Colin Powell's former chief of staff warns of the militarism & racism of Republican lawmakers

“The GOP has scores of racists”: A former Bush official condemns modern Republican orthodoxy

Colin Powell's former chief of staff, Lawrence Wilkerson, warns of the militarism & racism of Republican lawmakers

EMMANUEL A. OTIKO

Lawrence Wilkerson is a contradictory figure.

Wilkerson is a career military man, who served as chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell; but he has also voiced reluctance to involve American forces in foreign conflicts, and slammed the Bush administration for its handling of the Iraq War. He is also a lifelong Republican who, far from just criticizing his party, has actually gone on the warpath against it at times.

When Powell was attacked by conservatives in 2012 for endorsing Barack Obama for reelection — Mitt Romney surrogate John Sununu famously suggested that the endorsement was motivated by race — Wilkerson sprung to the defense of his former boss, saying that the Republican Party was “full of racists.”

Wilkerson stands by those assertions. In a recent conversation with Salon, the retired U.S. Army colonel renewed his criticism of the GOP and the Bush administration. He also addressed recent saber rattling by Republicans on the issue of Iran. The following interview has been lightly edited.

You have been very critical of the Republican Party. Why do you stay?

There are sane and sober people in the Republican Party. The public persona of the Republican Party has changed since the days of Abraham Lincoln and Dwight Eisenhower.

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http://www.salon.com/2015/04/10/the_gop_has_scores_of_racists_a_former_bush_official_condemns_modern_republican_orthodoxy/