On Meet the Press yesterday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell said the following (in part):
“If it was up to me, I would close Guantanamo - not tomorrow, this afternoon…. Every morning I pick up a paper and some authoritarian figure, some person somewhere, is using Guantanamo to hide their own misdeeds....We have shaken the belief that the world had in America's justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open….We don't need it, and it's causing us far more damage than any good we get for it." (Think Progress/Truthout)
His message makes sense, and his bluntness is refreshing. Still, I can't help remembering Powell's carefully worded, pre-war implication that Iraq and 9/11 were linked. Addressing the United Nations in 2003, for example, he said this:
"We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after 11 September, Saddam Hussein's regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America" (BBC)
This reminds me of Senator Joe Lieberman's stint on Face the Nation just yesterday: while advocating the bombing of Iran--he implied a link between Iran and 9/11.
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