I ‘d like to congratulate Congressional candidate Kevin Powell; few candidates for any office have been as explicit in making clear their policy views as Powell has in his magnum opus: “THE PLAN: A New Agenda for the 21st Century.
Unfortunately, “THE PLAN” arrived on line a little late in the campaign, at a point when we’d already stopped taking Kevin seriously. This is sad, because its 58 pages contain a potential goldmine of material for the political private eye, and come tonight at 9:00 PM, it will surely be cast upon the dustbin of his history along with its “author”.
"THE PLAN" is something of a mess; it begins with a “Policy Outline” that doesn’t track what follows, and somewhere in the middle appears a three page autobiographical essay (the rest of the document is written in the third person) called “Black and Male in America”.
Some of the choices are interesting. Kevin has a strange obsession with not taking a position on the Cross-Harbor Tunnel which probably would better have been served by not mentioning it at all.
I went long and hard through the sections on foreign policy and defense looking for any indication that Kevin could ever favor the use of US force anywhere in the world for any reason; I could not find it. I’ll admit Kevin does concede in a backhanded way that we should maintain some sort of military (albeit massively reduced), but except for the fact that what little remains should be open to the LGBT community, Kevin did not seem to feel that the military serves much purpose.
Despite a somewhat detailed foreign policy outline (and other sections dealing with international issues), while I could discern Kevin’s position on Iraq [(a) Get Out; (b) bring the troops home], I could not discern his position on Afghanistan, other than that he wants to talk (which seems to be his solution to practically every aspect of his life) though the context leads one to suspect that Kevin does not agree with the Obama surge.
Strangely, the only place where Kevin bothered to outline his position in more detail was the Israel-Arab conflict.
As my readers know, I am a moderate Zionist favoring a two-state solution. Mr. Powell also favors a two-state solution. However, his way of saying so, in the context of all else he says, leads one to be concerned that the two states he seeks are “Gaza” and “The West Bank”.
Why do I say this?
–“Reexamining our military aid policies to belligerent nations that threaten their neighbors or commit repeated and severe violations of the human rights of their citizens or prisoners for purposes of political coercion.”
— “Replacing military aid to the region with public service development grants, funding for social services, water purification, school and clinic construction and small business development grants (expanded micro-loan programs) etc.”
— “Supporting the end of the illegal settlements on Palestinian land and returning to the 1967 treaty agreement and two state solution and international Jerusalem for the time Being.”—-That “FOR THE TIME BEING” part seems especially ominous, no? Usually, this is the language used by those hoping for an eventual "One State (Arab) Solution".
– “Encouraging and engaging in cross-cultural exchange programs with Middle Eastern countries (i.e. ping pong to China).”–Sorry, I could resist including it.
— “Seeking to elevate the deplorable conditions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip that help extremists and drive young people to violence and terrorism.”
— “Working with the Arab League and UN to resolve regional conflicts.”
— “Ending the use of targeted killings by the US and Israel.”—Apparently, the targeted killings by everyone else are just dandy. Oh yeah, I forgot Hamas and Hezbollah don’t target individual actors who may have engaged in acts of terror; they kill innocent civilians en masse. So, of course there is a moral distinction (by the way there is nothing here about ending that sort of thing)
— “Holding Middle Eastern governmental and US personnel legally responsible for human rights violations.”
Folks, combined with his past statements about Durban, I think it is safe to conclude, “FOR THE TIME BEING”, that Kevin Powell is ANTI-ISRAEL.