We must 'go after poverty' to stop terror, Powell says

Seattle Post Intelligencer ^ | February 2, 2002

[sarcasm]

NEW YORK -- Secretary of State Colin Powell said yesterday that the United States and its allies must battle global poverty as part of the war against terrorism, saying that those seduced by terrorists must be shown "there is a better way."

"We have to go after poverty," Powell said. "We have to go after despair. We have to go after hopelessness."

He spoke to a session of the World Economic Forum, which has brought 2,500 corporate, religious, and political leaders to the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan.

There were few demonstrations on the streets surrounding the hotel, but the forum's Web site crashed yesterday morning, and three groups of cyberactivists claimed responsibility. They called themselves Electronic Civil Disobedience, Electronic Disturbance Theater and the Federation of Random Action.

Charles McLean, a forum spokesman, said technicians were struggling yesterday to restore the site, which carries the forum's press releases and other information at www.weforum.org.

McLean said organizers were still trying late last night to determine what brought the site down.

Questions of poverty, terrorism and security dominated the second day of the gathering, moved to New York from its customary Alpine home in Davos, Switzerland, to show solidarity with the city after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Discussions were impassioned, but participants did not always see eye to eye.

Powell said that the war on terrorism should focus on countries that produce weapons of mass destruction, arguing that they might provide them to terrorists. "We can't just stop at a single terrorist organization; we have to go through the whole system."

While Powell emphasized the need for a long-term military commitment, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, president of the Philippines, said she believed that the military fight was nearly over and that it should be replaced by a battle against "the handmaiden of terrorism, poverty."

"The rest (of the military campaign) will be mopping up," Arroyo said. "The coalition should stay on and fight against poverty."

About 4,000 police officers were stationed near the hotel to ward off a repeat of violent protests at financial summits in Seattle and Genoa.

But police spent more time trying to stay dry in the cold drizzle than they did arresting protesters. After arresting eight Thursday, police had made no arrests related to the forum by yesterday afternoon.

"It's all hype," one police officer patrolling the area around the hotel said. "Nothing's going to happen."

But protest leaders said they expect thousands to march in a festive noontime parade today, starting at the southern tip of Central Park and moving past the Waldorf.

Powell, speaking at a panel on building a coalition for a stable world, said the United States is just beginning its campaign against terrorism and will "make sure we root it out, wherever it exists."

But America will also help countries solve problems that make them hotbeds for terrorism, Powell added. He cited Afghanistan, where he said the United States will continue humanitarian efforts to rebuild the shattered country.

In afternoon sessions, other leaders sparred over questions of national security and civil rights raised by the response to the Sept. 11 attacks.

"We are in a conflict that is different than just about any conflict we have been in," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Hatch also voiced his support for U.S. plans to convene military tribunals to try accused terrorists.

But Irene Khan, secretary-general of Amnesty International, sharply disagreed on the tribunals.

"There is no need to create a political shadow system to deal with these threats," she said. Treating those accused of terrorist crimes differently from other citizens, she said, sends the message to repressive regimes that it is permissible to deny civil rights.

Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who with Powell, was one of the top two U.S. officials at the five-day conference, said that helping countries overcome their troubles isn't always easy.

"Over the last 50 years, hundreds of billions have been spent in the name of economic development, with so many of the countries that have been major recipients still not showing strong evidence of positive change," he said.

O'Neill added that research is needed "to understand where our efforts have given great results and, maybe more importantly, where there are no results or regression."

Later, Homeland security director Tom Ridge said America and its allies have learned much about how terrorists operate but must learn "to think in terms of unthinkable events."

"We will always have to be prepared, we will always have to be in the business of looking for threats and vulnerabilities," Ridge said.

Several participants said the United States and other wealthy countries need to stop showing indifference to the frustrations of developing nations.

People in poor nations "do not feel that this sort of international order is really helping them," said Amr Moussa, secretary-general of the Arab League. "We know that two-thirds of the world's population are poor and hungry, two-thirds are really angry, and we don't have to ask why."

More than 2,700 participants from 106 countries are attending the meeting, including 30 heads of state, 100 Cabinet ministers and 74 ambassadors. Participants include King Abdullah II of Jordan; Kofi Annan, secretary-general of the United Nations; Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates; and Bono, the lead singer for the rock group U2.

[Octavius]

Your right. The recent popularity of this administration is because the moderates and liberals are starting to like them!

[TLBSHOW]

LIKE NUKE WAR HEADS

[BADROTOFINGER]

His adoration of the UN is well documented. It is as if he thinks that some human beings are as Gods and can control all of the circumstances of man if only he has the ultimate good in mind. It is a distressing commentary on humanity that a man can have been so involved in world affairs yet seem so incapable of learning from them...JFK

[sinclair]

Colin Powell is Bush's biggest mistake so far.

[Fighter@heart]

The American worker has but one mission in life...work! Then politicians can re-distribute our tax dollars world-wide, to solve the problems of the world!! I only hope we don't discover life on other planets, because if we do we will all have to work 5 forty hour a week jobs to pay our "fair share!!"

[He Rides A White Horse]

Here is more from article, "Straw Mocks Bushes, "Axis of Evil"

Mr Straw repeatedly praised Gen Colin Powell, the secretary of state, and the most moderate member of Mr Bush's foreign policy team. But he failed to mention Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon chief and the man whose advice Mr Bush values most.

Gen Powell appears isolated after the State of the Union speech, which shocked State Department officials. They had not been told in advance of the "axis of evil" phrase, which Mr Bush inserted.

[monocle]

All too often wars against poverty become wars against wealth creators, the very thing to which the poverty fighters pledge allegiance. Most of the aid programs are designed to make the recipents more dependent upon government than to make them self sufficient. The economic collapse of the former Soviet Union has yet to be registered in the minds of these bureaucrats. Rather than tearing down the hurdles to wealth creation more and more is spent on building more and higher hurdles. As long as international agencies promote populism they are in effect promoting poverty.

[Izzy Dunne]

just think of the great successes of the Great Society program

OK, let's make a list of those successes:
1... Getting LBJ's name off the "who's he?" list.
2...

......

... Wait a minute....

lemme think...

I'm SURE there are many more...

[He Rides A White Horse]

He needs to be sacked.

[Jaidyn]

I'm starting to think the same thing about Powell. They'd rather have bombs lobbed at them than food! I'd like to see everyone fed and all comfy cozy but their daddyies take all the good stuff for themselves. How many times have we sent plane loads of food or gave money, only to have it stop at the palaces? If some of these poor people knew how much we actually gave their countries to feed them, perhaps they would rebel. They are so poor they don't have a means to communicate so only get what they are told by their own. It's sickening but there is nothing we can do except what we are doing now.

[Rubber Duckie]

You sure called that one right.

It bears repeating that neither the 9-11 terrorists nor the chattering nabobs of negativism who make up our academic elite have ever personally experienced poverty.

Without exception, they come from upper-middle class and wealthy families. Instead of using their wealth to help those less fortunate, they've chosen to use it to direct hatred at those who have only asked for the opportunity to govern their own affairs and make their own decisions on which religion to give their allegiance to and which causes to spend their hard-earned dollars on.

[anniegetyourgun]

That's why he is essentially sidelined in this administration. Not only can he NOT compete with the more formidable Rummy, he is too far left for the tastes of most in the cabinet. While Ann Veneman has her struggles being perceived as the cabinets weakest link, Powell struggles being perceived as the cabinets token liberal. He would have been selected into any administration that won the White House in 2000 because of his high favorables in the US and around the world. At least this President is keeping Powell away from most things of any consequence.

[ChadGore]

"Ghandi shows us that moral behavior knows neither weath, nor poverty."
-- me 2002

[NewCenturions]

Yes, how 'shocking' to use the "axis of evil" phrase. It isn't a 'feel good' kind of expression. Maybe "axis of the kindness challenged" would have sat better with the State Dept.

[He Rides A White Horse]

I can't find anything wrong with your analysis.

[section9]

I think it is becoming more and more obvious that Powell is a liberal in conservative clothes.

You've got to remember that Powell is supposed to be the "moderate" in the good cop/bad cop relationship he has with Bush. It's the same scam that Kissinger and Nixon ran. Henry would always tell the Russians or the Eurotrash that RN was two seconds away from pushing the Button. It worked fairly well.

This is the same deal. The Eurotrash consider Bush to be an ignorant cowboy. So fine. So Powell becomes the voice of sweet reason that they can "deal with". I strongly suspect that Powell agrees with the grand strategy of the administration. He knows that al-Qaeda and its confederates must be vaporized before they get their hands on a bomb. He just says it differently. That way Bush gets to be the ignorant, headstrong cowboy who is held back by a "reasonable" Powell. Makes Rumsfeld's job easier, as well as Rice's.

Oh, and this "feed the world" crap is just that, crap. More magical bullsh*t fed to the Eurotrash opinion leaders to make them feel that "one of them" is holding Bush back from using nuclear weapons.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[cpressroll]

You say it is time for Powell to go? You obviously don't understand the world! We must enslave our fellow Americans to insure freedom for the Muslims! We must impoverish our countrymen to eliminate poverty in the rest of the world! We must create hell on Earth in the United States so that we can offer heaven to our peace loving Muslim friends. Surely even you can see the desirability of all this! How can you be such a hard hearted vast right wing conspirator as to stand in the way of such noble intentions?

[eastforker]

If W didn't inform the state depatment what was in his SOTU address,and is leaving Powell out of the loop,watch for a letter of resignation to follow.

[Piquaboy]

Sounds as if he is getting his talking points from the former "King Clinton".

[CW_Conservative]

Powell is the latest in the line of world coalition-building butt-kissers that is decended from the Marshall and Eisenhower wing.

Patton and MacArthur had to go to make way for these blubbering femi-generals.

Would have been nice for Bush to have mentioned the failure of Truman and his cowardly firing of MacArthur as the main reason we still have work to do in Korea.