I am not a fatalist. I have just been reading War and Peace and Tolstoy is such a fatalist. I think people can make a difference, I am an optimist who worries a lot.
When, at a party, a woman (half socialite, half journalist) told me how brave she thought I had been for not getting a facelift, I was tempted to comment on the courage she had shown in dealing with the results of hers.
For the DPRK and its military, the ouster of Saddam Hussein conveyed a powerful message: it’s not enough to pretend to have weapons of mass destruction. To be secure, a nation must build them, own them, and hide them.
Especially when we are afraid, angry, or confused, we may be tempted to give away bits of our freedom—or, less painfully, somebody else’s freedom—in the quest for direction and order.
