Speaking out

I remember the morning of September 11, 2001. It was my sister's 3rd birthday and I was driving to school with my mom and we turned on the radio. It was then that we heard that the world trade center had been attacked. We thought maybe it was some "spoof" radio show, we couldn't believe it, it was so incredulous. When I got to school and everyone was talking about it I couldn't believe it was real. We watched the news all day at school. Shocked.

I remember when I first heard the announcement of the Patriot Act. I went into the basketball team room at lunch to listen to the announcement, it was scary. Very ominous and scary to think about the ramifications of enacting such legislation without restraint. I remember telling myself, this is bigger then the attack on the twin towers, this act goes against the fundamentals of our country.

I was in high school when the Iraq war started, I remember heated debates my senior year about WMD, the UN involvement, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, and George Bush. I wasn't really part of these heated debates because I didn't fully understand the international situation, I didn't feel that I was educated enough to argue. I did know that I opposed war in general, and that Osama bin Laden was not purported to be in Iraq, so it didn't make sense to invade Iraq.

I can't say I really had a judgment about Colin Powell, except my surprise that he was a Republican and the sense that he was a puppet for Bush and Cheney. I can't say that I listened to Colin Powell's speech to the UN at the time either.

I do have an opinion on him now, and it stems directly from his quote earlier this week on Meet the Press, in which he confronts the ugly intolerance displayed by the Republicans constant association of Senator Obama with the religion of Islam:
"I'm also troubled by…what members of the party say, and is permitted to be said, such things as, 'Well you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.' Well, the correct answer is, 'He is not a Muslim, he's a Christian, he's always been a Christian.'

But the really right answer is, 'What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?'

The answer's 'No, that's not America.'
Is there something wrong with some 7-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion he's a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America."

Thank you for saying what has been needed to be said for some time now.

For the video and complete transcript of Colin Powell's recent interview, click here