Powell: "Staying The Course Isn't Good Enough"

Former Secretary of State (and of course Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and decorated war hero) Colin Powell speaking today:

In Iraq, "staying the course isn't good enough because a course has to have an end," Powell said.

More than any other event of this era, the war will define the Bush presidency and Powell's own tenure as Secretary of State, Powell said.

In the U.S. today, a challenge the war poses is a question of whether an essential "bond of trust that must exist within a nation...has been shaken," he said. The extent of the damage to trust will be measured in the November elections, he said.

When someone with the qualifications and clout of Powell calls a President's trustworthiness into question, we should listen.

He, more than anyone, knows that Bush misdirected the nation into war with Iraq by hanging the "war on terror" label on what was always a personal grudge with underlying motives that had nothing to do with fighting terror and far more to do with neoconservative theories of "shaking up" the Middle East by showing that the U.S. could use its military power on anyone without the cooperation of the international community. It has far more to do with justifying Bush's claim that he is the "War President" and use the war to further an agenda of centralizing power in the executive.

Powell realizes, too, that the "war" in Iraq ended the day Bush declared "mission accomplished" and that what is being fought now is an occupation against the will of the majority of the Iraqi people. That it is still dishonestly labelled a "war" just to press patriotic buttons is one of the breaches of the "bond of trust" Powell is talking about. Doesn't "Occupation President" have a very different and more totalitarian ring to it? But it is far more accurate.