly believe, is based on a false, post-truth premise."

"That's a pretty clear warning. And a pretty good sign that American intelligence remains steadfast on this issue and, one hopes, more broadly in its commitment to objective truth. It's also a pretty good sign that phase four in the relationship between the IC and the president will be lengthy, contentious, divisive, and unpredictable. Stand by."

"Deception is a state of mind and the mind of the State."

"In his day, Jim was recognized as the dominant counterintelligence figure in the non-communist world."

"It is inconceivable that a secret arm of the government has to comply with all the overt orders of the government."