.Colin Powell: Terrorists are not greatest threat to nation
In an interview with GQ magazine that's scheduled to be put online here at 11 a.m. ET, former secretary of State and one-time potential presidential candidate Colin Powell has this to say about terrorism and the threat it poses to the USA:
"What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?"
Powell adds, in an interview with Walter Isaacson, that to improve its image in the world, the USA should focus on welcoming newcomers. He takes on the immigration debate that has become a hot-button issue in the presidential race:
"America could not survive without immigration," he says. "Even the undocumented immigrants are contributing to our economy. That's the country my parents came to. That's the image we have to portray to the rest of the world: kind, generous, a nation of nations, touched by every nation, and we touch every nation in return. That's what people still want to believe about us. They still want to come here. We've lost a bit of the image, but we haven't lost the reality yet. And we can fix the image by reflecting a welcoming attitude -- and by not taking counsel of our fears and scaring ourselves to death that everybody coming in is going to blow up something. It ain't the case."
As for the Iraq War, Powell -- a retired general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- tells Isaacson that as he and others in the Bush administration debated strategy in the lead-up to the war, he did not think the Pentagon and then-secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had planned for what would happen after Baghdad fell.
"That was the big mistake. Don had written a list of the worst things that could happen, but we didn't do the contingency planning on what we would do about it. So we watched those buildings get burned down, and nobody told the divisions, 'Hey, go in there and declare martial law and whack a few people and it will stop.' Then the insurgency started, and we didn't acknowledge it. They said it wasn't an insurgency. They looked up the definition. They said it was a few dead-enders! And so we didn't respond in a way that might have stopped it. And then the civil war started at the beginning of last year. I call it a civil war, but some say no, it's not a civil war, it's a war against civilians. In fact, we have total civil disorder."
Also today, GQ has already posted a lengthy interview with Rumsfeld. Author Lisa DePaulo sums up her conclusions this way:
"If you're expecting Don Rumsfeld -- out of government now, on his farm, in a moment of repose -- to play the bitter, angry, reflective, tragic fallen hero ... ain't gonna happen. If he feels any of those things, he's not showing it. (And if he did, he probably wouldn't be Donald H. Rumsfeld.) The man does not do regret. Over the course of the next few hours, he will answer every question asked of him, and even when the answer is 'I'm not gonna talk about that,' there's never a flash of anger. Impatience, yes, but never anger."
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"What is the greatest threat facing us now? People will say it's terrorism. But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the great threat we are facing?"
Powell adds, in an interview with Walter Isaacson, that to improve its image in the world, the USA should focus on welcoming newcomers. He takes on the immigration debate that has become a hot-button issue in the presidential race:
"America could not survive without immigration," he says. "Even the undocumented immigrants are contributing to our economy. That's the country my parents came to. That's the image we have to portray to the rest of the world: kind, generous, a nation of nations, touched by every nation, and we touch every nation in return. That's what people still want to believe about us. They still want to come here. We've lost a bit of the image, but we haven't lost the reality yet. And we can fix the image by reflecting a welcoming attitude -- and by not taking counsel of our fears and scaring ourselves to death that everybody coming in is going to blow up something. It ain't the case."
As for the Iraq War, Powell -- a retired general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- tells Isaacson that as he and others in the Bush administration debated strategy in the lead-up to the war, he did not think the Pentagon and then-secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had planned for what would happen after Baghdad fell.
"That was the big mistake. Don had written a list of the worst things that could happen, but we didn't do the contingency planning on what we would do about it. So we watched those buildings get burned down, and nobody told the divisions, 'Hey, go in there and declare martial law and whack a few people and it will stop.' Then the insurgency started, and we didn't acknowledge it. They said it wasn't an insurgency. They looked up the definition. They said it was a few dead-enders! And so we didn't respond in a way that might have stopped it. And then the civil war started at the beginning of last year. I call it a civil war, but some say no, it's not a civil war, it's a war against civilians. In fact, we have total civil disorder."
Also today, GQ has already posted a lengthy interview with Rumsfeld. Author Lisa DePaulo sums up her conclusions this way:
"If you're expecting Don Rumsfeld -- out of government now, on his farm, in a moment of repose -- to play the bitter, angry, reflective, tragic fallen hero ... ain't gonna happen. If he feels any of those things, he's not showing it. (And if he did, he probably wouldn't be Donald H. Rumsfeld.) The man does not do regret. Over the course of the next few hours, he will answer every question asked of him, and even when the answer is 'I'm not gonna talk about that,' there's never a flash of anger. Impatience, yes, but never anger."
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Move along, nothing to see here, make sure you visit the koolaid stand near the exits, and have a nice day.
posted by madtom at 12:24 PM
7 Comments:
'But are there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system? No'
No?
They can knock down buildings and kill people (potentially a LOT of people), but they can't change the American way of life? That sounds like a pretty big threat to all three of those unalienable rights to me.
I thought I had lost all respect for the man, but surprisingly, I had more to lose and just did.
He has the opposite effect on me, I found him to be the only credible member of the administration, more so today.
The terrorist can only change us if we go willingly, I even have a real life example to bolster my point.
Case in point, Israel.
They have not only withstood the constant onslot, they have grown democratically, and continue to do so every day. If your right, them they would not have had a chance ever to put institutions in place, nor much less improve their society in any way, had Bush been leader of Israel for a day, they would have failed long ago.
If the terrorists are limited to an occasional atrocity even at the 9-11 level, I would agree. But the potential for far worse is the problem I see. There be nukes and poison gas and biological weapons that are within the grasp of the same kind of people who gladly get behind the wheel of a car bomb, and that can't be ignored anymore. If Israel is attacked on anything close to that level, it will cease to exist. And the fact is, without the US it would have ceased to exist a long time ago.
Powell should have either resigned or accepted the Admin decisions when they were made. Instead, he went along and when things went bad, he pointed fingers. Then he put the country through that travesty of the contrived 'Plame' incident, when he knew all along who the leaker was from the beginning. That was just classless and petty. That's my point of view.
"Powell should have either resigned"
Then your list of disappointments must be long indeed.
"'Plame' incident"
You'll have to remind me what Powell had to do with that?
Contrived? the director of the CIA filed a complaint, you really have to drink the good koolaid to get around that little fact. You have to be able to believe that the director did not know who was under cover and who was not..
Which brings me to that guy writing "Baghdad Diaries", please bring in more of the special koolaid. We tell the soldiers to change the locations, names and fictionalize their tales. Then what did you people do, you pointed to the fact that the details did not match on the ground and them said: "he hates America, and is a liar". How do you do it.
Please bring me a few gallons so that I can understand too.
What did Powell have to do with it? The day that the accusation was made of a dirty tricks campaign to exact retribution on the liar Wilson by outing his secret agent wife and was worthy of a prosecuter, Powell was told by Armitage that he, in fact, was the initial source of the story being attributed to others. Years of investigation and allegations that could have been ended before they started by just stepping forward and telling the truth, but Powell chose to let others twist in the wind because he didn't get his way.
How you got off on the other thing I don't know, but if you think it is ok to make up tales of atrocities by US soldiers and present them as true life events and is something you wish to defend, have at it. But that sort of flies in the face of your constant argument that the public face of the war is where it is being lost. Either such things matter or they don't. I personally think that such things have and will get people killed needlessly. The New Republic apparently never did any fact checking and lied about it when asked, according to some facts that just came out. Hollywood is in full gear churning out some of the same stuff and playing martyrs when the fascist right suggest they are anti-American. We all have our own brand of Kool-Aid, yaknow.
"but Powell chose to let others twist in the wind because he didn't get his way."
I must say this is new to me. But you keep calling people liars, yet you don't address the facts about the director?? Was he lying too when he filed that complaint..
And what are they too do, if the director thinks Plame was and agent, just how is he supposed to defend her, tell us where she was working, and what her cover was?
Now look, the public face of the war is being lost in the WH, not with some soldiers stories. Maybe you think it would have been better for him to tell his stories straight?
I still have not ever seen anything to discredit anything I ever saw him write. Please if you have something post the link. Just don't try and tell me that the burnt person was in Kuwait. Like there are not burnt people in Kuwait, or there are not warriors in Kuwait. we both know that sorry excuse will not hold water. there are plenty of war hardened warriors passing in an out of Kuwait all the time.
Oh and lets not forget Scooter was found guilty of obstructing justice...I think that puts an end to that argument. What was he covering up?
And as too Armitage, he told the truth, he when to the prosecutor and told exactly that he "might/was" the leak so that would in my mind let Powell off the hook, if there was a hook to be let off of.
But the thing is that there was more than just one leak, there were at least three that we know of, so I would think that after finding one, Armatage, the investigation moved on to find the rest, and that is hen the trail lead right to the VP's door.
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