The good soldier abandons the field

[CHIMO]

WASHINGTON - Monday's announcement that Secretary of State Colin Powell, by far the most popular of US President George W Bush's war cabinet, has submitted his resignation marks the formal launch of a new scramble for top national-security posts that could bring an even more hardline configuration to power.

Powell's disappearance will remove the most influential foreign-policy moderate - and the greatest skeptic about the use of military force - from the administration's top ranks, thus strengthening the hardline coalition - led by Vice President Dick Cheney - of aggressive nationalists, neo-conservatives and the Christian Right that dominated policymaking after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon.

A Soviet military specialist by training and experience, Rice was first recommended to Bush by his father's national security adviser, retired General Brent Scowcroft. But Scowcroft, who also helped mentor Powell, quickly became disillusioned with his protege when she sided more with the hardliners after September 11 than with Powell, tilting the balance of power within the administration strongly in Cheney's favor.

"Cheney looks to be at least as powerful in this term as in the last," a Republican congressional aide told IPS on Monday. "He thinks that dissent is disloyalty."


http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/FK17Aa01.html

[kaitykaity]

1. Oh, SCREW this Powell as a "good soldier" bullshit.

He's at least as culpable as Bush for the 1200 dead in
Iraq and now he's going to go off and make millions on the
lecture circuit.

He makes me sick.

[Skittles]

2. ditto

Powell played the Bush Whore to the end and that will be his lasting legacy

[rodeodance]

4. I agree--he ended up as a lapdog to Bush and the neocons.

[RyomaSakamoto]

3. 'good solider' sacrifices other good soliders to the BUSH DOCTRINE

notice how no-one has pressed that issue in the media?