March 26, 2003
Did he really say it?
I recently received this in email:
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.
While this is a great quote, I can not seem to find any corroboration. Google only turns up three fairly jingoistic web sites which include this quote but without any formal attribution. And, as great a quote as it is, I don't think it is strictly true: We got quite a bit of land in the Mexican-American and Spanish-American wars.
Posted by David at March 26, 2003 07:23 PM | EditHey Dave
I specifically recall seeing Powell utter something like this quote while speaking to teens and young adults in an MTV sponsored Q&A program about a year and a bit ago.
It wouldn't surprise me if he did say this to the Archbishop as I have heard him say this kind of thought before.
Powell did say those exact words as part of an answer to a question from The Archbishop Of Canterbury during Powell's address at a recent meeting of the World Economic Forum. However, both the Archbishop's question and Powell's answer are both extremely simplified in the email that is floating around. See http://www.weforum.org/site/homepublic.nsf/Content/Remarks+from+Colin+Powell,+US+Secretary+of+State
He did say this but his full comment at this URL:
http://www.immigrantsforamerica.com/powell.world.economic.forum.speech.html