Colin Powell
Colin Powell
Colin Luther Powell is an American statesman and a retired four-star general in the United States Army. He was the 65th United States Secretary of State, serving under U.S. President George W. Bush from 2001 to 2005, the first African American to serve in that position. During his military career, Powell also served as National Security Advisor, as Commander of the U.S. Army Forces Commandand as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, holding the latter position during the Persian...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth5 April 1937
CityNew York City, NY
CountryUnited States of America
I have always held the view that decisive force should be used in addressing a military conflict. The reason is simple: Why wouldn't you, if you could?
We all hoped in 2001 that we could put in place an Afghan government under President Karzai that would be able to control the country, make sure al-Qaeda didn't come back, and make sure the Taliban wasn't resurging. It didn't work out.
You should see what our Founding Fathers used to say to each other and in the early part of our nation. But what they were able to do, especially in Philadelphia in 1787, four months, they argued about what a House should be, what a Senate should be, the power of the president, the Congress, the Supreme Court. And they had to deal with slavery.
Think hard about it: I'm running out of demons. I'm running out of villians. I'm down to Castro and Kim Il Sung.
War is never a happy solution, but it may be the only solution. We must exhaustively explore other possible solutions before we make the choice for war. Every political and diplomatic effort should be made to avoid war while achieving your objective.
Nobody is ready to leave Iraq to be interviewed.
You can't just have slogans, you can't just have catchy phrases. You have to have an agenda. And I think what the Republican Party has to do, if it's going to incorporate the tea party efforts in it, is to come up with an agenda that the American people can see, touch, and actually believe in, and something they believe in.
One of the most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used to make biological agents.
Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.
I'll tell you what they're all going to face - whichever one of them becomes president on Jan. 21 of 2009 - they will face a military force, a United States military force, that cannot sustain, continue to sustain, 140,000 people deployed in Iraq, and the 20 (to) 25,000 people we have deployed in Afghanistan, and our other deployments.
Every human endeavor has leaders and followers, and your job as a leader is to inspire.
I'm going to be bringing people into the public diplomacy function of the department who are going to change from just selling us in the old USIA way to really branding foreign policy, branding the department, marketing the department, marketing American values to the world and not just putting out pamphlets.
There is no suggestion of regime change; quite the contrary, this is an initiative to help people and to help governments who are inclined toward change.
Remain calm, be kind.