There are many reasons I'm glad that Colin Powell is stepping down as Secretary of State. Unsurprisingly, I now have a new one:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell called Kofi Annan a "good" U.N. secretary-general on Friday, after days in which Washington chose not to defend the diplomat against a U.S. senator's demand he resign.It was unclear whether Powell's comments signaled genuine support for Annan, under fire over suspected corruption in the U.N.'s now-defunct Iraq oil-for-food humanitarian program, or simply aimed to soften the widespread impression Washington has no great desire to back the U.N. chief.
"Secretary-General Annan is a good secretary-general," Powell told Reuters in the first positive comment about Annan from a top U.S. official since Sen. Norm Coleman, a Minnesota Republican investigating the program, said he should resign because of the suspected oil-for-food abuses.
Powell must be using some new definition of "good" that I was not previously aware of. I can't think of a single thing Kofi Annan has done that I would call good. He's not only been negligent (to be charitable) and biased. In issue after issue he has been a stumbling block to sane approaches to international relations.
I get so tired of hearing Powell praise the incompetent and the crooked. It's long past time for him to go. I just hope that Condi doesn't get sucked in to the moral black hole at the State Department like so many before her have done.
I've said it before and I'll probably say it again: If, by some nightmare scenario, I became President, two of my major goals would be the complete stripping down and rebuilding of the State Department and the IRS. There's no fixing them; it's time to start over from scratch.
Update: In the comments Joel Thomas objects to the title of his post.
I don't think making fun of a person's name in the fashion of "Colin cancer" is a particularly Christian thing to write. I believe that Christians are called to a higher standard.
I had no intention of making fun of Powell's name in this post. I don't believe that the very act of making a play on words using someoene's name constitutes "making fun" of their name. There was, for instance, no intent to mock Powell or his name.
The title of this post was chosen because I believe that "cancerous" is a pretty good description of how Powell's approach to foreign policy has affected our national security.
All that being said, Joel is right that Christians are held to a higher standard. The tone of this post is not at all what I'd intended. In retrospect it comes off as bitter and mean-spirited. That's not what I'd intended, but that's certainly how it came out. I have no other excuse than having been in a bad mood when I wrote it.
It's posts like these that are the most tempting to simply delete. I don't regret any of the points made here, but I certainly regret the way I wrote them. All temptations aside though, I dislike whitewashing history. I think I'll leave it up as a reminder that some times I should probably count to 100 or otherwise calm myself down before writing on subjects that infuriate me.
ever heard of politicking? :)
Posted by: sarahk | Friday, December 03, 2004 at 03:28 PM
I don't think making fun of a person's name in the fashion of "Colin cancer" is a particularly Christian thing to write. I believe that Christians are called to a higher standard.
Posted by: Joel Thomas | Friday, December 03, 2004 at 11:01 PM