Things You Don't Talk About in Polite Company

Why do I bring this up? Colin Powell is the black guy in Dubya: Cowboy-President Action Hero. I've been having this feeling that Iraq was sort of a stepping stone in the "War Against Terror." Iraq, I don't think, was a major player in state-sponsored terrorism. That being said, I think that following a U.N. weapons inspection routine doggedly would have eventually led to war.

My suspicion, which I have stated on several occasions, is that state-sponsored terrorism emanating from the Middle East is not really coming from Iraq, but there's no smoking gun against any other country that the U.S. can take to the world community as justification for military action. Instead, Iraq is a convenient location for stirring stuff up. The invasion of Iraq stirs up anti-American sentiment, causing the foes of the U.S. to become more active and try stuff. Eventually, or so the U.S. hopes, something will happen (hopefully a foiled plot), that will allow tracking down terrorists and taking out a rogue government. A friendly Iraq happens to be a great military asset. The key to the reconstruction Iraq for the Bush administration is the installation of a government that will allow the country to be used as a staging ground against another Arab nation.

Where does Powell fit in? I think we're going to see a globe-trotting Secretary of State. He's supposedly clashing with neo-con members of the administration on policy. He's less in step, so he's more expendable. Let him be the face of the U.S. abroad. He can travel constantly. Wherever he goes, he's the highest profile individual target for terrorist action. And, well, he's the black guy, so he's the expendable one in this life-as-a-movie.