72.
Someone: "Anarchy is the only rational politics."

Mr. Ridge: "Anarchy? On this bark? Think about who's aboard:

Mungo Park and that old lady who can't see in the dark.

Aren't we in it together? Want some Cutty Sark?"

"The haze of winter harmattan gives way to Arab spring.

What part we played in that is still unclear,

Whether Libyan intervention's fair or foul

Or if ethics sometimes trumps longterm diplomatic schemes

I can hardly say."

"Do we bicker now? Do we squander now so great a lead?

What good will come of mutiny, Mr Christian?

Wouldn't you risk a town tomorrow to save a child today?

Or is everything accounting and astrology?

We can't know what disaster a decade brings 

But the dangers of today are pretty plain." 

"Saddam had to go we all agreed. 

The doing was poorly done. 

Islamists have gained not lost resolve.

Iran has grown in stature by compare.

But would there be any talk of spring

Without the picture of debacle in green Baghdad?" 

"Yet when the towers fell we should have then resolved

phoenix-like to build again on burning embers. 

Sometimes victory is not blinking. 

What we did was strike out in blind fear. 

Unseeing justice should have been our guide on rocky ground. 

But vengeance was our highest vision.

The deaths in London and Spain

Were no inconsiderable thing though they 

Were no cause to seal out every breath of half-formed threat."

"I suppose I've go on too long. 

I was just reading this article. Ten Years After 9/11

In Foreign Affairs. I wish we had had a chief

Who could talk about confronting barbarity 

Without ourselves becoming brutal thugs, 

Say how the fighter's fist becomes a healing hand,

How strength need not restort to cruelty and rage. 

Proud people, proud land. Humbly you must stand

Or desperately you will slump and fall."