By CLIFFORD D. MAY, Scripps Howard News Service

When a military officer participates in a war against his own country, that is high treason, and that is the charge that ought to be brought against Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan. But it's not going to happen.

Imagine if, in 1942, the son of German immigrants from the Sudetenland had yelled "Heil Hitler!" and then gunned down several dozen of his fellow soldiers on an American military base. Most reporters probably would not have expressed bewilderment as to the perpetrator's motive.

People forget how small Israel is. Its entire population is a little over 7 million -- smaller than Lima, Peru. Its land area is about 8,000 square miles, smaller than New Jersey. By comparison, Jordan, its neighbor to the east, occupies 35,000 square miles; Egypt, to the West, covers 386,000 square miles.

Almost a year ago, New York Times correspondent David Rohde was abducted by the Taliban. I was in Afghanistan at the time and, like many Westerners in the country, I heard about it but agreed not to write about it. Publicity, it was thought, could increase the danger Rohde faced.

Don't fault President Barack Obama for reconsidering his strategy in Afghanistan. Fault him for reconsidering his strategy only in Afghanistan.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - I picked an interesting moment to visit Pakistan: four terrorist attacks in less than a week. The first was at the World Food Program office here in the capital; five killed. The second was in the Khyber Bazaar in Peshawar; more than 50 killed.

In 1981, Israeli leaders sent bombers to destroy Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osirak. Rafael Eitan, then Israel's Army Chief of Staff, is said to have explained the motivation succinctly: "The alternative is our destruction."

In 1996, Vice President Al Gore was named by President Bill Clinton to chair the White House Commission on Aviation Safety.

Missile defense -- as the term might suggest -- is defensive, not offensive. Brilliant American scientists have developed sophisticated technologies to prevent missiles, including those armed with nuclear warheads, from reaching their intended victims. If we are willing to share this capability to protect people around the world, Sen.

Eight years ago this week, Osama bin Laden watched and then celebrated as a terrorist attack he had authorized brought down the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon, slaughtering thousands of innocent Americans.