Some Great Words from Colin Powell


There's a bit of an urban legend wandering around about Colin Powell's response to a question from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The sense of the legend is true, but the Secretary's words were adjusted a bit, as were the words the Archbishop used.

...Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild.

There's a bit of an urban legend wandering around about Colin Powell's response to a question from the Archbishop of Canterbury. The sense of the legend is true, but the Secretary's words were adjusted a bit, as were the words the Archbishop used. You can see the whole story here . However, there are a couple of quotes from Secretary Powell's actual speech worth quoting here. As a former competitive speaker, I much prefer his remarks as they represent a more extemporaneous response than the word-smithed urban legend:

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.



And then a little bit later:

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.



I guess that answered the Archbishop.

Posted: Thu - April 3, 2003 at 11:21 AM        

©