President Obama should choose Colin Powell to head up Gitmo Project.

Since General Powell has said that he has spoken with the President about the subject. And since he has been for closing Gitmo for quite a few years, is there a better person the President could choose to help get this by the Democrats and the balking Republicans in the Senate? It would be very tough for some Republicans to go against the advice of General Powell. This would be a checkmate for Obama if he chose to make it.

We already have Bush's man running the Pentagon, so why not bring the whole crew back? They do have the experience.

Gitmo is a special problem that needs special handling. The politics involved, instigated by the Repubs, has to be addressed. I'm saying this would be a political chess move to help Obama defeat the Repubs because enough of them would side with General Powell.

The idea in the subtext, apparently, is that Obama is somehow "Bush Lite" because he's not moving fast enough or leaning far enough to the left.

I dunno about Powell, though. A lot of Republicans find him too moderate for their wingish tastes, and question his bona fides. He's not a youngster (he's McCain vintage), and I don't really think it's Obama's 'job' to rescue Powell's tattered reputation.

Powell made a decision when he got out of the military to go with the GOP. He "danced with the ones what brung him," in essence (he began his high-flying "close to the throne" life in the Nixon White House). He would have been better off dumping his dance date and going with the other team--they're a bit more loyal.

For now it's not Obama's stupid idea of appointing a war criminal (who played one of the three or four key roles in launching the aggressive war on Iraq), so I'm hardly counting it against Obama that some poster proposes it.

And Obama's not Bush lite. So far he's just another president a la Clinton, in the pocket of the banks and the war machine, living in fear of the spook complex. I'm seeing some things better than Bush or Clinton, so there's always Hope (tm).

No matter how convenient it would be as a matter of political gamesmanship.

Former Senator Hagel isn't as widely villified by the right, yet he was one of the few anti-war Republicans during the Bush years. He speaks the language of GOP Senators, having been one himself. He could be instrumental in getting Lindsay Graham & McCain to come around.

Despite the fears of Kansans that the Terror will be visited upon them if Gitmo detainees are placed in Leavenworth, there are many places we can keep detainees that minimize any risk to anyone. Air Force bases in Alaska, North of the Brooks range; Pearl Harbor; or the Aleutians.

detail their individualized torture programs.


At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Powell said through an assistant there were "hundreds of meetings" on a wide variety of topics and that he was "not at liberty to discuss private meetings."


video

transcript

"We had no meetings on torture. It’s constantly said that the meetings—I had an issue with this—we had meetings on what torture to administer. What I recall, the meetings I was in—I was not in all of the meetings and I was not an author of many of the memos that have been written (and some have come out, some have not come out). The only meetings I recall were where we talked about what is it we can do with respect to trying to get information from individuals who were in our custody."


Powell is hiding behind semantics (Bush's/Memos definition of torture)...he claims - "no meetings on torture" and then goes on to say - "The only meetings I recall were where we talked about what is it we can do with respect to trying to get information from individuals who were in our custody"

And how do you get information from people in custody? You interrogate them..and what was Bush's interrogation policy? Torture (so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques")....Powell saying "no meetings on torture" is like Bush saying "We don't torture"...of course you didn't have meetings on torture...you just talked about using enhanced interrogation techniques on people.