The phone rang, and it was W. “America needs you,” he said. “I’m creating a new cabinet position just for you, Andy.” I didn’t quite understand what W wanted, so I had someone else talk for me. I went out for tea and bought silk plants. When I came back to the studio, there was a helicopter waiting for me on the roof. The men in dark suits showed me their shiny badges, and I thought, “Wow, Dennis Hopper would love these.” - [Pitchaya Sudbanthad, Diaries of Andy Warhol, Terrorism Czar, The Morning News]

I came away feeling highly optimistic about, of all things, the US military. He'd assured me that "NO MORE VIETNAMS" might as well be carved above the West Point gates as Prime Directive, because "asymmetric conflict with amorphous networks of terrorists, who repurpose civilian technologies to terrible ends" was going to be where it was at from now on in -- and that Vietnam was always going to be what you got if you stuck with the old paradigm.

And I still imagine that I was right in that. But the creative intelligence of my friend from the DoD, and so many others like him, prevailed not at all -- in the face of ideology, cupidity, stupidity, and a certain tragically crass cunning with regard to the mass pyschology of the American people.