Colin Powell's E-mails

When I was in the government in one capacity or another I had various interactions with Powell.  He was always very decent to me, and often refused to let the various generals, admirals and other potentates in the room silence me when my opinions contradicted theirs.  Others did that as well, but we are discussing Powell and his mail.

 Powell's infamous performance at the UN justifying war with Iraq was a turning point for me with regard to Powell.  He and his pal Wilkerson ignored professional intelligence analysts at State/INR and went out to Langley where the snake oil salesmen "convinced" them that the Iraqi government had all sorts of wunderwaffen.  That resulted in the scene with the little flask held aloft with George Tenet sitting smugly behind.  Slam dunk!

Nevertheless, his e-mails are interesting.  Who collected them from the "ether?"  That seems unclear.  Clinton asserts it was the Russians.  The commercial e-mail systems are easy to penetrate and to mine for data.  It could literally be anyone, anywhere in the world.

Some points from his e-mail traffic:

1.  “If Donald were to somehow win,” Powell wrote in a June 23 email to Rice, “by the end of the first week in office he'd be saying 'What the hell did I get myself into?’”

“I think his attention span may be waning because national campaigning is a lot harder than just showing up at rallies,” Rice said of Trump earlier in that conversation.

2.  "I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect," Powell wrote. "A 70-year person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still d---ing bimbos at home (according to the NYP)."

3.  “One day when we both have had too many drinks we can discuss why [President George W. Bush] tolerated him and why Dick [Cheney], a successful SecDef, was so committed to Don,” Powell wrote on Dec. 16. “I must say I gagged as [President George H.W. Bush] praised him as the ‘best’ at the statuary hall unveiling.”

4.   Powell called Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense who spearheaded the Iraq invasion, “a f--king liar” after reading an interview in which Wolfowitz blamed Powell’s State Department for what many experts allege were the United States’ two largest post-invasion blunders: the disbanding of the Iraqi army and the decision to expel members of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist Party from the civilian government.

“Bremer worked for him,” Powell wrote to Lawrence Wilkerson, his former chief of staff, on Aug. 28, after Wilkerson flagged the interview for him. He was referring to Paul Bremer, who oversaw the post-invasion transitional government in Iraq. “It wasn't State, it was the President and the guy who reported to Paul.”

“This is the narrative in the Feith and Rummy books,” Powell said, referring to memoirs by Rumsfeld and Bush-era Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith. “No one has really fallen for it.”

5.   " ... in an email to Rice, Powell wrote that he would “never forget the lunch in your office when Don abdicated the position.” It’s not clear to what he was referring, but Powell added that Rumsfeld “should have been fired that afternoone [sic].”  Rumsfeld “got mad when I tried to pull his you know what out of the fire by sending [National Security Council Iraq specialist Robert] Blackwill out there,” Rice wrote, recalling the meeting. “And when you and I started to talk to [Bremer] directly.”  “Yep,” Powell responded, “remember his tantrum vividly.”

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Good solid stuff!  Either some small group of SIGINT collectors has scooped up a lot of material and is metering it out as planned or many, many groups or individuals are doing the same thing.   IMO there is still a great deal of SIGINT derived material "out there" which will appear before the election.  A problem for the holders of the material is placement in the media because so many media outlets will suppress the material for political and corporate interest reasons.

This article doesn't have the "She has screwed up everything she has touched from hubris" item.  Someone find it please if it exists. 

Ah! Here it is courtesy of "Kooshy"

"Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris", Powell wrote in an email to private equity investor Jeffrey Leeds. Decrying "friggin record rules", Powell wrote that he "saw email more like a telephone than a cable machine". "On HD tv she doesn't look good", Powell wrote. "She is working herself to death", he said."  pl

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/colin-powell-emails-clinton-trump-rumsfeld-228158

http://www.crcconnection.com/2016/09/15/colin-powell-wrote-in-an-email-that-bill-clinton-was-d.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubris

 

Comments

[kooshy]

Colonel here you go
http://www.crcconnection.com/2016/09/15/colin-powell-wrote-in-an-email-that-bill-clinton-was-d.html

[Valissa]

"Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris." This quote can be found at...

Colin Powell Urged Hillary Clinton’s Team Not to Scapegoat Him for Her Private Server, Leaked Emails Reveal https://theintercept.com/2016/09/13/colin-powell-emails/

[HawkOfMay]

A Headline from HuffPo ("Colin Powell Attacked Hillary Clinton’s ‘Hubris’ In Leaked Emails") refers to the quote . It also has the exact quote of

"Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris,” Powell wrote in an email to private equity investor Jeffrey Leeds. “I told you about the gig I lost at a University because she so overcharged them they came under heat and couldn’t any fees for awhile. I should send her the bill.”

It is this hubris that got Hillary into this e-mail mess in the first place.

A side note
E-Mails are often stolen because the chain of servers between sender and receiver are not secure. When you have domain registrars like Network Solutions getting hacked repeatedly any kind of security goes completely out the window. The fact that you might have the most secure server in the world sitting in your house doesn't mean squat if you don't also have a full understanding of the possible 'man in the middle' attacks.

[ISL]

Dear Colonel,

Personally, I understand nothing of this. My work means that any of my emails are likely to be (and have been) deposed after which opposing counsel (or more likely teams of opposing counsel) will attempt to use them to the full distortable advantage possible, I personally ask myself before I hit send : would I be ok with this in the paper? and then I edit.

Egads, didnt these folks' lawyers advise them on day one to apply a good dose of shut up in all their writings and tell them to assume it will be hacked by foreign and domestic entities whose intentions are unlikely to be good?

hubris?

[Anna]

Can Clinton still be taken seriously?
"Dead woman walking:" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRKFBwKXYLM

[Kooshy]

Is anybody going to make comments on server gate' new developments, guys taking fifth all day long yesterday FBI getting subpoena.

[BabelFish]

I was certainly advised over and over again to mark my emails as privileged,to at least put a barrier against discovery. But against hacking? The only defense is to not create them to begin with!

After Ollie North, did not everyone get the message that emails were cyanide, just waiting to be exposed? Or, is it that the creators of the email just do not care if their thoughts are finally exposed? That is where I put my chips. In the long run, the authors just don't care if their thoughts are shared, as long as the timing is far enough in the future to not damage their careers.

[HawkOfMay]

>Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence

Someone suffering from hubris has the idea that the normal rules do apply to them. Seems like a perfect description of Hillary.

Hubris makes me think of Ajax the Lesser.
>On his return from Troy, his vessel was wrecked on the Whirling Rocks, but he escaped upon a rock through the assistance of Poseidon. He would have been saved but he said that he would escape the dangers of the sea in defiance of the immortals. In punishment for this presumption, Poseidon split the rock with his trident and Ajax was swallowed up by the sea. Ajax the Lesser

[Nancy K]

I still take her seriously and so will millions of voters.

[rak]

Powell lost my respect when he did not stop the turkey shoot of evacuating Iraqi killing a lot of humans for no good reason - did not do himself any favors at the UN and now his email to Hilary shows that he was lying not her

[turcopolier]

RAK

"the turkey shoot of evacuating Iraqi" I don't think he knew what was going on until the pictures started showing up in the media and then he and Bush 41 ordered a halt to what the air force was doing. If they had not there would have been very few Iraqi soldiers who would have escaped from Kuwait. pl

[VietnamVet]

Colonel,

Colin Powell’s e-mails reek of cashing in by being connected to the privileged. Hillary Clinton, all by herself, raked in 21 million dollars in speaker fees from corporations in the two years between her Secretary of State resignation and declaring a run for the Precedency. 5,300 Wells Fargo employees were fired for fraud. Some 5 million homes were lost to foreclosure. 1.6 trillion dollars has been spent on the War on Terror. These all underline the corporate corruption of government.

Plutocrats live in gated cocoons protected by minions. Perhaps because of the destabilization campaign against Russia, the hacks are exposing the private public corruption of the West. The ruling elite could be pissed enough to start World War III.

[Fred]

VV,

"5,300 Wells Fargo employees were fired for fraud. Some 5 million homes were lost to foreclosure."

The CEO just got a $125 million payout. Obama has remained silent on this as have the rest of the usual politicians. On a bright note the AG of NY is going to investigate the Trump foundations over a tax deduction.

[ISL]

A judge can always over-rule that attorney-client privileged communication (unless it is specifically to your attorned) I think you are on target, they seem to feel it is unimportant if the people sees the emperor has no clothes.

To whit I add disdain to hubris

[Croesus]

Hugo describes Javert as he arrests Monsieur Madeleine/Valjean as the "deformity of triumph" --

"The satisfaction of at last getting hold of Jean Valjean caused all that was in his soul to appear in his countenance. The depths having been stirred up, mounted to the surface. The humiliation of having, in some slight degree, lost the scent, . . .was effaced by pride at having so well and accurately divined in the first place, and of having for so long cherished a just instinct. Javert’s content shone forth in his sovereign attitude.
The deformity of triumph overspread that narrow brow. All the demonstrations of horror which a satisfied face can afford were there.
. . . he was avenging society, he was lending a helping hand to the absolute, he was standing erect in the midst of a glory. There existed in his victory a remnant of defiance and of combat. Erect, haughty, brilliant, he flaunted abroad in open day the superhuman bestiality of a ferocious archangel. . . . he held his heel upon crime, vice, rebellion, perdition, hell; he was radiant, he exterminated, he smiled, and there was an incontestable grandeur in this monstrous Saint Michael.
Javert, though frightful, had nothing ignoble about him.
. . .The honest, pitiless joy of a fanatic in the full flood of his atrocity preserves a certain lugubriously venerable radiance. Without himself suspecting the fact, Javert in his formidable happiness was to be pitied, as is every ignorant man who triumphs. Nothing could be so poignant and so terrible as this face, wherein was displayed all that may be designated as the evil of the good."

[Tigermoth]

Here is an interesting article regarding HRC's health issues. The comments section has some other views from medical professionals.

https://mishtalk.com/2016/09/14/late-stage-lying-pneumonia-theory-vs-parkinsons-disease-theory/

"Posted by mishgea | September 14, 2016 9:58:13 | Economics ≈ 66 Comments
On Sunday, an “Overheated” Hillary Stumbled or Fainted at a 911 Ceremony.

Hours later, came news flash Hillary’s Doctor Discloses Pneumonia Diagnosis Made Last Friday: Questions Abound.

Since then, a video by Dr. Ted Noel has made the rounds. Dr. Noel makes a seemingly convincing case Hillary has Late Stage Parkinson’s disease.

Snopes says Noel’s claim is false. I question the analysis of Snopes.

Some Mish readers who are medical doctors have some interesting comments."

[michael brenner]

In regard to the professional integrity of Colin Powell. We should note Powell's role as a staff officer in Vietnam. He was the primary author of the first official cover-up of My Lai. He also played a part in sanitizing the abridged review of Brigadier General John W. Donaldson who was charged with war crimes in 1971 but was not convicted due to insufficient evidence. Donaldson designed and commanded the 1968-69 campaign in the Mekong Delta whose modus operandi were summed up by his instruction: fly your copter low over the rice patties and if they run, they're VC.

This is documented history. Among several sources, see the documents presented by Nick Turse in "Kill Anything That Moves" 2013. Whatever you think of Turse, the Vietnam War, these operations,Powell's later career, it is hard to avoid the judgment that Colin Powell is not a man who one would expect to reject on principle the role assigned him by the Bush administration at the UNSC. He was not brainwashed; all that was needed was a quick rinse.

[Cvillereader]

Don't Powell's comments in item #2 exemplify the quality of two-facedness? What kind of "friend" says this about someone he respects?

Also, I don think I understand what Powell means by "transformative." If this is Obama's extra-constitutional kind of change, count me out.

Powell does not come off well here. Good riddance.

[J]

Colonel,

I'm waiting for the Second Snowden to come forward with more juicy stuff that will make Clapper wet his pants.

The new Snowden movie is slated to open Friday. Dunno if it will be a reiteration of Citizen Four or not.

[Tyler]

Tigermoth,

Snopes is run by two Democratic Party boosters and has a record of engaging in mendacious sophistry to either disprove or prove something if it benefits the Left.

Their article on Stephen Bannon is amazing for its reaching nature.

[mike]

snopes defended Stephen Bannon. Mikkelson who runs snopes is unregistered in any political party and there are no records of him donating to any political party.

As for Dr Noel's theory, even politifact and truthorfiction say it is bunk. Noel is an anesthesiologist with no medical training in parkinsons or any other degenerative neurological disorders. If she had advanced parkinsons as noel claims then she would be in a wheelchair or using a walker.

[robt willmann]

HawkOfMay,

Yes, the fact that e-mail is routed among networks and computers from the sender to the recipient affords all sorts of opportunities for interception in addition to hacking into the machines of the sender and receiver and the nearest server(s) to them. The way e-mail is transported across networks and across the world is fascinating. The co-creator of the first real e-mail transport software program, Eric Allman, gave an excellent talk in 2009 called "Internet Mail -- Past, Present and (a bit of) the Future", at the Asia BSD Conference. It is 1 hour, 26 minutes long and is well worth watching. He starts at the beginning and talks about Arpanet, out of which grew the Internet. The video of Allman's talk is here--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3T05n9Y0S0#t=124

The 62 pages of slides that go with the talk are here--

http://www.neophilic.com/~eric/Talks/AsiaBSDCon2009.pdf

And the Asia BSD Con website from 2009 is here--

https://2009.asiabsdcon.org/live/abc2009-K1.html

BSD means the Berkeley Software Distribution. After the C programming language and the Unix computer operating system were created to a large extent by Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie, with help from others at AT&T Bell Labs, such as Brian Kernighan and Bob Morris, a copy was given to the computer science department at the University of California at Berkeley. There, in the 1980's, students including Bill Joy, Marshall Kirk McKusick, Eric Allman, and others made some modifications to it and it became known as Berkeley Unix or BSD.

Back in 1982, AT&T produced a short film, "The Unix System: Making Computers Easier to Use". Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie are shown, and the film talks about the approach used in inventing the Unix operating system--

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvDZLjaCJuw

http://techchannel.att.com/play-video.cfm/2014/1/27/ATT-Archives-The-UNIX-System-Making-Computers-Easier-to-Use

Bob Morris left Bell Labs and went to work at the NSA until he retired. He passed away in 2011, as did Dennis Ritchie. I think that Thompson and Ritchie persuaded the AT&T management to buy the computer on which they did their wonderfully creative work by saying that they wanted to develop a software program that would make it easier to create documents in the company. They did do that, but the computer operating system they developed did so much more, and today there is the Internet and SST. The software program to create documents invented at Bell Labs was called troff, and you typed in the formatting commands within the plain text of what you were writing--

http://wolfram.schneider.org/bsd/7thEdManVol2/trofftut/trofftut.pdf

http://www.troff.org

Another software program to create documents and typeset mathematics in which you type in the formatting commands was invented by Donald Knuth at Stanford University, called TeX--

http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/

http://www.tug.org

This is not irrelevant history. Not only is there electronic mail and the Internet, the Mac OS X operating system of Apple Computer is based in part on BSD Unix.

[LeaNder]

Anna, don't they have a better very deeply concerned actor at Katheon then Andrew Korybko?

[Edward Amame]

Tyler

in defense of Snopes. From Wiki:

Accuracy
Critics have accused Snopes of having a liberal bias.[7][8] Jan Harold Brunvand, a folklorist who has written a number of books on urban legends and modern folklore, considered the site so comprehensive in 2004 as to obviate launching one of his own.[13] David Mikkelson, the creator of the site, has said that the site receives more complaints of liberal bias than conservative bias,[25] but insists that the same debunking standards are applied to all political urban legends. FactCheck reviewed a sample of Snopes' responses to political rumors regarding George W. Bush, Sarah Palin, and Barack Obama, and found them to be free from bias in all cases. FactCheck noted that Barbara Mikkelson was a Canadian citizen (and thus unable to vote in US elections) and David Mikkelson was an independent who was once registered as a Republican. "You'd be hard-pressed to find two more apolitical people," David Mikkelson told them.[25][26] In 2012, The Florida Times-Union reported that About.com's urban legends researcher found a "consistent effort to provide even-handed analyses" and that Snopes' cited sources and numerous reputable analyses of its content confirm its accuracy.

[Bill H]

As someone diagnosed with Parkinson's ten years ago, I agree with those who say that Dr. Noel's "analysis" is bunk, and not even very good quality bunk. Don't so much agree with your wheelchair/walker claim.