The essence of their outrage is hijacked by just plain hatred.

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Cheney 'cabal' hijacked foreign policy
By Edward Alden in Washington
Published: October 20 2005 00:00 | Last updated: October 20 2005 00:19

Vice-President Dick Cheney and a handful of others had hijacked the government's foreign policy apparatus, deciding in secret to carry out policies that had left the US weaker and more isolated in the world, the top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed on Wednesday.

In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: �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 that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

�Now it is paying the consequences of making those decisions in secret, but far more telling to me is America is paying the consequences.�

Transcript: Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson
Click here http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c925a686-4...000e2511c8.html

Mr Wilkerson said such secret decision-making was responsible for mistakes such as the long refusal to engage with North Korea or to back European efforts on Iran.

It also resulted in bitter battles in the administration among those excluded from the decisions.

�If you're not prepared to stop the feuding elements in the bureaucracy as they carry out your decisions, you are courting disaster. And I would say that we have courted disaster in Iraq, in North Korea, in Iran.�

The comments, made at the New America Foundation, a Washington think-tank, were the harshest attack on the administration by a former senior official since criticisms by Richard Clarke, former White House terrorism czar, and Paul O'Neill, former Treasury secretary, early last year.

Mr Wilkerson said his decision to go public had led to a personal falling out with Mr Powell, whom he served for 16 years at the Pentagon and the State Department.

�He's not happy with my speaking out because, and I admire this in him, he is the world's most loyal soldier.

Among his other charges:

■ The detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere was �a concrete example� of the decision-making problem, with the president and other top officials in effect giving the green light to soldiers to abuse detainees. �You don't have this kind of pervasive attitude out there unless you've condoned it.�

■ Condoleezza Rice, the former national security adviser and now secretary of state, was �part of the problem�. Instead of ensuring that Mr Bush received the best possible advice, �she would side with the president to build her intimacy with the president�.

■ The military, particularly the army and marine corps, is overstretched and demoralised. Officers, Mr Wilkerson claimed, �start voting with their feet, as they did in Vietnam. . . and all of a sudden your military begins to unravel�.

Mr Wilkerson said former president George H.W. Bush �one of the finest presidents we have ever had� understood how to make foreign policy work. In contrast, he said, his son was �not versed in international relations and not too much interested in them either�.

�There's a vast difference between the way George H.W. Bush dealt with major challenges, some of the greatest challenges at the end of the 20th century, and effected positive results in my view, and the way we conduct diplomacy today.�

www.newamerica.net

Maybe if ppl had half a brain, they would be outraged by real issues. Our constitution has been used as TP. Ignore your rights and they will just go away.

when female commentator on Fox morning show made comment about Sara being nominated because she has "t**s" (female mammary glands). I saw the clip -- have heard no anguished cries from the conservatives about sexist on this one.

you should have been able to process is that I would rather war not occur on US soil. Saddam brutally murdered mass numbers of people. I believe he had WMD, but it doesn't matter what I think or what other people think because the proof that he did have WMD was clear with the murder of all those people. Take a look at some of the few survivors and see that scars that remain. Oh, and let's not forget about one of his favorite pasttimes, beheading. That sick SOB had connections in several countries and was a serious threat to every single country on the planet. A person has to be absolutely stupid to think that all going to Iraq was and is about is oil. The people of Iraq are liberated, they're free, they're voting, all things they never dreamed of having under Saddam's rule. Are there still problems with insurgants? Absolutely. Change doesn't happen overnight, it takes time and that's why our men and women are still there. Their job isn't done. If you ask service people what they think, they'll tell you the same thing. My cousin, by marriage, is a major in the Army, been in the service for 18 years, and knows that it's not time for President Bush to pull the troops out yet. So, now that I've posted my 2 cents, I'm going to add that I'm not Republican, I'm not Democrat, I don't vote by party, I vote by who I think will get the job done. I mentioned that because I don't want readers thinking that I MUST be a Republican just because of what I posted.

There are so many things that I don't agree with him on. You can't raise taxes for small businesses in this time of crisis. You can't have all of these government assisted programs and only tax the rich because that won't be enough to cover all the expenses. He will have to tax us all including the middle class which he professes to want to help even though "spreading the wealth" will keep us down in the middle class because we won't be able to afford to make it into the upper tax bracket. Basically his plans are aimed to help the lowlife scum who don't want to work. As for his healthcare......like Oldtimer said below.....you can't make insurance companies pay for pre-existing conditions like that. If no one wants to pay for health insurance until they have a major illness.....these insurance companies are supposed to pay for a pre-existing condition when this person is just now paying insurance premiums. The insurance companies won't have any money to pay out if that is how it will work because no one will want to pay for insurance until something major happens. It just won't work that way because it can't.

Obama is a socialists through and through. I'm tired of the media and his supporters ignoring his associations. I'm tired of people throwing up the race card. It is just absolutely ridiculous. Just because I'm a white woman not voting for Obama....that doesn't make me racist. Yet you never hear about the people voting for Obama just because he is black.....is that not also racist?

This whole election is just screwed up. I hope to God that this next debate has something in it worth watching and I hope McCain tears Obama a new butthole!

Is there no one advising the prez & co. on protocol and/or etiquette or even basic manners anymore?

When you bow to a monarch, you are placing yourself as one of his subjects, or at least as subordinate in rank.

On the other hand (no pun intended) when a gentleman meets a lady, (not just a queen) it is proper for him to wait for the woman to initiate contact. A man waits for the woman to extend her hand for shaking...or not. And only a dolt of either gender puts his/her arm around somebody to whom s/he has just been introduced. Puh-leeze!

I know that some adjusments have been made in the business setting, but this does not take the place of knowing the proper thing to do in a social or political situation. I do not think the rules of manners and civility have changed overnight, have they?

From her posts, it's clear that she's a very compassionate, kind, intelligent person who is capable of thinking independent thoughts. She cares about people who need help in this country. Nobody who is consumed by hatred can do that.

She's expressed fear and concern and frustration at this administration and where it's taking us, and she expressed anger at the person who's leading us in that direction. She's not alone. An increasing number of Americans feel the same way.

The only person I see consumed by hatred is YOU. You've repeatedly littered this board with your hateful posts. It's very easy to see who the hateful people are.

I suggested below that you/all the others (assuming there really is more than one) should be ignored. You contribute nothing to this board but anger, rage, hatred and skewed thinking.

Having said that, I won't bother reading/responding to your posts any more. It's simply not worth it because you don't want to debate. All you want to do is attack others.

If Michael Moore has tapped into the river of hatred of the Democrats, what about a guy like Rush Limbaugh? What has he tapped into, the river of good will of the Republicans?

Elections are held every two years, and this election the people chose a majority of Democratic candidates. I for one am glad that they did if for no other reason than it will bring new perspectives into a government that has been completely controlled by one party. Further hope is that it may bring changes that work to the good of all of us.