In the United States Christmas has become the rape of an idea.

I don't know that there is much the United States can do except work with the international community.

The United States strongly condemns the illegal disclosure of classified information. It puts people's lives in danger threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.

When I celebrated my bar mitzvah there was no cake. Today there is no such thing as a bar mitzvah in the United States without a special cake. It can be even more complicated and expensive than a wedding cake because bar-mitzvah cakes are often based on a particular theme.

I am still profoundly troubled by the war in Nicaragua. The United States launched a covert war against another nation in violation of international law a war that was wrong and immoral.

Bush's war in Iraq has done untold damage to the United States. It has impaired our military power and undermined the morale of our armed forces. Our troops were trained to project overwhelming power. They were not trained for occupation duties.

We did not go to war in Afghanistan or in Iraq to quote 'impose democracy.' We went to war in both places because we saw those regimes as a threat to the United States.

During the Cold War we were interested because we were scared that Russia and the United States were going to go to war. We were scared that Russia was going to take over the world. Every country became a battleground.

Until democracy in effective enthusiastic action fills the vacuum created by the power of modern inventions we may expect the fascists to increase in power after the war both in the United States and in the world.

I remember the 1940s as a time when we were united in a way known only to that generation. We belonged to a common cause-the war.