Issue #40
Last Update August 3, 2005
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Commentary An Open Letter to Colin Powell I listened with great interest to your UN presentation. I have long considered you to be the only sensible (and sometimes the only sane) member of the Bush Administration. I have watched you achieve miracles with our allies abroad, and even greater miracles in bringing some small semblance of reality to the foreign policy of an insular, ignorant and uncomprehending Presidency. I admire your loyalty to a President that has elevated you to a position of real power and importance. I think, however, that the time has come for you to act on your own best instincts, and share with the citizens of your country the misgivings you have about the direction in which we are headed. If you have to resign as Secretary of State in order to feel free to do this, be assured that the public will understand and honor you for it.
As one City College boy from the Bronx to another, I was impressed by your UN speech, but not convinced. The evidence you laid out showing that Iraq was hiding chemical or biological weapons was reasonably convincing, but I don't think anyone in the world ever believed otherwise. The issue has never been the possession of remnants of a substantial arsenal; the issue has always been whether this matters enough for war, which you as an experienced soldier have always known is not to be undertaken except in the most exigent circumstances. Your speech touched only lightly on this issue, and was entirely unconvincing in this regard. Listening to you, I had a hard time believing that you were convinced either.
Despite heroic efforts on your part to hold the Atlantic Alliance together, and to keep Russia and China integrated with the American vision of a world community, you know, perhaps better than anyone else, the harm this administration has done to global unity. The nuclear precipice, from which the world withdrew with a thankful sigh after the collapse of the Soviet Union, looms ahead again, revived when North Korea called the President's bluff. World economic problems requiring concerted action by rich and poor nations alike have been rendered more intractable by a foreign policy that trumpets our disdain for the opinions of other nations. Environmental crises just now making themselves obvious cannot be solved without our involvement, but we have opted out.
You are a man who listens attentively when others speak, and uses the information gained to reach sensible conclusions. Your boss, and the true believers he has gathered around him, have the fundamentalist failing of thinking they already posses the Truth. This makes listening unnecessary, except as a charade to allow the Truth to be imparted to others.
You have done all you can working from within to ameliorate the harm the Bush Presidency is inflicting on our country and our place in the world, but the task is ultimately hopeless. Now it is time for you to stand in opposition to those policies, as our best hope for averting the disasters to come.
With all respect and best wishes,
David Katz
Editor and Publisher
New York Stringer is published by NYStringer.com. For all communications, contact David Katz, Editor and Publisher, at david@nystringer.com
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