The United States has used force abroad more than 130 times, but has only declared war five times - the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, the Spanish-American War, and World Wars I and II.

The effort to blur the lines between Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib reflects a deep misunderstanding about the different legal regimes that apply to Iraq and the war against al Qaeda.

We can guess that the unacceptable conduct of the soldiers at Abu Ghraib resulted in part from the dangerous state of affairs on the ground in a theater of war.

In light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, critics are arguing that abuses of Iraqi prisoners are being produced by a climate of disregard for the laws of war.

Applying different standards to al Qaeda does not abandon Geneva, but only recognizes that the U.S. faces a stateless enemy never contemplated by the Conventions.

Under the Geneva Convention, for example, a POW is required only to provide name, rank, and serial number and cannot receive any benefits for cooperating.

American soldiers had to guard prisoners on the inside while receiving mortar and weapons fire from the outside. Guantanamo is distant from any battlefield, making it far more secure.

This is not to condone torture, which is still prohibited by the Torture Convention and federal criminal law.

President Bush and his commanders announced early in the conflict that the Conventions applied.

Without territory, it does not even have the resources to provide detention facilities for prisoners, even if it were interested in holding captured POWs.

If the Court were to extend its reach to the base, judges could begin managing conditions of confinement, interrogation methods, and the use of information.

I had to deny knowledge in order to make room for faith.

Until you begin to write, then you shall know the wonders of the written word.

No woman really wants a man to carry her off; she only wants him to want to do it.

No book is a chapter, no chapter tells the whole story, no mistake defines who we are. Hope makes our lives page turners.

One of the things about working on Star Trek that was always so great was that we all got along as well as we did. We really became family.

If you love something - let. If it is yours - it will come back. I love you not because of who you are, but for who I am when I'm with you.

It's not a bad thing for a writer not to feel at home. Writers - we're much more comfortable at parties standing in the corner watching everybody else having a good time than we are mingling.

Make the right decisions in life and you'll never have to worry about saving $3 a day on lattes.

An aphorism is a single sentence that totally exhausts its subject.

I can't say I'm anything like a devoted animal rights activist, but I certainly oppose cruelty to animals.