By Admin1 (admin) (pool-141-157-23-45.balt.east.verizon.net - 141.157.23.45) on Saturday, July 30, 2005 - 9:04 pm: Edit Post |
P ONeill says: Robert Blackwill gives Colin Powell the Shiv
Robert Blackwill served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malawi, Ambasssador to India, and as a Deputy National Security Advisor to Condoleezza Rice.
P ONeill says: Robert Blackwill gives Colin Powell the Shiv
Colin Powell gets the shiv
By P ONeill
From: Foreign Affairs Table
Or ... the goons strike back. Who remembers the case of Robert Blackwill, the National Security Council official who left last year for a lobbying job at Barbour Griffith and Rogers International, the highly well-connected consulting firm?
Jul 22, 2005 -- 12:26:41 AM EST
Blackwill ran afoul of the Washington press corps' favourite insider schmoozer, Colin Powell, who relayed the tale of how Blackwill had roughed up a US embassy staffer in Kuwait following a misunderstanding over his travel arrangements at the airport. This Dan Drezner post conveniently excerpts the key news stories from the period.
Well, Blackwill pops up on Friday's Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd) op-ed page to put the boot into Powell -- not directly of course, but via lavish praise for his successor and predecessors as Secretary of State:
Quote:Diplomacy Is Back at the State Department! .... Condoleezza Rice is driving this return to diplomacy ... Such effective American diplomacy requires at least five elements.... First, there must be a trusting relationship between the president and the secretary of state, an instinctive agreement regarding the objectives and methods of U.S. foreign policy. They must have the same strategic DNA. This was true during each of the post-1945 surges of historic statecraft: Harry Truman and Dean Acheson, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger, Ronald Reagan and George Shultz, George H.W. Bush and James Baker. The president must never wonder if the secretary of state has a separate agenda, or is half-hearted in carrying out the administration's goals while winking and nodding at foreign counterparts -- or those in Congress -- who disagree with U.S. policy. Acheson wrote that, "The most important aspect of the relationship between the president and the secretary of state is that they both understand who is president." ...the secretary must be a skilful diplomat ... The foremost secretaries of state encountered such a catalogue of challenges, but perhaps only James Baker, with German unification and the end of the Soviet Union, had as many opportunities as does this secretary. Freedom is marching forward, including in the Greater Middle East. Authoritarianism is on the defensive. Building on American primacy, there is reason and evidence for strategic and moral optimism. Ms. Rice has all the requisites to make her tenure at the State Department as consequential as those of her most eminent predecessors in the past century. History awaits her performance.
When this story was posted in July 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers Read the stories and leave your comments.
The Peace Corps Library
Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related stories in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can find hundreds of stories about what RPCVs with your same interests or from your Country of Service are doing today. If you have a web site, support the "Peace Corps Library" and link to it today.
July 8, 2005: PC suspends program in Gabon
Peace Corps announced the suspension of the program in Gabon citing the high cost of the program. In addition, a 2003 Inspector General report documented safety and security costs of $1 million that would be necessary to keep the program operating successfully. Background: In 1998 Peace Corps Volunteer Karen Phillips was was found murdered in the weeds about 100 yards from her home in Oyem, Gabon. Her killer has never been brought to justice.
Friends of the Peace Corps 170,000 strong
170,000 is a very special number for the RPCV community - it's the number of Volunteers who have served in the Peace Corps since 1961. It's also a number that is very special to us because March is the first month since our founding in January, 2001 that our readership has exceeded 170,000. And while we know that not everyone who comes to this site is an RPCV, they are all "Friends of the Peace Corps." Thanks everybody for making PCOL your source of news for the Returned Volunteer community.