U.S. Politics / bounced checks and negative balances

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Many people outside of America probably disagrees with you there.

Many people inside America too!  That doesn't make them right.

[Spockydog]

4 minutes ago, DMC said:

In comparison to Cheney et al.'s role(s), yes, I do think his impact was minimal.

Yes, but he was still involved. He had a key fucking role. Lying to the rest of the world in order to sign them up to that madness.

It's like trying to claim that the person who invited a murder victim to a house, just so he could be murdered by a third party, isn't somehow culpable for that person's murder. 

You think that guy wouldn't be up before the beak as well?

[Spockydog]

5 minutes ago, DMC said:

Many people inside America too!  That doesn't make them right.

Well, yeah. I guess that depends on how you feel about mass murder.

[DMC]

Just now, Spockydog said:

It's like trying to claim that the person who invited a murder victim to a party, just so he could be murdered by a third party, isn't somehow culpable for that person's murder. Unbelievable.

I already went over the murder analogy with larry.  Did he make himself an accessory with that speech?  Yes.  But Cheney et al. are the actual murderers, and I think the difference is significant.

1 minute ago, Spockydog said:

Well, yeah. I guess it depends on how you feel about mass murder.

Your self-righteous statements are not a valid replacement for an actual argument.

[Spockydog]

3 minutes ago, DMC said:

I already went over the murder analogy with larry.  Did he make himself an accessory with that speech?  Yes.  But Cheney et al. are the actual murderers, and I think the difference is significant.

Yes. And in any court of law he would be up there in the dock as a co-defendant. And he would get done.

[DMC]

Just now, Spockydog said:

Yes. And in any court of law he would be up there in the dock as a co-defendant.

For what?  Making a bullshit speech to the UN to try to garner support for the invasion?  An effort that - btw - was effectively unsuccessful and had no actual bearing on Dubya's decision to invade, which he already made.  Please explain to me how in the hell that violates war crimes or crimes against humanity as they're understood by international law.

[Spockydog]

1 minute ago, DMC said:

For what?  Making a bullshit speech to the UN to try to garner support for the invasion?  An effort that - btw - was effectively unsuccessful and had no actual bearing on Dubya's decision to invade, which he already made.  Please explain to me how in the hell that violates war crimes or crimes against humanity as they're understood by international law.

He was a willing and able accomplice to a gang of thugs that deliberately killed millions of people. That is an inescapable truth. If you can't bring yourself to engage with that fact that then there's nothing I can do to help you.

[DMC]

2 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

He was a willing and able accomplice to a gang of thugs that deliberately killed millions of people. That is an inescapable truth. If you can't bring yourself to engage with that fact that then there's nothing I can do to help you.

You are the one who is now repeatedly escaping the question of how his UN speech constitutes such crimes comparable to those tried at Nuremberg.  I will take your evasion as an indication you have no legitimate argument.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

These comparisons of Powell's speech, again a speech that otherwise had little real world impact on the actual events that took place afterwards, to the Nazis are frankly insulting on a number of levels.

[Larry of the Lawn]

7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Easy to say on a message board without considering the mindset of someone in the military for that long. And you're acting like he had the information we have today back then. He had doubts, not proof that is was largely made up by the people he worked closely with.

No, it would absolutely not have stopped the war, in part because it's very unlikely he would have come out that strongly against it. It would have stopped nothing. All that we can conclude is that his reputation would be more intact and that the coalition would have possibly looked different. And we can also probably guess that the result would end up with a Bush Cabinet that would have been even more hardline.

He was the main voice of opposition in the room. That's a far cry from Trump's Cabinet meetings, for example. 

No, he did not. You're again ascribing way too much power to Powell here.

And My Lai represents another failure on his part, no one disagrees with this, but again, this is why context matters. He did whitewash the events, by all accounts, hence why he's not a martyr.

No. Powell is legitimately a great American. He's also imperfect, and when the moment called most for him he failed. badly. but that doesn't mean he deserves to get dragged like this less than 48 hours after he died. Save that shit for those who truly deserve it.

No he wasn't.  What's wrong with telling the truth about someone after they die?  

How is he a "great American"?

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 minute ago, 1066 Larry said:

No he wasn't.  What's wrong with telling the truth about someone after they die?  

How is he a "great American"?

Well for starters some of the things said here haven't even been true. People have made absolute assertions about things he thought and believed that are refuted by his own writings and interviews. 

He's the most respected and decorated post-WW2 general in many people's eyes, and that's when you include his speech to the U.N. He opened doors for so many people being the first African American to fill numerous roles, which includes President Obama who himself has said he likely would not have become President if not for Powell. He served his country honorably, though not perfectly, for seven decades and frankly has done more for this country than everyone who posts on this forum. And for that he's getting compared to the fucking Nazis by a bunch of keyboard warriors.

[The Mance]

5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

He's the most respected and decorated post-WW2 general in many people's eyes, and that's when you include his speech to the U.N. He opened doors for so many people being the first African American to fill numerous roles, which includes President Obama who himself has said he likely would not have become President if not for Powell. He served his country honorably, though not perfectly, for seven decades and frankly has done more for this country than everyone who posts on this forum

"But if you fuck just one goat..."

[sologdin]

disagree with the implication Powell's speech to the UN constitutes either war crimes or crimes against humanity. 

this is correct.  the former is jus in bello, and he really didn't have much to do with the conduct of the war, as i recall it.  the latter may not apply to the iraq war at all--maybe there were intentional systematic attacks against civilians, but i don't recall them.

the argument for powell's individual criminal responsibility would be that he is part of a conspiracy to commit the crime of aggression, or what they called the crime against peace at nuremberg.  as our justice jackson said at that time:  "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

considering that powell is plausibly part of the conspiracy to initiate aggressive war, he is chargeable for all acts of the conspiracy undertaken in furtherance thereof.  his own lack of candor at the UN is itself a substantial step in the furtherance of the conspiracy.  the rome statute did not have the crime of aggression back then, though, and the US hasn't ratified it.  so powell would've had to've been tried in an ad hoc international military tribunal, presumably set up by the iraqis after they repulsed the unlawful invasion and then counter-invaded to topple the criminal regime in the american empire, breaking up its holdings and replacing its leadership with sane, responsible public servants who would rewrite the US constitution under iraqi tutelage.

[Morpheus]

 There was nothing great about Colin Powell, he was an avatar for the worst of American military imperialism throughout his life and regardless of the effectiveness of the UN speech is complicit in the atrocities of the Iraq war, he put his name to it and he never publicly expressed doubt until we were already deep in the quagmire.  “He was a coward” is a poor defense, that he put being a good soldier above even trying to prevent or impact massive loss of life is itself damning.

[Morpheus]

Here is the thing with the U.N speech, he knowingly lied on the world stage and while he did not garner many international allies, I recall his speech impacting support for the war in the U.S. I definitely recall clips of his lies being played on a loop on the 24 hour networks as part of the propaganda push. People may have been skeptical of the WMD claims Bush was making from the podium, but a respected military figure willing to put his reputation on the line and present this information to other world powers helped people swallow the pill that we were entering another conflict. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Everyone slagging Colin Powell.  Trump agrees with you.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/19/trumps-post-mortem-roasting-of-powell-could-burn-him-in-the-end-516280?fbclid=IwAR0empywcIMHk-2lvf7pTwAmBf_j-h_q_6n74e2btEMF0PQWSi2ptJfEoJY

[Larry of the Lawn]

28 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Well for starters some of the things said here haven't even been true. People have made absolute assertions about things he thought and believed that are refuted by his own writings and interviews. 

He's the most respected and decorated post-WW2 general in many people's eyes, and that's when you include his speech to the U.N. He opened doors for so many people being the first African American to fill numerous roles, which includes President Obama who himself has said he likely would not have become President if not for Powell. He served his country honorably, though not perfectly, for seven decades and frankly has done more for this country than everyone who posts on this forum. And for that he's getting compared to the fucking Nazis by a bunch of keyboard warriors.

Just because he had to work twice as hard to obtain a position of power, that when he had it, he use to justify awful wars, doesn't make him great.  I don't see any value in the kind of "more minority drone pilots" type of diversity representation that middle america is so in love with.  Being a respected General in the US certainly doesn't make someone great- in fact it probably puts you in the company of people who are pretty terrible as a rule.  

WTF has Colin Powell done for his country other than perpetuate the war machine and try to put a good spin on killing a bunch of people all over the globe?  We're suppose to spin this into a positive because he's dead?

[DMC]

13 minutes ago, sologdin said:

the argument for powell's individual criminal responsibility would be that he is part of a conspiracy to commit the crime of aggression, or what they called the crime against peace at nuremberg.  as our justice jackson said at that time:  "To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."

Right.  If Powell's UN speech is to be evidence of anything relating to those tried at Nuremberg it would be the "planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression and other crimes against peace" charge.  But considering his limited capacity in the actual execution of the war as SoS, one has to wonder how many officials among the "coalition of the willing" are similarly complicit.  

[Larry of the Lawn]

12 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

Everyone slagging Colin Powell.  Trump agrees with you.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/19/trumps-post-mortem-roasting-of-powell-could-burn-him-in-the-end-516280?fbclid=IwAR0empywcIMHk-2lvf7pTwAmBf_j-h_q_6n74e2btEMF0PQWSi2ptJfEoJY

Trump probably also took a shit in the last 24 hours.  Doesn't mean I'm going to stop moving my bowels at the appropriate moment.  

 

[gruff one]

Saddam Hussein claimed to have WMD's. Doesn't really matter what Powell claimed.