Many of you that have visited this site over the years get steamed when I deem anything that Colin Powell says as credible. Yes, he wasn't tough enough to stand up to Bush before the war, and about Saddam's weapons programs to the United Nations General Assembly. Even with that said, he is one of the most well-known pragmatic military minds today. Like Obama and other Democrats, Powell today that Afghanistan might even be an even tougher task than Iraq:
"We have responsibilities in Afghanistan. And in some ways, Afghanistanis more difficult than Iraq. You have the tribal problems. You had druglords running around ... and al Qaeda and the Taliban are making aresurgence," Powell said.
Unlike Iraq, where Al Qaeda has already been rejected by the locals, they have formed unbreakable alliances in Afghanistan with warlords and former Taliban officials.
In an impressive lecture at the University of Minnesota, former Secretary of State Colin Powell touched on our current foreign policy debacle. Speaking at the Northrop Auditorium, Powell accepted the Distinguished Carlson Lecture Series plaque after confronting the Administration on detainee treatment and the current quagmire in Iraq. No recording devices were allowed in the auditorium.
First, starting with prisoner abuse, that passed Congress:
Asked about the bill during a speech at the University of Minnesota,Powell said he's confident it will ensure the humane treatment ofdetainees. "We can do all the interrogating we want inside the GenevaConventions," he said.
Powell said he knew his reservations -- revealed in a letter to McCain -- would be controversial, "but I believe it strongly."
..."You don't change your ethics for short-term gain," she said.
And on Iraq, he delivered his best line. is not an option:
"Only the Iraqi people can resolve this," Powell said.
U.S. troops have to stay in Iraq for "some time," he said. "But there is a limit to the patience of the American people."
Powell was the featured speaker at this year's distinguished Carlson Lecture at the University of Minnesota.
In Iraq, "staying the course isn't good enough because a course has to have an end," Powell said.
According to the , the speech was all around pretty positive:
"You'll know you're a good leader when people will follow you out of curiosity," he said.
Powell said the nation is facing challenging times but he "hopes the American people speak clearly to their political leaders."
"We live in challenging times now, but young people live in a time of great opportunity," he said.
Back to the detainee issue. Maybe someone ought to ask Colin Powell why he was being a loyal soldier when violations of the Geneva Conventions were happening right in front of him? He should have said something if he feels as strongly about it as he says he does.
Even though he disappointed me a lot by not being as vocal has he could have in the run up to the Iraq war, I will always respect his doctrine on war strategy. It is a strategy that Clinton should have enacted in Somalia, and one Bush should have enacted in Afghanistan. The strategy calls for a clearly defined exit strategy beforehand, overwhelming military force and a timely ending. Again, I wish Powell would have found a way be more vocal. Like him or hate him though, when you study the Reagan, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr administrations, he was a great counterweight to chicken hawks like Rumsfeld and Cheney.
During his unusually tense press conference yesterday, a very belligerent President Bush accused Colin Powell of equating the United States with extremists and engaging in "flawed logic" about how to handle detainees. To answer your question, yes, this President has lost it.
When evaluating President Bush's tone this week, starting with his bitter and ending yesterday with the tensely , it's safe to say that the President is quite agitated as we inch closer towards the November vote. Actually, agitated may not be the right word. How about belligerent? To summarize the press conference, Bush criticized Senator John McCain, Senator John Warner, Senator Lindsay Graham, Colin Powell, and a sizable quantity of the White House press corps.
But the most interesting remarks of the press conference came when President Bush was asked to respond to that "the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism." As the President usually does with anyone that disagrees with him, he took Powell's comment completely out of context. Read :
REPORTER: Mr. President, former Secretary of StateColin Powell says the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of ourfight against terrorism. If a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs ofStaff and former Secretary of State feels this way, don't you think thatAmericans and the rest of the world are beginning to wonder whetheryou're following a flawed strategy?
THE PRESIDENT: If there's any comparison between the compassion anddecency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists,it's flawed logic. I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable tothink that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of theUnited States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who killinnocent women and children to achieve an objective, Terry.
Where did that come from? Bush took what was a nuanced statement from Colin Powell about the need to work with our allies and somehow made it look like the former Secretary of State was equating America with terrorists.
But the anger on the part of the President didn't end there. Read this heated exchange with NBC White House Correspondent David Gregory:
THE PRESIDENT: David,you can give a hypothetical about North Korea, or any other country, thepoint is that the program is not going to go forward if ourprofessionals do not have clarity in the law. And the best way toprovide clarity in the law is to make sure the Detainee Treatment Act isthe crux of the law. That's how we define Common Article III, and itsets a good standard for the countries that you just talked about.
Next man.
Q No, but wait a second, I think this is an important point --
THE PRESIDENT: I know you think it's an important point. (Laughter.)
Q Sir, with respect, if other countries interpret the GenevaConventions as they see fit -- as they see fit -- you're saying thatyou'd be okay with that?
THE PRESIDENT: I am saying that I would hope that they would adopt thesame standards we adopt; and that by clarifying Article III, we make itstronger, we make it clearer, we make it definite.
And I will tell you again, David, you can ask every hypothetical youwant, but the American people have got to know the facts. And thebottom line is simple: If Congress passes a law that does not clarifythe rules, if they do not do that, the program is not going forward.
Q This will not endanger U.S. troops, in your --
THE PRESIDENT: Next man.
Q This will not endanger U.S. troops --
THE PRESIDENT: David, next man, please. Thank you. It took you a longtime to unravel, and it took you a long time to ask your question.
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Aside from Bush's belligerence, Gregory had a great point. When you lower your standards, in this case pertaining to interrogation, you can't complain when other countries lower their standards as well. As a result, our troops are being put in greater danger. So it's encouraging to watch realist-minded Senators like John McCain, John Warner and Lindsey Graham stand up to the President and encourage him to reverse course.
I would also like to see Colin Powell defend himself from those harsh comments Bush made. Talk about loyalty!
Over at the TruthDig Blog, he had this week with former Secretary of State Colin Powell in Los Angeles:
On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that he andhis department’s top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminentnuclear threat, but that the president followed the misleading adviceof Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim. Now hetells us.
In other words, Powell is defending his former State Department staff, while admitting that Cheney and the top chiefs at the CIA are the ones to blame for bad intelligence. This is significant because we are learning more and more about the arguments that took place within Bush's war cabinet before the war began. Later in the column, Scheer said Powell got more specific about the alleged Niger connection:
I queried Powell at a reception following a talk he gave in Los Angeleson Monday. Pointing out that the October 2002 National IntelligenceEstimate showed that his State Department had gotten it right on thenonexistent Iraq nuclear threat, I asked why did the president ignorethat wisdom in his stated case for the invasion?
“The CIA was pushing the aluminum tube argument heavily and Cheneywent with that instead of what our guys wrote,†Powell said. And theNiger reference in Bush’s State of the Union speech? “That was a bigmistake,†he said. “It should never have been in the speech. I didn’tneed Wilson to tell me that there wasn’t a Niger connection. He didn’ttell us anything we didn’t already know. I never believed it.â€
Again, what Powell is basically admitting is that Joseph Wilson was right in his about there not being a Niger connection to Iraq. This contradicts what Fox News and all the other conservative pundits have been saying in their attempt to discredit Mr. Wilson and sidestep the issue that Wilson's wife, who worked for the CIA, had her identity leaked by a member of the Administration.
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