Quote Worth Reading

[Nachtschleicher]

When in England at a fairly large conference, Colin Powell was asked by
the Archbishop of Canterbury if our plans for Iraq were just an example
of empire building by George Bush.

He answered by saying that, "Over the years, the United States has sent
many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for
freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return."

It became very quiet in the room.

[redondomarine]

I love that guy!!!

[Lobo]

Good quote, but imperialism nowadays it's not about occupying land and sending settlers. ;)

[hood]

Psychological Operations through McDonald's propagation is the key to victory.

[Knave]

That's the Coles' Notes version, I'll quote another source for a piece of the actual transcript of what was said;

"During an address to the World Economic Forum, Secretary of State Colin Powell was asked a somewhat long and involved question by the former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, which ended with the following interrogative:

'And would you not agree, as a very significant political figure in the United States, Colin, that America, at the present time, is in danger of relying too much upon the hard power and not enough upon building the trust from which the soft values, which of course all of our family life that actually at the bottom, when the bottom line is reached, is what makes human life valuable?'

Secretary Powell delivered a lengthy response to the former Archbishop's question, in the midst of which came the eloquent line quoted in the example above:

'The United States believes strongly in what you call soft power, the value of democracy, the value of the free economic system, the value of making sure that each citizen is free and free to pursue their own God-given ambitions and to use the talents that they were given by God. And that is what we say to the rest of the world. That is why we participated in establishing a community of democracy within the Western Hemisphere. It's why we participate in all of these great international organizations.

There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power -- and here I think you're referring to military power -- then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with.

I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world.

(Applause.)

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.' "

The full transcript is here; http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Remarks+from+Colin+Powell,+US+Secretary+of+State

[Kitsune]

As far as Germany is concerned, the United States did not even ask for that...

No american soldier killed in WWII is buried in german soil.

[papabear]

He answered by saying that, "Over the years, the United States has sent
many of its fine young men and women into great peril to fight for
freedom beyond our borders. The only amount of land we have ever asked for in return is enough to bury those that did not return."


I doubt we will be burying any of our own in the Middle East, unless it's in unmarked graves. There'd be too much of a possibility of later desecration.

[hood]

well the key factor is that we have the ability to airlift out casualities with extreme ease at this point. Being able to fly from the US to the middle east and back in 1 flight has changed everything. We do bury Iraqi's there though. There's been several pictures of the US troops burying Iraqi dead.

[96B]

Kitsune, we were fighting Germany in WWII so why would you think that we would want our dead buried there? No offense at all I am just saying Germany was the enemy then, and Ive never really heard of mass burials of U.S. servicemen and women in enemy countries. I believe when he was referring to the asking for burial of our boys, it would be in an allied nation close to the deaths but nowadays they just fly them back home and I think its much better to have our dead buried in their homeland.

[yellowking]

Ive never really heard of mass burials of U.S. servicemen and women in enemy countries.

Well, except France. rofl

[Knave]

I believe when he was referring to the asking for burial of our boys, it would be in an allied nation close to the deaths but nowadays they just fly them back home and I think its much better to have our dead buried in their homeland.

Doubtless there are unofficial graves of American Servicemen in enemy countries; North Korea, Vietnam, China. British and Commonwealth servicemen, at least until recently, tend to be buried where they fall, so that "the soil they fought for with their final breath will be forever British."

[Bing]

yellowking, France wasn't a mass burial. A mass burial is when multiple bodies are put in the same grave. The site there is a large cemetary that soldiers were buried in.