When in England at a fairly large conference,
Colin Powell was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury
if our plans for Iraq were just an example of
empire building by George Bush.

He answered by saying that, "Over the years, the
United States has sent many of its fine young men
and women into great peril to fight for freedom
beyond our borders. The only amount of land we
have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those
that did not return."

It became very quiet in the room.

We have 72,000 soldiers buried in France and they are charging us rent....sick F%$S.

Hi,

Not to argue, but is there a source for the France wargrave rent?

I'd love to send that bit on to a few people who can't seem to get the message:-)

God Bless Our Troops.

Regards,

VERY CLASSY INDEED !!!

Colin Powell is an extremely intelligent man & I am glad that he is on our team !!

__________________
1994 E500 (MY SUNDAY DRIVER)
1993 190E SPORTLINE LE W/ M104 SWAP
1997 C230
2002 ML320
2000 BMW 528I (WIFEY'S CAR)

"Excuses are crutches for the unfounded."

Interesting about France. I wonder if they are charging "rent" for soldier's graves. Canada (remember we have 10% of the US population) has 42,000 of our bravest buried there from WWII. From WWI we have 61,000 graves.

__________________
John Shellenberg
1998 C230 "Black Betty" 240K

http://img31.exs.cx/img31/4050/tophat6.gif

I didn't know I could be more pi$$ed off at the damn French!!

Thanks for posting the information, though. It's still good to know these things.

Colin Powell: showing once again to the international audience what a true US citizen is made of!!

With thanks and respect to Citizen-Soldier Larry Bible whom I salute for his service to our country.

This is a link to the Snopes Urban Legends Page:

What Colin Said

For you that are too busy to view the text, here's a transcript:

The spirit of the quote cited above is true, although the context in which it was delivered has been greatly simplified. During an address to the World Economic Forum, Secretary of State Colin Powell was asked a somewhat long and involved question by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, which ended with the following interrogative:

"And would you not agree, as a very significant political figure in the United States, Colin, that America, at the present time, is in danger of relying too much upon the hard power and not enough upon building the trust from which the soft values, which of course all of our family life that actually at the bottom, when the bottom line is reached, is what makes human life valuable?

Secretary Powell delivered a lengthy response to the former Archbishop's question, in the midst of which came the eloquent line quoted in the example above:

The United States believes strongly in what you call soft power, the value of democracy, the value of the free economic system, the value of making sure that each citizen is free and free to pursue their own God-given ambitions and to use the talents that they were given by God. And that is what we say to the rest of the world. That is why we participated in establishing a community of democracy within the Western Hemisphere. It's why we participate in all of these great international organizations.

There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power -- and here I think you're referring to military power -- then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with.

I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world.

(Applause.)

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

__________________

Scott Longston
Northern California Wine Country...
"Turbos whistle, grapes wine..."

Panama. The Phillipines. Other places. Yes, we eventually "gave" them back.

Hawaii. California. Texas. The other 47 states. Everywhere that there are Americans now there used to be other people that considered those places their homeland.

Now, a bunch of you guys are going to write me off as a dumb ass bleeding heart liberal for even mentioning that stuff. Go ahead.

My point is that the United States' hands aren't exactly clean on this one. I'm not trying to say that America is acting as an imperialist nation in this Iraq situation, but rather to say that this country has a lot to prove in assuring the world that its motives are above reproach.

__________________
jeremy wood
'88 260E ~200,700 miles
- All stock, except for Blaupunkt "Miami Beach"

"Panama. The Philippines. Other places. Yes, we eventually "gave" them back."

Yes, even the places which were purchased or ceded to the US were eventually given back to the people who had taken them from the previous owners, who had displaced the owners before them, who had etc. etc. etc. Sometimes, as in the case of Panama, after extremely valuable improvements to the local economy (look up how much income the canal generates for the Panamanian economy, and who paid for the big ditch.) 'Legitimate' ownership of any chunk of earth depends entirely on how far back you want to go in history.

And yes, this country was 'taken', purchased, or won in battle from the French Russians, British, Spanish, and the American Indian, who had all taken the lands from others and each other for centuries, (Including the Amerindian, who after 'invading' from Asia were not above engaging in warfare, territorial conquest, and slavery against each other). But I don't agree that because of 100-200 year old events we need to concede that the rest of the world is a lily white and guilt free forum whom we need to waste a lot of time convincing. If it is history you want, the world that needs convincing consists of Chinese that in the last 70 years 'annexed' Tibet (and are currently working on occupying the oil rich Spratly islands to the exclusion of the other 6 nations which claim sovereignty); the French, who are back in the Ivory coast and never left Tahiti, and aren't that long out of Algeria; The Dutch, who couldn't recover their Indonesian empire after WW2; The Russians, who reluctantly left Northern California and Alaska after a purchase that relieved them of an accounting of their treatment of the indigenous Indians, and relatively recently gave up their invasion and control over much of Eastern Europe, not to mention their centuries old lust for Afghanistan; The Swiss, with a history of providing both financing, banking services, and THE premier mercenaries for would-be conquering armies (and currently manufacturers of some of the worlds most advanced military firearms )- sort of one stop shopping in the middle ages for military might! Perhaps we should be convincing the African nations, with their history of tribal invasions, territorial conquests, and of selling their surplus populations/slaves/war captives to Arab traders for re-sale to English, French, Spanish, and American slave traders, and their ongoing tribal genocides against each other. Or maybe you refer to the Germans, with a history of invading most of western and Eastern Europe and north Africa within the last 70 years; or the Mideast, with historical conquests extending from Spain to Turkey, and current dreams of an Islamic super state extending from the Atlantic coast through SE Asia and into Australia. But wait, you specifically referred to Hawaiians, those invaders from the South Pacific who turned paradise into a prolonged inter-island battleground, eliminating entire species of native wildlife in the creation of decorative costumes. (Just what did become of the Menehunes - the alleged original Hawaiian island occupants that left archeological records predating the invasion from the South Seas, and were claimed in 'Tahitian/Hawaiian' legend to have greeted the Tahitian invaders with open arms before disappearing forever?) It must be their approval we need.

Sorry, but the entire world has practiced invasion, conquest, self interest expansionism, political conquest, etc. ad nauseum, so I don't see where a country that hasn't much engaged in these practices anywhere nearly as recently or aon as large a scale as the other inhabitants of this planet has to accept them as judge and jury. And I don't write you off as a northen California liberal - I try not to pigeonhole people that way, and have my own views - some liberal, some conservative, all open to reasoned argument and therefore subject to occasional evolution or reversal. But you can't logically hold up the historical actions of this country without considering the (even more recent) historical actions of those whom you would have act as Judges. 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes' is indeed a two sided query. We need to ask it both of ourselves, and in determining the qualifications of those who would be our judges.

Yet the proof is in the pudding. As this thread pointed out before being diverted, in the last century, we did not keep any of Europe or Japan except for some graveyards! (In fact, most of the financial war loans and reparations went unpaid as well, and the Marshall and Deming plans cost a Ton of money to put in place. So you could argue that aside from the moral feel good issues, we don't profit very much from our overseas ventures if in fact it isn't actually a financial loss).

__________________
John

2003 Firemist Red/grey leather SL 500
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1987 Smoke Silver/burgundy mbtex 300E Sportline (SOLD)

Click to see 87 300E

To me, after having seen the whole thing in context, I now think Powell has even more class than when Larry originally posted the quote, which was impressive enough in and of itself.

__________________
Jason Priest
1999 E430
1995 E420 - retired
1986 420SEL - retired

I'm looking! I read it on a Govt. website not to long ago.

Hi rsbiomedical,

Thanks. As you can see the whole text, context matters:-)

The full Powell text is even more eloquent.

Thanks,

I do not know about the rent being charged for US graves, but I do know that France wants to build an Airport over some 10,000+ Australian Veterans' graves.

You are not being clear in whatever point you are not making. What instance are you referring to? We had a treaty with Panama (remember, canal?), and the Phillipines actually wanted to become part of the United States after WWII.

Man, is this ever a bad comparison. Did you really think this through before you posted it? Most of what is now the United States was colonized by Europeans that eventually sold their territorial holdings to the U.S., except in the instance of Texas, which was a soverign republic that had declared independence from Mexico, and even then, money changed hands.

Yes, the entire world is somewhere that "there used to be other people that considered those places their homeland." like the Aztecs, Toltecs, Mayans, Romans, Phoenicians, Etruscans, do I have to go on here? Iraq used to be Babylon, Iran used to be Persia, the whole global map has been redrawn over the centuries, but it has little if anything to do with the fatuous term "American imperialism". And just how would Canada and Australia fit into your scheme of things?

First, knowledge and misguided political leanings should be two sepatate things. Being a dumb ass isn't forgiveable or to be tolerated, but being a bleeding heart liberal these days usually does require one to be a dumb ass in order to ignore facts that would counter what bleating heart liberal sheep want to believe. But don't be defiant about it, you can still be cured of being a dumb ass by trying to be open minded and learn the difference between conjectural opinion and true fact.

You are obviously suffering from a lack of historical knowledge and facts to back up your statements. This country has NOTHING to prove to anyone. History has shown, and will continue to show the truth about this. We are consistent in our efforts to provide the blessings of freedom and liberty to the people of any nation who would ask for our help. In the case of Iraq, the Iraqi people need and want to be freed from the grip of this ruthless dictator who has used his regime to subjugate, torture, maim, murder, and repress his own people while he uses his power to assist those who have attacked this country and our military.

Our nation is the first to provide humanitarian aid and comfort to people around the world. Many of whom often accept our generosity, and spit in our faces, or curse us behind our backs, accusing us of trying to buy their gratitude. Yet we keep providing food, water, medicine, clothing, blankets, toys, physicians, engineers, technicians, teachers, and other assistance. It's part of being an American. . .

__________________

Scott Longston
Northern California Wine Country...
"Turbos whistle, grapes wine..."

Yes JW-260E, you are right that US hands are not clean, but they are MUCH CLEANER than other nations. How many OTHER countries would help REBUILD, PROVIDE HUMATARIAN AID, AND AVOID HITTING CIVILIAN TAGETS? NONE.

When all is said and done, justification will be proven. We will also find out that the French and Germans have much money pumped into Iraq and have protested because they will loose millions.

We are at now at war and we must support our President and our troops.

Granted, we have the right to PEACEFUL AND DIGNIFIED protest, but for the sake of our toops, PROTESTING NEEDS TO STOP. The enemy uses this to his advantage. In a war museum in VietNam are the instuments of torture used on our servicemen and right next to them are photos of American protesters.

Ron