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Heads up GOP's... here's the next thing you can be 'outraged' about

sanjuro

Tube Smuggler
Sep 13, 2004
17,373
0
SF
et tu, Brute?

Former Powell Aide Says Bush Policy Is Run by 'Cabal'
By BRIAN KNOWLTON

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 - Secretary of State Colin Powell's former chief of staff has offered a remarkably blunt criticism of the administration he served, saying that foreign policy had been usurped by a "Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal," and that President Bush has made the country more vulnerable, not less, to future crises.

The comments came in a speech Wednesday by Lawrence Wilkerson, who worked for Mr. Powell at the State Department from 2001 to early 2005. Speaking to the New America Foundation, an independent public-policy institute in Washington, Mr. Wilkerson suggested that secrecy, arrogance and internal feuding had taken a heavy toll in the Bush administration, skewing its policies and undercutting its ability to handle crises.

"I would say that we have courted disaster, in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran, generally with regard to domestic crises like Katrina, Rita - and I could go on back," he said. "We haven't done very well on anything like that in a long time."

Mr. Wilkerson suggested that the dysfunction within the administration was so grave that "if something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence."

Mr. Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel and former director of the Marine Corps War College, said that in his years in or close to government, he had seen its national security apparatus twisted in many ways. But what he saw in Mr. Bush's first term "was a case that I have never seen in my studies of aberration, bastardizations" and "perturbations."

"What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues," he said.

The former aide referred to Mr. Bush as someone who "is not versed in international relations, and not too much interested in them, either." He was far more admiring of the president's father, whom he called "one of the finest presidents we've ever had."

Mr. Wilkerson has long been considered a close confidant of Mr. Powell, but their relationship has apparently grown strained at times - including over the question of unconventional weapons in Iraq - and the former colonel said Mr. Powell did not approve of his latest public criticisms.
 

Westy

the teste
Nov 22, 2002
54,225
20,003
Sleazattle
reflux said:
He should move to France, where all freedom-haters live.

That is such a gross oversimplification. There are plenty of freedom haters in Canada. And lets not forget about those filthy freedom hating Dutch.
 

Tenchiro

Attention K Mart Shoppers
Jul 19, 2002
5,407
0
New England
Westy said:
That is such a gross oversimplification. There are plenty of freedom haters in Canada. And lets not forget about those filthy freedom hating Dutch.
France is farther away than Canada.
 

Reactor

Turbo Monkey
Apr 5, 2005
3,976
1
Chandler, AZ, USA
Does anybody else feel we need the George Orwell Bush to English dictionary?

The clean skies act makes the air dirtier.
People are "freedom haters" because they won't be coerced.
People who question Stalinist gulags are "unpatriotic".
States rights means the federal government gets to interfere in state's laws Bush doesn't like.
The "war on terror" is actually creating more terror than it gets rid of.
 

sanjuro

Tube Smuggler
Sep 13, 2004
17,373
0
SF
I put this up to bait N8 with his ridiculous post about how only liberals find war atrocities offensive. Really, that guy has no backbone when it comes to a reasonable argument. (think that will bait him?)
 

MMike

A fowl peckerwood.
Sep 5, 2001
18,207
105
just sittin' here drinkin' scotch
sanjuro said:
I put this up to bait N8 with his ridiculous post about how only liberals find war atrocities offensive. Really, that guy has no backbone when it comes to a reasonable argument. (think that will bait him?)
No because he couldn't argue his way out of a wet paper bag. We all know this. You can't ...uh..."B8" N8 because he doesn't know what to do with it...