As many readers of this blog know, I hosted former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson’s October 2005 cannon blast against the “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal” and the degradation of the national security decision making process in the White House.
Wilkerson has admirably been working full time since giving speeches, appearing in films and television shows exposing the machinations and duplicity of many who worked in this administration in preparing and executing plans to invade Iraq.
Wilkerson is fascinating and important in his own right — but for many, he is also a proxy for his former boss Colin Powell’s views. Powell and Wilkerson probably disagree on a number of things Wilkerson has said — but he also agrees with much but has been silent. Wilkerson has helped create a “place holder” for Powell until he began to speak.
And now — as of last weekend on Meet the Press, Powell did speak and called for the closing of Guantanamo.
I have written a commentary for the Guardian‘s “Comment is Free” site titled “Guantanamo and Colin Powell” — and wanted to link it here.
Many of my liberal readers will probably rail against Powell, and perhaps he does deserve a lot of criticism. I am trying to both think through and explain his previous silence — and why as well he is beginning to speak up now.
— Steve Clemons
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