[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Excuse me? Did you miss a newsletter or something? The Official White Codeword for “black person who speaks Standard English” is “articulate”. Also, because he doesn’t have any illegitimate children and has never been in jail, he’s officially “a credit to his race”. Please try to keep your OWCs straight.
[/QUOTE]
Sorry, it’s so hard to remember how to properly patronize minorities. It’s a real white man’s burden.
[QUOTE=Miller]
Sorry, it’s so hard to remember how to properly patronize minorities. It’s a real white man’s burden.
[/QUOTE]
I hear you. Incidentally, I bet Colin Powell is a great dancer.
You think he knows where I can get some weed?
[QUOTE=choie]
Unlike an officer of the Titanic, Powell had the freedom to do something that might have helped:
Resign.
And I don’t mean the chickenshit form of resignation – “to be with my family” “to pursue other opportunities” (c.f. Christine Todd Whitman, Andrew Card, Norm Mineta*). He should’ve resigned his ass in protest, publicly stating his disagreement with the fuckheaded policies of this administration. That’s how they do things in Great Britain.
[/QUOTE]
I agree with that a lot and I wish it was done more in the US. Had he done so, he would have done a great public service. He may have considered it and had to weigh that vs. his desire to stick around as long as possible to keep at least one sane person in the administration.
[QUOTE=rjung]
Since Powell gave his infamous “bullshit” presentation on the UN, wouldn’t a more apt analogy be comparing him to an officer who receives an order to go full speed in iceberg-ridden waters – and does so knowing it’s a bad decision?
[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, I think that’s how we’re going to remember him. I bet he regrets it. But if he didn’t do it, somebody else would have. Condi would have taken his job earlier had he stuck to his guns and refused to give that speech.
[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
But if he didn’t do it, somebody else would have. Condi would have taken his job earlier had he stuck to his guns and refused to give that speech.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, somebody else would have, but there are other factors to consider. He was tapped for the job precisely because of his credibility (then) with the world community, a credibility no other administration officer could match. There were strong doubts already about the strength of the WMD case, and the hope obviously was that Powell’s endorsement would push it over. If somebody else had given the speech, it would have worked even less well than it did.
Another thing to consider is that he always had the opportunity to use his credibility, his standing, to speak out and tell the facts as he knew them even after resigning, opposing a war he knew to be misguided and based on lies. He never did. He’s a company man to the core.
[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
Unfortunately, I think that’s how we’re going to remember him. I bet he regrets it. But if he didn’t do it, somebody else would have. Condi would have taken his job earlier had he stuck to his guns and refused to give that speech.
[/QUOTE]
Ah yes, the old “If I didn’t do it someone else would have” excuse. I’m offeren $10000 to beat up some 10 year old on his way home from school. I take the money on the ground that if I didn’t take it someone else would. If Powell really did object as trenuously as is being sid here, then he knew going to war was at best damned foolish and at worst a possible disaster. But he publicly supported GW anyway because if he hadn’t done it somebody else would have? No wonder he is so respected for his credibility.
[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Incidentally, I bet Colin Powell is a great dancer.
[/QUOTE]
Mediocre.
[QUOTE=Excalibre]
Incidentally, I bet Colin Powell is a great dancer.
[/quote]
Does he also play basketball and date white women?
(Channeling Aaron MacGruder’s The Boondocks there ;))
[QUOTE=David Simmons]
Ah yes, the old “If I didn’t do it someone else would have” excuse. I’m offeren $10000 to beat up some 10 year old on his way home from school. I take the money on the ground that if I didn’t take it someone else would. If Powell really did object as trenuously as is being sid here, then he knew going to war was at best damned foolish and at worst a possible disaster. But he publicly supported GW anyway because if he hadn’t done it somebody else would have? No wonder he is so respected for his credibility.
[/QUOTE]
I think we need to hear from Powell himself on this one before we pass judgement on him. Was it a question of being highly skeptical about the claims or did he positively know them to be false? If it was mere skepticism, he might have been railroaded into it by the false urgency being professed by every other person at the table. Or he could have been told to overplay the hand to force Saddam into being more compliant with UN resolutions. I would bet that if you could get him to talk off the record, he’d readily admit that he made a huge mistake in giving that speech. Whether he would have better served the country by resigning in protest or not is debatable. I just think we were better served by having one sane person remain in the Bush administration as long as possible.
[QUOTE=BobLibDem]
I think we need to hear from Powell himself on this one before we pass judgement on him. Was it a question of being highly skeptical about the claims or did he positively know them to be false? If it was mere skepticism, he might have been railroaded into it by the false urgency being professed by every other person at the table. Or he could have been told to overplay the hand to force Saddam into being more compliant with UN resolutions. I would bet that if you could get him to talk off the record, he’d readily admit that he made a huge mistake in giving that speech. Whether he would have better served the country by resigning in protest or not is debatable. I just think we were better served by having one sane person remain in the Bush administration as long as possible.
[/QUOTE]
I’m not inclined to cut anyone any slack when it comes to making decisions regarding war and peace. These guys get deference, fame, and the opportunity to be on boards of directors at high pay as a result of their resume. At that level and in matters of that consequence they had better be right or they will and should take their lumps.
[QUOTE=choie]
Unlike an officer of the Titanic, Powell had the freedom to do something that might have helped:
Resign.
And I don’t mean the chickenshit form of resignation – “to be with my family” “to pursue other opportunities” (c.f. Christine Todd Whitman, Andrew Card, Norm Mineta*). He should’ve resigned his ass in protest, publicly stating his disagreement with the fuckheaded policies of this administration. That’s how they do things in Great Britain.
But no, you don’t see that here in the U.S., certainly not in the Republican administration. Perish the thought! Here the politicians who may have some meager vestiges of conscience clamp down on those better instincts, bowing like toadies and slinking away to well-paid consultancies – in short, receiving gold for their silence.
The only two people involved in this administration who had anything like a noble departure are Richard Clarke and Paul O’Neill, and that’s because instead of just stepping quietly like good little soldiers, they spoke up.
Oh and before someone brings up Powell’s military background as an excuse for him keeping his mouth shut, I remind you of these four-star generals, who really knew what serving our country is all about.
I am not done with the book yet but it seems clear to me that the entire "let’s go to the U.N. thing was anathema to Cheney and Powell pushed the point hoping that the U.N. would tie things up for a while (I don’t know if he was hoping for more damning intelligence or if he was hoping that it would tie up the progress to war indefinitely). He was pretty adamant in pushing for a U.N. resolution to invade Iraq, then at some point between when he said we needed a U.N. resolution to invade Iraq and when we actually invaded Iraq, he got cut out of the loop by Cheney and Rumsfeld. Cheney and Rumsfeld said “to heck with it, Mr. President, we HAVE to invade and we should do it now while we have British support and public support”
I don’t think we can paint him with the same brush as Cheney and Rumsfeld. I mean Rumsfeld was trying his damnedest to make this look (to the President) like an easy in and out operation when EVERYONE else around him was saying that making war in Iraq would be easy, making peace in Iraq would be damneded near impossible. That’s when Powell said, “you break it you bought it” but Cheney and Rumsfeld were just dead set on invading Iraq.
While we are being entertained by memories of shenanigans at the UN; who remembers Mr Firm and Resolved himself, Mr I Follow Through on What I Say, when he firmly resolved and said that he would put the invasion of Iraq to a UN vote, compelling the Security Council members to lay their cards on the Table?
[QUOTE=Sevastopol]
While we are being entertained by memories of shenanigans at the UN; who remembers Mr Firm and Resolved himself, Mr I Follow Through on What I Say, when he firmly resolved and said that he would put the invasion of Iraq to a UN vote, compelling the Security Council members to lay their cards on the Table?
[/QUOTE]
He couldn’t because there were at least 2 permanent members that were likely to veto action in Iraq and they didn’t have the votes in any event. So their choice was to force a vote and lose and then try to invade in the face of direct evidence that they were contravening U.N. will in the name of enforcing a U.N. resolution OR they could just put together a coalition of the willing and invade on the theory that most of the world wasn’t willing to stand up to the USA in order to protect Saddam Hussein.
Not “couldn’t”.
“Wouldn’t”
And in any case he was not going to get a majority of the 15 UNSC members.