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Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 5769
Registered: 07-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Monday, June 11, 2007 - 10:22 pm: | 
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BY ELI LAKE - Staff Reporter of the Sun
June 11, 2007
WASHINGTON — Colin Powell, who only a decade ago was being discussed as a possible Republican presidential nominee and who more recently served as President Bush's first secretary of state, is advising a Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Obama of Illinois.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday, Mr. Powell said it was "too soon" to say whether he would endorse the Republican nominee for president, and he added that he is reserving judgment for now.
"I've been around this town a long time, and I know everybody who is running for office," Mr. Powell said. "And I make myself available to talk about foreign policy matters and military matters with whoever wishes to chat with me."
Those words appear to represent an extraordinary shift for a man who made the highest-profile case for the war in Iraq, a war the Democratic Party leadership contends was waged on the basis of politicized intelligence.
Mr. Powell, for his part, has said this interpretation of the pre-war intelligence debate is incorrect. Yesterday, he defended his 2003 presentation of the American case for war, saying he spent five days checking every fact at CIA headquarters before he gave it. The presentation was based on the same intelligence estimate that was made available to Congress, he said, and he noted that many Democrats who served in Congress at the time later said they did not read the classified estimate.
One lawmaker who has not had to make such a statement is Mr. Obama, who in 2002 and 2003 was a state senator in Springfield, Ill., and opposed the war. "Before the war in Iraq started, Obama had the courage to stand up to the politics and propaganda and spoke out against the war, even before the invasion of Iraq," a spokeswoman for Mr. Obama's campaign, Jen Psaki, said. "Any time you have the opportunity to seek advice on foreign policy from the former secretary of state, it is a welcome meeting."
Mr. Obama said in October 2002 that he was "not opposed to all wars," just "dumb" and "rash" ones. "What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other armchair weekend warriors in this administration who shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne," he said at a rally hosted by Act Now to Stop War and End Racism.
Since his election to the Senate in 2004, Mr. Obama has adopted a more moderate stance. While many in his party, including Senator Clinton, have criticized the faulty intelligence leading up to the war, Mr. Obama has co-authored legislation to help secure loose chemical and biological weapons and keep them out of the hands of terrorists.
In October 2005, Mr. Obama accompanied Senator Lugar, a Republican of Indiana who was then chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on a fact-finding mission to the former Soviet bloc. In a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations after the trip, Mr. Obama said: "The demand for these weapons has never been greater. ... Right now rogue states and despotic regimes are looking to begin or accelerate their own nuclear programs."
Nonetheless, Mr. Obama has since expressed opposition to the surge of American troops in Iraq and has endorsed plans to withdraw from the country by 2008, a position shared by more than 60% of Americans, according to a New York Times poll in May.
Mr. Powell may not share that position, but he did express pessimism on "Meet the Press" yesterday about the prospects for the surge. He believes that American forces in Iraq are facing a "civil war," he said, and he noted that the White House has not called the conflict in Iraq a civil war. "The current strategy to deal with it, the military surge, our part of the surge under General Petraeus — the only thing it can do is put a heavier lid on this boiling pot of civil war stew," he said.
For close Powell watchers, this sort of statement may not be surprising. As secretary of state during the 2004 election season, he hinted to the editorial board of the New York Times that had he known no weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, he would not have supported the war.
More recently, Mr. Powell kept mum after his former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, said the Bush administration was being run like a "cabal." In 2005, Mr. Wilkerson helped sink the White House's nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations; Mr. Powell did not sign a letter of former Republican secretaries of state endorsing the Bolton nomination.
Mr. Powell's positions on a number of national security issues appear to be more in sync with those of Democrats. On "Meet the Press," for example, Mr. Powell said he would close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which holds suspected terrorists. "I would simply move them to the United States and put them into our federal legal system," he said.
A former spokesman for the Republican National Committee, Clifford May, said he thinks it is fine for Mr. Powell to offer his advice to all presidential candidates. "If Colin Powell is advising candidates from both parties on foreign policy, that is commendable," Mr. May, the president of the bipartisan Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, said. "Foreign policy and national security ought to be beyond partisanship. They have not been in recent years, and that is deeply regrettable."
http://www.nysun.com/article/56243
Colin Powell: Close Guantánamo prison camps
By LIBBY QUAID
Associated Press:
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/breaking_dade/story/135188.html |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2255
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 12:17 pm: |
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Good man. Too bad he was irreparably tarnished by Bush. He had good intentions but he never fit in nor was he ideologically entrenched in the inner circle of Vulcan’s who surround and mindlessly serve Bush (e.g., Karl Rove, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, et al). I recall turning my head the other way in embarrassment when (he was being interviewed -can't recall by whom) he as peddling the notorious WMD myths. He has since repudiated those horrific lies and has become an open critic of a disastrous war (Iraq) that is in total disarray.
But Condi is still hanging tough (her and Powell did not see eye to eye on many issues –outside of having black skin, they had nothing in common!) despite her mediocre performance as a former National Security Advisor and now Secretary of State. Go figure....
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Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4654
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 12:40 pm: |
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The Chinese had a saying--
One does not use good iron to make a nail
One does not use a good man to make a soldier
After Desert Storm lots of the Negroes were touting Colon as Black Moses. When you been in the U.S. Military for 30 years you belong to them. After all that has happened if they told this Negro to shoot us all down he would do it.
This is before I found out about how he made his bones helping to cover up the My Lai Massacre.
He has become a critic of the Occupation but he has not admitted he lied in front of the UN or his part in the debacle.
Just like Jesse Jackson thought it was all among the folks when he made that Hymietown remark in front of that Negro who was working for the Washington Post (who couldn't wait to drop dime on him) Negroes will have to learn that these Negroes work for The Man. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8815
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 01:08 pm: |
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Colin Powell is not a messiah. But he is also not a pariah. As a military man, he was a team player but he is now an independent civilian. Currently he is in the unique position of having nothing to lose and is obligated to no one and can do as he pleases in the political arena. But of course chrishayden resorts to his usual MO and puts Powell in a box, labels him a "negro" and dismisses him by saying that he works for THE MAN when in fact, the only man Powell has to answer to is himself. |
Ntfs_encryption
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Ntfs_encryption
Post Number: 2257
Registered: 10-2005
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 01:38 pm: |
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....and dismisses him by saying that he works for THE MAN when in fact, the only man Powell has to answer to is himself."
Thank you........
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Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4658
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 03:14 pm: |
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THE MAN when in fact, the only man Powell has to answer to is himself.
(Spoken by someone who has never known a real man in her life) |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4659
Registered: 03-2004
Rating:
Votes: 3 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 03:16 pm: |
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One thing about being on this list, I have really learned about Negroes.
See, to Negroes, someone with power is someone who has power over them--they never stop to think that--being the lowest men and women on the totem pole, such people do not have REAL power in the scheme of things.
The power in this country is in the hands of the Fortune 500, the billionaires and the interlocking boards that they sit on and control.
The people you think have power have power over you
But are nothing but errand boys to them
Get me? |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 4942
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 03:23 pm: |
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Except that we're not running any errands. For anyone. Get me?
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Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4661
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 03:29 pm: |
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Except that we're not running any errands. For anyone. Get me?
(And you living in El Paso Texas? The only reason you ain't running any errands is cause you done got too slow and forgetful) |
Mzuri
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Mzuri
Post Number: 4943
Registered: 01-2006
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 03:40 pm: |
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Dumb ass. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8818
Registered: 01-2004
Rating:
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Tuesday, June 12, 2007 - 05:40 pm: |
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Like you've ever known a real man in your life, crissyboy. When you look in the mirror, you certainly don't see anything but a second-rate loose cannon who shoots from the lip, a pompous bag of wind who apparently had no role models in your family to inspire you to be anything other than a hypocrite who calls himself a Christian. You continue to talk the same ol smack, hoping to impress people, deluding yourself into believing that you are revealing something new and relevant when, in fact, you never say anything original or profound. Your rhetoric dates back to the 1900s. And you sure ain't done nothing to make yourself worthy of licking the boots of Colin Powell, and that is not to say that he is so special, it's to say that you ain't nothing but a jaw-jerking, self-important loser. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4667
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 2 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 11:23 am: |
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Cynique:
Should I let you have the last word or keep on answering you so we can break a posting record seesawing back and forth?
Hmmm. The mind boggles. |
Cynique
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Cynique
Post Number: 8825
Registered: 01-2004
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 12:46 pm: |
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I really don't care what you do, chrishayden. |
Chrishayden
AALBC .com Platinum Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 4670
Registered: 03-2004
Rating: 
Votes: 1 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 02:28 pm: |
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Let you win and it stops. Keep posting and you have to post so you can have the last word and think you won--what shall I do? |
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