In response to Colin Powell's "What We Will Do in 2004" article today in the NY Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/01/opinion/01POWE.html

I like Colin a lot more when he says nothing. One always held out hope that he was the one sane guy in this "administration." That was before he shilled for Bush at the U.N.

I always hoped that he was embarrassed by that. But here he is writing in support again.

You kind of wish he'd just keep his head down and complain about how he was coerced later.

Actually, this would have been his moment to run for president if he hadn't botched it at the U.N. Now, I'm afraid he's just going to drift into obscurity.

Colin's a company man, I guess. And that makes you popular in the military, I suppose. But on the national stage of opinion, people kind of expect you to stand for something.

Standing up for Bush is standing up for an obvious non-entity.

Unfortunately that's not all. This missive from the ex-person of interest is full of the most antique assumptions about the American purpose, e.g. - that "America's formidable power must continue to be deployed on behalf of principles", that "We resolve, of course, to expand freedom" [ I especially love that "of course" dropped in], that "we are resolved as well to turn the president's goal of a free and democratic Middle East into a reality"

No, Colin, this just won't wash.

Repeat after me:

1. We are not democracy central.
2. Democracy is not the god of all governmental structures and the answer to all problems.

This apparently idealistic exportaion of democracy is a poorly camouflaged version of cultural and economic imperialism. Of course, it all makes sense if you haven't had a new thouught since 1963. But, uh, some of have been watching this a bit more closely. It's really just us trying to control things with money and influence.

Colin, of course, reveals it himself when he describes the new "incentive system that makes assistance contingent on political and economic reform."

In other words, do it our way or you get no cookies from us.

Strings attached. Big strings.

Who's running those countries if we dictate internal policy and econimic structures to them?

And you wonder why people don't like us.

And who other than Coca-cola and Halliburton are waiting in the wings for these proto-markets to open?

The Ugly American was written in the fifties.

Unfortunately he's still alive and well in 2003.

Buh-bye (he says, as the ship of Colin slowly sinks in the west)