
2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)
Maclean’s, August, 25, 2003: On the Iraq war.
2003
2000s, 2002, State of the Union address (January 2002)
“I wasn't happy when we found out there wasn't weapons [of mass destruction in Iraq]</s”
2nd Presidential Debate, October 8, 2004
2000s, 2004
[Senators Introduce Assault Weapons Ban, November 8, 2017, w:Diane Feinstein, Diane, Feinstein, https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/11/senators-introduce-assault-weapons-ban]
On the introduction of the Assault Weapons Ban of 2017
"Kanan Makiya speaks about Iraq 5 years later...", Washington Post (March 20, 2008)
What I Didn't Find in Africa (2003)
Context: I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.
But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.
"Peace as a Civil Right" from A Prayer for America (2003) [Nation Books, ISBN 1-56025-510-2], p. 76
2000s, 2004, 2004 Video Broadcast on Al-Jazeera October 29
Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 97
Address to United Nations General Assembly http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/speeches/1987/092187b.htm (21 September 1987)
1980s, Second term of office (1985–1989)
Context: Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?