Powell Says 'Moment of Truth' for Arafat

Colin Powell, Clueless at CNN, from the State Department ^ | 12/2/01

[onyx]

Here's the complete statement. You sought to inflame and you succeeded, although I note that your original title has been changed, thank goodness.

Powell, speaking on CNN's Late Edition, said the bombings were not only "a terrible attack against innocent Israelis, a terrible act of terror, it was also an attack against him [Arafat], it was an attack against his authority, it was an attack against Palestinian leadership, and it was an attack that he could not overlook."

"The deadline ought to be right now. Stop. Now," he said on CBS's Face the Nation. Arafat "can't control every single Palestinian zealot or somebody who wishes to commit suicide, but he has to exercise more of the control that we believe he has."

"We're not going to tell the prime minister, who has been freely elected by his people to defend his nation what he - I don't know what he's going to do, and I don't know that he will share it with us," Powell said.

[anapikoros]

That last line is not the usual Powellspeak - wonder if Arafat heard it.

[onyx]

He'll hear it one way or another and I hope it's the last thing arafart hears on this earth. allah time for Arafart.

[sheik yerbouty]

You're a grown up. Figure it out for yourself!

[lavaroise]

Moment of Truth? Is he kidding us? Arafat has been unrepentant, and, to boot, has been prosecuting America and Israel. Moment of truth? What a bag full of wind.

[unending thunder]

Remeber Colin Powell talking about installing "moderate" Talibans. WEll, I wrote to him asking how you identify a "moderate" Taliban.

" A case of Mullah Lite" he replied.

[anapikoros]

A "case of Mullah Lite" - forgive me coz I'm not a Yank but is that a type of a beer or do I take literaly.

[anapikoros]

And then I look you up and see you're not one either - pommie ale then? (grin)

Guess it was literal then. Mullah lite or heavy won't make a difference - its tribalism that counts and their old habits will be impossible to change.

Sooner or later one or the other will make a bid for power and the whole shebang will start again. All that the world should be interested in is to ensure it doesn't become a sanctuary for terrorists and that they leave the oil and gas pipelines alone.

My solution is break it up along tribal lines - there's so many Stans now another 3 or 4 won't matter. Other than that leave them to their own devices and stuck in the 7C. They will learn that if they play up they can expect a flight of B52's overhead.

[MississippiMan]

Just because it doesn't appear in ResistorSister's post which was in regard to what he said during "Face The Nation" doesn't mean he couldn't have said the quoted words elsewhere (which he did). So stop jumping to conclusions, Diogenesis is owed an apology.

First of all, I wouldn't call my post "jumping on" anyone. But I stand by the fact that it was a misleading headline. Even if he did utter the words, it was not the thrust of the story. If we're gonna create our headlines for these articles, they should at least reflect the content of the piece.

Bear in mind that I'm not a Powell fan. I think he's doing a pitiful job as SOS and is an appeaser who will harm us with his antics, but I stand by my statement that this headline was misleading.

MM

[bert]

Hey MM... Powell is correctly stating the fact that Hezbollah is loudly proclaiming that Arafat is irrevelant.