Lawrence B. Wilkerson

Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff to secretary of State Colin Powell and is a frequent critic of the George W. Bush administration, said Obama and Clinton were delivering long-overdue candor. "What a refreshing moment it is to have a president ...

"It's idiocy" to retain a counter-productive Cold War policy, said Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as former Secretary of State Colin Powell's chief of staff, and now leads a Cuban policy initiative for the New America Foundation. ...

But as Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, and others have explained, Israel's leaders in fact repeatedly warned against an attack on Saddam, fearing it would distract from, and embolden, what it regarded as the real threat, ...

... in American foreign policy," write Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief-of-staff to Colin Powell, and Patrick Doherty, from the New America Foundation. ...

With his national security team in place, President-elect Barack Obama's foreign policy principals will be immediately struck by how many complex and expensive challenges they will face. Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Israel-Palestine and Russia, will all require enormous energy, all the tools in our foreign policy toolbox, and will all take years to resolve, if they can be resolved. None of these crises will allow President Obama to signal swiftly to the world the kind of changes he proposes in American foreign policy. In contrast,

Foreign Policy: What do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of each of the candidates in foreign policy? Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: Both have strengths. I’m not quite sure what I would describe as Obama’s weaknesses, not because I’m trying to say that he’s perfect but because he’s so unflappable and so far his pronouncements have been so solid. I’m not happy with his reluctance to be more forward on U.S.-Cuba policy. I’m not happy with the need to… more

If you live in Galveston, Texas, Hurricane Ike will be remembered for its destruction. But history may remember the ninth named storm of the 2008 season for swinging the 2008 presidential campaign.

That's because Ike devastated a little island off Florida named Cuba. In fact, Cuba sustained damage from four hurricanes: Fay, Gustav, Hanna and Ike. Gustav hit the Western end of Cuba as a Category 4 storm. Ike entered the east of Cuba as a strong Category 3 then shredded the full length of the island for three days.… more

A former U.S. military official says U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney may have known military personnel were using torture techniques on Iraqi detainees.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson told a House panel he thought leadership failed "at the highest levels of the Pentagon, in the vice president's office and perhaps even in the Oval Office," The Washington Times reported Thursday.

Wilkerson's testimony followed a report by a human rights group that detainees in U.S. military facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba., Iraq and Afghanistan were… more

[The Daily Dish:]...Larry Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff explains what this means in terms any morally responsible person would understand:

"As I compiled my dossier for Secretary Powell, as I did further research, and as my views grew firmer and firmer, I needed frequently to reread that memo. I needed to balance, in my own mind, the overwhelming evidence that my own government had sanctioned abuse and torture which, at its worst, had led to the murder of 25… more

'A Family Business' (Finanical Times Analysis Online)

To the generation of Cuban exiles that has spent almost half a century dreaming of the day Fidel Castro left power, last week came as a cruel disappointment.

While the legendary revolutionary leader finally stepped down as head of state, the communist government he set up maintains its grip on a calm and stable Cuba. With no sign of a fundamental policy shift in Havana, Washington is also continuing the economic embargo introduced… more