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"The Time Traveler" by Dan Simmons http://www.dansimmons.com/news/message/2006_04.htm A time traveler visits from several decades back to understand the start of the Long War.

Greetings Readers, Friends, and Other Visitors: The Time Traveler appeared suddenly in my study on New Year’s Eve, 2004. He was a stolid, grizzled man in a gray tunic and looked to be in his late-sixties or older. He also appeared to be the veteran of wars or of some terrible accident since he had livid scars on his face and neck and hands, some even visible in his scalp beneath a fuzz of gray hair cropped short in a military cut. One eye was covered by a black eyepatch. Before I could finish dialing 911 he announced in a...

October 2012 Message from DanWhy I Voted For Barack Obama in 2008:Dear Readers, Friends, and other Visitors:Yes, this is that most dreaded of things this time in an election year – yet another political comment. We’re all tired of them – especially when they come from some actor or “celebrity” or otherwise totally uninformed and irrelevant person. I don’t even rise to the level of “minor celebrity” – outside of my moderate band of readers I’m unknown – and I have no pretense to relevance this election year. The only thing that might entitle me to a political opinion...

The Time Traveler appeared suddenly in my study on New Year’s Eve, 2004. He was a stolid, grizzled man in a gray tunic and looked to be in his late-sixties or older. He also appeared to be the veteran of wars or of some terrible accident since he had livid scars on his face and neck and hands, some even visible in his scalp beneath a fuzz of gray hair cropped short in a military cut. One eye was covered by a black eyepatch. Before I could finish dialing 911 he announced in a husky voice that he was...

Dan Simmons comments -- The deeper question here is whether we want to turn major political decisions and huge efforts at terraforming Terra over to scientists (as Kim Stanley Robinson fictionally argues is necessary in his series of much-applauded global warming novels.) I love science. I consider it one of the few decent thought-systems ever created by the human species. Its very reliance on self-correction is what sets it apart from all the myriad of religions, political systems, ideologies, and self-help creeds that begin with "self-evident" propositions and go downhill from there. On the other hand, just as real democracies...

"It never occurred to me in my earlier creations of these freewheeling monthly or bimonthly "Messages from Dan" that I would have to write a Message about a previous Message. But it seems obvious that I must do just that. (For those visitors who may have missed the April 2006 Message, please find it in the archives linked above—or be warned that what follows here will be very cryptic, at best.)"... Other forum-posters were incensed that I could not see the true evil stalking the world today—the United States of America, with the mendacious madman George W. Bush at the...

"The invasion of Iraq was not an act of revenge or justice. (Just as the bombing of the Ploesti fields was not an act of pique at the occupied Romanians.)From the Time Traveler's perspective -- and from the Bush Administration's perspective -- the Iraq invasion is seen as the second move in a very serious chess game in which the only absolute goal is to neutralize an opponent's ability (and stated goal) to acquire and deliver weapons of mass destruction more devastating than fully fueled Boeing 737's."......" The point here is that we can argue that the second move in...