http://www.bbc.com/news/election-us-2016-37364189
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has reportedly called Republican nominee Donald Trump a "national disgrace," according to leaked emails. The Republican retired four-star general's comments were revealed in a hack on his personal emails. The emails were posted on DCLeaks.com, which has reportedly been tied to other recent high-profile hacks. Mr. Powell, who has been quiet during the election, said he had "no further comment" but was "not denying it".
[...] Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, who crossed party lines in 2008 to endorse Democratic [candidate] Barack Obama, has tried to float above this year's tendentious presidential election. So much for that. First the government released his note to Democrat Hillary Clinton advising her on how to use personal email for back-channel communications while secretary of state. Now - in an ironic twist - his personal email has been hacked, revealing sweeping denunciations of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and some sharp criticisms of Democrat Hillary Clinton.
[...] "Yup, the whole birther movement was racist," the email read. "That's what the 99% believe. When Trump couldn't keep that up he said he also wanted to see if the certificate noted that he was a Muslim." But the leaked emails also revealed Mr Powell's frustrations with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and her handling of her use of private email while at the State Department. "Sad thing... HRC could have killed this two years ago by merely telling everyone honestly what she had done and not tie me into it," the email read, referring to Mrs Clinton. "I told her staff three times not to try that gambit. I had to throw a mini tantrum at a Hampton's party to get their attention."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @01:37PM
Yet another secretary of state whose career rightly ended after serving in that position. He was one of the key figures in the construct of lies that got us into the Iraq war, and he used a private server for official email.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Friday September 16 2016, @01:49PM
The history [wikipedia.org] of how he helped get us into Iraq is pretty interesting. The TL;DR of it is that he was opposed to an Iraq war, came around, persuaded President Bush to take the case to the UN, was given false intelligence to present to the UN, and became one of the Administration's first fall guys:
He's no angel, but I at least feel sorry for the guy. He also seems the most likely to spill Bush's beans in his memoirs or on his deathbed.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Friday September 16 2016, @01:59PM
Another part of the story: When they first brought Powell a draft of his speech, his reaction was to toss it into the air and say "I'm not reading this, this is bullshit. [theguardian.com]"
Which it was, of course. They then fed him new information and told him that no, really, they weren't lying this time.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by bradley13 on Friday September 16 2016, @02:14PM
I also feel a bit sorry for him, being used like that. However, he was in a position to know that he was being fed bullshit. It was obvious to many ordinary people at the time that many of the claims could not be true - he was in a position where he should have already had correct information. So I don't feel too sorry for him after all.
I still want to see people in jail, for this incident. Who, exactly, decided to push for a war based on false information? Cheney was certainly in it up to his eyebrows. Bush may have just been a patsy. Whoever was involved in that decision has a lot of blood on their hands.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 16 2016, @03:01PM
In 2001, while they were still talking about invading, I went on line, and typed in a simple search. "Who's who in Iraq nuclear research". Or, very similar words. Even a backwoods nobody was able to see that Sadman's nuclear aspirations had been canned. Almost all of the people involved in nuclear research were in the private sector, or in academia - and many of those were outside of the country. There was pretty much no one left to research weapons.
You're right, Colin and every other government connected buffoon should have known that Iraq was out of the nuclear race.
The rest of the crap took a little more research, but it wasn't hard to find the lies in all the rest of those "WMD".
(Score: 3, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 16 2016, @03:53PM
Right, because totalitarian governments routinely put their military aspirations online for google searches to find. Dude...
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday September 16 2016, @06:00PM
Iraq never was a super-secretive state. Yeah, they had lots of secret stuff, but unlike some other states - some of them Western aligned - every detail of a citizens life wasn't considered a secret. We KNEW who was in charge of this or that research, we knew who the experts were. There was little question about who did what in Sadman's nuclear weapons field. Some details may have escaped our intelligence communities, but we knew what was happening.
Find any or all of those names, and you can look to see where they were in late 2001, early 2002. Most were easy to find, because they were no longer engaged in nuclear weapon research.
There were a few that still worked for the government, or simply couldn't be located. But the megolithic nuclear research program had been dismantled.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 16 2016, @11:14PM
Iraq never was a super-secretive state. [etc...]
I disagree. I think your characterization here is complete bullshit.
Find any or all of those names, and you can look to see where they were in late 2001, early 2002. Most were easy to find, because they were no longer engaged in nuclear weapon research.
Two things to note. First, you have no reliable sources and are basing your opinion on whatever bullshit Iraq and those intelligence agencies choose to feed you. Second, just because Iraq wasn't engaged in a nuclear weapons program in late 2001 when an obvious nuclear weapons program would have been detrimental to its political goals of lifting sanctions, doesn't mean that it would stay that way once sanctions had been lifted a few years later. I think this lack of a long term disincentive to keep Iraq from developing nuclear weapons was a key impetus for the later invasion - not just for the US, but also for the many allies who were suspiciously easy to convince to invade Iraq once their political butts were covered.
(Score: 0, Flamebait) by tisI on Friday September 16 2016, @02:14PM
And you're a complete fucking retard.
I've observed Mr Powell's public conduct for going on 30 years now, since that waste of a life george herbert walker bush started the first Iraq invasion over Saddam's occupation of Kuwait late 80s.
He's the only republican in the country I've seen that isn't afraid to cross party lines to do what is good and right for the benefit of the country and the american people, and leave the political game playing for all the other republican sodomites.
The country and people should always come first. Our elected scum no longer do that. The corporate money holders are now who those faggots work for. Fuck the people & Fuck 'em hard.
"Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @04:00PM
The gay vegan Sodomites are gonna getcha! And turn your kids into gay vegan mooooooooslims, too!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @03:08PM
he used a private server for official email
No. He used a private email address, not a private server. The difference is that if you use a private server and the government comes demanding the official government records you are storing on your server, you can delete them and know that there are no backups floating around. If your email is on AOL, gmail, or some other service, you cannot guarantee that you can scrub away all of your sleazy behavior.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 16 2016, @08:03PM
I can guaran-fucking-tee whoever wrote this libelous shitpost is a Bush admin crony.
(Score: 2) by snufu on Saturday September 17 2016, @12:36AM
If you speak before the United Nations on something as serious as justifying a pre-emptive war, you better be right. Period. If you say these words in front of the world with the purpose of using these words to justify your actions, they are your words for eternity. You are Secretary of State. No blaming subordinates. No claiming "Well, I kind thought there was a chance it may be true at the time and we really wanted a reason to invade Iraq..."
Trump may be acting disgraceful on a national scale. Secretary of State Powell is, and will always be, an international disgrace.