Zakharra wrote:He's also, thru the tax cuts, given 6+ years of incrediable economic growth.
By most economic indicators, we have done poorly under Bush, with the biggest one being the increasing poverty of children. To the extent we have experienced growth, it's largely due borrowing and failing to provided necessary services like infrastructural repair, and that bill *will* come due. The Dow Jones really isn't much of an economic indicator, as rising investment value typically only benefits the already wealthy, and they tend to keep their money. But this is a different topic.
Colin Powell had some interseting things to say in his recent interview:
The latest issue of GQ also includes an interview with Colin Powell. His assessment of the occupation isn't quite as rosy. In fact, he describes the way it was handled as "the big mistake."
"Don had written a list of the worst things that could happen, but we didn’t do the contingency planning on what we would do about it. So we watched those buildings get burned down, and nobody told the divisions, “Hey, go in there and declare martial law and whack a few people and it will stop," Powell says.
"Then the insurgency started, and we didn’t acknowledge it. They said it wasn’t an insurgency. They looked up the definition. They said it was a few dead-enders! And so we didn’t respond in a way that might have stopped it. And then the civil war started at the beginning of last year. I call it a civil war, but some say no, it’s not a civil war, it’s a war against civilians. In fact, we have total civil disorder," he says.
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"[A]re there any terrorists in the world who can change the American way of life or our political system?" Powell asked. "No. Can they knock down a building? Yes. Can they kill somebody? Yes. But can they change us? No. Only we can change ourselves. So what is the greatest threat we are facing?
"It should be about how we create institutions that keep the world moving down a path of wealth creation," Powell told the magazine, "of increasing respect for human rights, creating democratic institutions and increasing the efficiency and power of market economies."
Powell said Americans are "taking too much counsel of our fears" and that while "there is a threat" from terrorists, the United States should focus on inviting and integrating foreigners who can contribute to American society.
"Let's show the world a face of openness and what a democratic system can do," he said. "The only thing that can really destroy us is us. We shouldn't do it ourselves, and we shouldn't use fear for political purposes -- scaring people to death so they will vote for you, or scaring people to death so that we create a terror-industrial complex."
