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A Peek
Inside Colin Powell's Personal Diary
May 3, 2002
By Bernard Weiner
If I jump now, with Karen Hughes just having left and with
Democratic darts starting to hit the Administration's weak
spots, it'll look bad. Like I'm deserting a ship that's started
leaking badly.
Plus, people will think I'm doing it out of ambition, not
wanting to be too tarnished by all the Bush administration's
scandals, those already out there and others yet to be revealed.
(I'm mostly kept out of the loop, but I suspect many of those
transgressions are on the other side of the moral, and probably
legal, fence.)
Sure I want to be President -- even Bush and Cheney know
that, which helps explain why all the behind-the-scenes dissing
of me and the State Department -- but I also enjoy feeling
that I'm helpful in the world, often just by throwing cold
water on some of the Wolfpack's most outrageous proposals.
That Wolfowitz is like a dog on a bone in his determination
that the U.S. dominate the globe; I think he should be checked
out for rabies.
I'm tolerated. I speak my mind about drugs and sex and poverty,
and sometimes even about war policy -- though I have to move
real carefully here -- and they don't get rid of me. I'm their
token, in a great many ways. See, we have an all-inclusive,
diverse Cabinet -- look there's Colin Powell. See him? He's
black. And he's even liberal. Ergo, the Administration can't
be all bad. (I'm sure no liberal; I just look that way when
measured against rightwing zealots like Ashcroft and Wolfowitz
and DeLay. And I resemble a flaming intellectual when measured
against our fearless leader, who knows how to mouth the right
phrases and read speeches.)
I'm here partially because of my ties to Poppy and my contacts
around the world -- I'm regarded as trustworthy by many international
leaders -- but mainly I'm here for window-dressing and moral
cover. And to keep me on the inside, busy and somewhat muzzled,
so I can't become head of a GOP opposition movement. I know
all that, and they know I know. It's just the complex political
dance you have to dance, in order to be in a position to do
some good -- or, in the case of this administration, to help
stop some of the bad. But I have to choose my fights judiciously,
or I won't have any clout.
But it's getting harder and harder to swallow a good share
of the Administration's line. These guys -- who, of course,
found convenient ways to escape serving in the military, from
Bush to Cheney to DeLay and so on -- are preparing for "permanent
war." It's insane. They figure with no other country to challenge
the U.S. superpower, they might as well go take it all. Sure,
we could take it, but then what do we have? A return to the
Roman Empire, with our armies having to control everything
thousands of miles from home, in a world that would resent
and hate and attack us all the more, and nonstep dissent at
home. (The most depressing thing about all this is that the
Democrats in Congress haven't even called for a debate on
attacking Iraq is a good idea, and what the ramifications
might be. They're so scared of looking "unpatriotic" that
they've become unpatriotic by remaining silent.)
Too many of our top officials have no military, or political,
understanding of the complexities involved, just a desire
to grab $ome while the getting is good. I believe in greed,
too, as a positive motivating force -- but within some reasonable
limits. These guys, and their corporate backers, can't see
beyond their bank accounts. I keep trying to tell them that
they can have a good share, and help others get a good share
too -- thus bringing more consumers on line to buy stuff the
corporations make -- but they just smile at me, like I'm a
weak-brained kook or something.
The topper for me was my feeling of being hung-out-to-dry
during my most recent Middle East mission. My God, I had to
pretend that we weren't giving carte blanche to Sharon's --
I almost said Sherman's -- military campaign to wipe out the
Palestinian Authority's infrastructure and political network.
Come on! They had me galivanting all over the globe for nearly
a week before finally permitting me to make my way to the
Holy Land. Meanwhile, Bush is "ordering" Sharon to withdraw
his troops immediately -- wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what
I mean? I coulda been killed hanging out there like that,
twisting in the wind.
The Arab leaders are even more scared of Sharon than we pretend
to be. None are going to risk irritating the guy, for fear
he'll attack them and destroy them, probably in two days,
without even having to use their nukes. But the Arabs sure
made it clear that unless the U.S. acts forcefully to solve
the Israel/Palestine puzzle, we're putting our credibility
and political capital on the line in their area of the world.
And nobody is going to even think about helping us attack
Iraq -- as much as they want Saddam to be eliminated -- until
the Palestinian issue is taken care of, once and for all.
I must say that I understand a little bit what George Mitchell
must have gone through in Northern Ireland. But those two
sides had battled each other "only" for 800 years; we're talking,
in a sense, thousands of years here. And it ain't gonna be
easy. Sharon and Arafat, by this time, are like two crazed
animals, pawing the earth, seeing nothing but the other guy
about to strike and, at this point, wanting nothing but victory,
total domination. Sharon thinks he can bludgeon his way into
a Greater Israel, Arafat thinks he can suicide-bomb his way
into a Greater Palestine. They're both starkers.
If we ever get to genuine peace talks -- and it may not happen
in my lifetime, another reason to consider getting out, before
I'm slapped with the image of a big-time loser -- we'll probably
spend months talking about the correct shape of the negotiating
table. The best possible scenario would be -- God, I hope
nobody ever finds this diary! -- for both of them to die in
their sleep, with more reasonable leaders emerging to finish
the job of devising a treaty and modus vivendi.
Well, got to end this now. More meetings, more troubleshooting
in the Mideast -- the Saudi plan is moving again: Arafat may
want to sign something while he buys time to rebuild his political
and military structure, Sharon wants to find new ways to move
away from a possible Palestinian state. I'm going to find
myself buried in this Administration, which has its eyes only
on attacking Iraq and global control. I gotta get out of here,
soon.
Bernard Weiner, a playwright and poet, was the San Francisco
Chronicle's theater critic for nearly 20 years. A Ph.D. in
government and international relations, he has taught at various
universities, and has published in The Nation, Village Voice,
The Progressive and widely on the internet.
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