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<p>WASHINGTON — Charlotte Beers, the Bush administration's point person for improving the U.S. image in the Muslim world, is resigning because of health reasons, a State Department official said Monday.</p> <p>The official, asking not be identified, said Beers' resignation will become effective in about two weeks.</p>

The State Department's answer to Osama bin Laden is to "redefine America." SHORTLY AFTER her confirmation as the State Department's top communications whiz last October, Charlotte Beers said she hoped to create among the world's one billion Muslims an "understanding that they don't need to kill us to get our attention." To accomplish that patronizing goal, Beers and her State Department colleagues have undertaken a "public diplomacy" campaign in the Muslim world. The effort will naturally require unceasing "dialogue" and involve lots of "listening." There will be pamphlets, CD-ROMs, public service announcements, a State Department magazine for young Muslim males....

The US First Lady, Laura Bush, had tears in her eyes yesterday as she listened to a performance by the Watoto children's choir - made up mainly of children orphaned by HIV/Aids. Laura, and her husband, US President George W. Bush, were at The Aids Support Organisation clinic in Entebbe on the last stop of their four-hour visit to Uganda. During the emotional presentation, where President Yoweri Museveni was also present, Ms Bush wiped tears from her eyes as the children sang Christian songs of hope in English. Later, President Bush promised more support to Uganda in the fight...

DEAD SEA, Jordan - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday he was concerned about the Israeli killing of a leading member of Hamas but nevertheless emphasized that Hamas and Islamic Jihad shoulder primary responsibility for the difficult situation facing the Palestinian people. Powell added that Middle East peace negotiators needed to keep working despite the killing of the Hamas leader in Hebron on Saturday at the hands of Israeli special police forces. "I regret we had an incident that could be an impediment to progress," he told a news conference after a meeting of the "Quartet" of key...

WASHINGTON -- Nine days after the federal government raided their homes and businesses, leaders of an alleged terror financing operation were given the opportunity to question the agency investigating them. The meeting on March 29, 2002, in the office of Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) is an example of the political clout of what the government calls the "Safa Group," a web of companies and nonprofits based in northern Virginia. One week later, former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill met with Muslim leaders with connections to the Safa Group to hear complaints about the raids. The leaders are suspected of running more...

RUSH: Folks, Dianne Feinstein today absolved one Republican from any blame. One Republican had nothing to do with torture. Only one Republican would have stood up and demanded it stopped if he had known. Only one Republican out there would have had the honor and the guts to stop it, and therefore only one Republican is worthy of being exempted and absolved of any blame for all of this torture and all of the assault on our good values and so forth. Who do you think that one Republican who is blameless is? I ran this by Snerdley, he said,...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell doubled down on comments last year describing a “dark vein of intolerance” in the Republican Party, attacking voter ID laws and claiming there are “certain elements in the party that seem to go out of their way to demonize people who don’t look like the way they’d like them to look like.” Powell made the comments during a wide-ranging interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell marking the beginning of Black History Month. “You said that there’s a dark vein of intolerance in your Republican Party,” Mitchell told Powell. “I will repeat that now,” he responded....

Appearing on MSNBC, former Secretary of State Colin Powell savaged the Republican Party of which he says he is still a member for catering to “elements” that are overtly hostile to people of other races or nationalities. Powell told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that there are groups within the GOP who “demonize people who don’t look like the way they’d like them to look.” He added that, for this reason, he believes the GOP needs him more than the Democratic Party needs him. He said that even senior-level Republicans continue to make “statements about women” and “minorities” that make the party...

Revelation: Colin Powell, George W. Bush's secretary of state, has confirmed the suspicion that derailed his plan to run for president: He's not just a liberal, but a socialist. It's been a long time ago now, but Powell was once the dream Republican presidential candidate for a lot of pundits, campaign experts and ordinary Americans who appreciated his outstanding military service and pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps success story. Now we find that Powell is with the extreme left of the Democratic Party on health care, supporting European-style single-payer socialized medicine. "I don't see why we can't do what Europe is doing, what Canada...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has waded into the health care debate with a broad endorsement of the kind of universal health plan found in Europe, Canada and South Korea. "I am not an expert in health care, or Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, or however you choose to describe it, but I do know this: I have benefited from that kind of universal health care in my 55 years of public life," Powell said, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal, last week at an annual "survivors celebration breakfast" in Seattle for those who, like Powell, have...

At the second annual Hanway Lecture in Global Studies at Loyola University Maryland Oct. 22, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell suggested that, despite his prestige, he is now just an ordinary person. “I’m just (another) guy on the street now,” Powell said, after noting tongue in cheek that he no longer has his own airplane, which he “misses very badly.” Powell also no longer has bodyguards – which he says were conspicuous even when he simply wanted to walk down a New York City block to buy a hotdog. The former four-star general spoke candidly before several thousand...

The other day, I was thinking about leaders, in everything from the White House to my own house to countries such as Syria to companies such as Apple. I was reflecting upon revolutionaries, from Nelson Mandela to Rosa Parks to the single parent of three who inspires her or his children with hard work and tough love. I was contemplating the power of influence and influencers who make a difference by their command and control to others who demand respect with their silence and servitude. From Jesus to James Dean and prosperity to prowess, leaders and what attracts others to...

A Just War analysis of a proposed attack on Syria. There are eight specific criteria for judging the justice of a war, and the justice of actions within a war. Six of these deal with the justice of going to war ("waging a just war); the other two deal with the justice of actions within a war ("waging war justly"). The first criterion is "just cause." There are three classic just causes: to repel an attack, to retake what was taken unjustly, and to come to the aid of the victim of an unjust attack. Clearly the first two do...

Remember the Powell doctrine? Elaborated by Colin Powell back in 1990, during his tenure as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, it consisted of a series of questions identifying the conditions that should be met before committing U.S. military forces to battle. The questions were: 1. Is a vital national security interest threatened? 2. Do we have a clear attainable objective? 3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed? 4. Have all other nonviolent policy means been fully exhausted? 5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement? 6. Have the consequences of our...

President Barack Obama said that an introduction of chemical weapons in the Syrian civil war would constitute a "red line" with "enormous consequences" that "would change [his] calculus." That was a year ago. This past March, Obama said, "We will not tolerate the use of chemical weapons against the Syrian people, or the transfer of those weapons to terrorists. ... We will hold [Bashar al-Assad] accountable." Credible sources -- including Britain, France and U.S. intelligence agencies -- accuse the Syrian government of using chemical weapons on two or more occasions, once last December and possibly twice during March. Obama took...

For reasons known only to himself, Colin Powell chose to heighten racial tensions with an ignorant comment. Evan McMurray of Mediaite reports: On CBS' Face the Nation, former Secretary of State Colin Powell called the George Zimmerman verdict into question, alleging "questionable judgment on the part of the judicial system," but doubting the case would serve as a generative example for judicial reforms. "I think that it will be seen as a questionable judgment on the part of the judicial system down there, but I don't know if it will have staying power," Powell said. "These cases come along, and...

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell called the verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, the Florida man who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, “questionable” Sunday. But Powell, appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation” also added that he felt the acquittal of Zimmerman, a neighborhood-watch volunteer who had been accused of killing Martin, an unarmed black teenager, won’t have a lasting impact on U.S. politics. “I think that it will be seen as a questionable judgment on the part of the judicial system down there (in Florida), but I don't know if it will have staying power,” Powell said of...

Colin Powell recently attacked election integrity and claimed there was no voter fraud. That’s dishonest and false, but it was good enough to get a spot on CBS’s Face the Nation this Sunday. His ticket to the show: You can say what you like, but there is no voter fraud. Colin Powell should learn a bit about people like Melowese Richardson, Lessadolla Sowers , Sonia Solis , Eric Haynes , Linda Wells,Giancarlo Sopo,John Moretina,Clara Moretina,Ernest Johnson,Kaarbo (aka Shawn Marie Melton),Jose Antonio Ramirez-Velasquez,Michael Marshall,Marguerite Kloos,Dilsa Maria Saddler, Rep. Stephen “Stat” Smith (D-Mass.), Leonard Brown, Chad Gigowski, Andrew Shepherd, Brittany Rainey, Caitlin...

UPDATED: Moments after Gov. Pat McCrory left the stage, former Secretary of State Colin Powell took aim at North Carolina's new voting law Thursday, saying it hurts the Republican Party, punishes minority voters and makes it more difficult for everyone to vote. "I want to see policies that encourage every American to vote, not make it more difficult to vote," said Powell, a Republican, at the CEO Forum in Raleigh. "It immediately turns off a voting block the Republican Party needs," Powell continued. "These kinds of actions do not build on the base. It just turns people away." The retired...

Colin Powell denied Thursday that he cheated on his wife of 50 years with a blond Romanian diplomat with whom he shared emails of “a very personal nature.” Powell, 76, was forced to clarify his relationship with Corina Cretu, 46, after a notorious hacker dubbed “Guccifer” posted a link to their emails on his Facebook page. “I’ve loved you too much, too many years. YOU were my greatest love of my life . . . ,” Cretu emailed Powell on Nov. 14, 2011. She also sent him numerous photos of herself, including shots of her in a bikini and in...