Ser Scot A Ellison Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 3 minutes ago, 1066 Larry said: 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. Everyone shits. Not everyone has decided Powell is the equivalent of a defendant in Nuremburg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 27 minutes ago, 1066 Larry said: 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? If I were to identify a positive contribution that Powell made I'd probably center around the "Powell Doctrine." While still amoral, its requirements - if actually followed - would demand a much more restrained superpower and American MIC than the one seen throughout the Cold War. It also crystallizes the difference between Powell's realism and the neocons he was confronting. Of course, the dark irony is the Iraq War violated arguably every single precept of the Powell Doctrine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Spockydog Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 28 minutes ago, DMC said: If I were to identify a positive contribution that Powell made I'd probably center around the "Powell Doctrine." LMFAO. More practical would've been the Doyle Doctrine: Boners are rare, don't waste them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 Everyone slagging Colin Powell. Trump agrees with you. even a stopped stonehenge is correct once a year? 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. agreed, he's low on the list. at some point, you have to draw a line below which the responsibility for the war may not reside. otherwise, it's stalinist hangings for everyone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 1 hour ago, 1066 Larry said: 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? Well first of all he didn't have to work twice as hard to obtain a position of power. He was also held to a higher standard than others once he had it. You seem to be ignoring that, and you dig at middle America reflects it. Furthermore, your issue seems to be much more with the military writ large than actually with Powell, and you're using him as a punching bag because you have a problem with his profession. I don't share your anti-military views while also being able to say the military is not above reproach. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry of the Lawn Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said: Well first of all he didn't have to work twice as hard to obtain a position of power. He was also held to a higher standard than others once he had it. You seem to be ignoring that, and you dig at middle America reflects it. Furthermore, your issue seems to be much more with the military writ large than actually with Powell, and you're using him as a punching bag because you have a problem with his profession. I don't share your anti-military views while also being able to say the military is not above reproach. Ok, nothing in there explains what's so great about him. Again, what did he do for his country that was so great? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 Saw this first yesterday on CNN, while Psaki was doing a press conference, so I didn't see it in the papers until today's news cruise. Not for the first time has this guy been in FBI sights: "FBI searches D.C., NYC homes connected to Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska" https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-searches-oleg-deripaska-property/2021/10/19/ff151070-30f6-11ec-9241-aad8e48f01ff_story.html "F.B.I. Raids Homes Linked to Russian Oligarch Agents investigating whether Oleg Deripaska violated U.S. sanctions searched homes he has used in New York and Washington, D.C." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/us/politics/oleg-deripaska-fbi-raid.html "FBI Raids Homes of Russian Oligarch Oleg Deripaska" https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/10/fbi-raids-homes-of-russian-oligarch-oleg-deripaska.html The guy hasn't been in the US for years though, They Say. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Centrist Simon Steele Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 13 hours ago, Kalsandra said: He could have resigned and publicly stated that the intelligence we had did not indicate that Iraq had WMDs. I don't know that that would have been all that hard. Would it have stopped it? Probably not! But it certainly would have been something he could do instead of actively promoting it to the UN. At the time, had he done that, it would have probably changed lots of people's minds. Not the hardcore conservatives (of which I am ashamed to admit I was one at the time), but I kind of wonder if it would calmed down the bloodlust (too strong a word?) the U.S. was feeling at the time. If I remember right, he was well-respected by both sides which is why he was the one to deliver the message of why we needed to invade in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Centrist Simon Steele Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 50 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said: Well first of all he didn't have to work twice as hard to obtain a position of power. He was also held to a higher standard than others once he had it. You seem to be ignoring that, and you dig at middle America reflects it. Furthermore, your issue seems to be much more with the military writ large than actually with Powell, and you're using him as a punching bag because you have a problem with his profession. I don't share your anti-military views while also being able to say the military is not above reproach. Huh, this is new. You define yourself by the position one person takes and the opposite position to them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zorral Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 Longish read in the NY Times Magazine; it's also available as an audio recording. That vile excuse for a homo sap, Krysten Sinema, do you all think she'll be visiting Orban on her European political campaign fund-raising trip? "How the American Right Fell in Love With Hungary Some U.S. conservatives are taking a cue from Prime Minister Viktor Orban — how to use the power of the state to win the culture wars." https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/magazine/viktor-orban-rod-dreher.html? Quote .... Dreher’s motivations nonetheless differ somewhat from [Tucker] Carlson’s [who recently spent a lot of time in Hungary with Orban]. In his daily blog posts, Dreher writes mainly against what he refers to as “wokeness” — ideas about racial justice and gender identity that he believes lead Americans to hate America and children to reject their parents. After Carlson’s visit, Dreher wrote that he admires Orban because he “is willing to take the hard stances necessary to keep his country from losing its collective mind under assault by woke loonies.” When I asked him what he was hoping to learn during his sabbatical in Budapest, Dreher told me that he wanted to observe “to what extent politics can be a bulwark against cultural disintegration.” Having seen how ineffectual the Republican Party has been, he told me, “I’m wondering, Can it be done somewhere else, and what is the cost, and is the cost worth it?” He didn’t want to force his view on others, he said. But such passivity, he felt, was becoming self-defeating. The turn toward illiberal democracy — a state that rejects pluralism in favor of a narrow set of values — seemed imminent to him. “I realize that we’re at a point now where we have such cultural disintegration in the U.S. that the choice might actually be between an illiberal democracy of the left or an illiberal democracy of the right,” Dreher told me. “And if that’s true, then I want to understand as fully as I possibly can what the implications are.” .... Quote .... At a time when many, left and right, are pointing to the failures of liberalism and neoliberalism, Deneen suggested to me that Catholicism was becoming the religion of the intelligentsia. The president, the speaker of the House and six of the nine Supreme Court justices are Catholic (a seventh was raised Catholic), along with a number of prominent writers, many of them converts. “It’s a tradition that gives you the resources,” Deneen said, “for how to think outside of liberal categories.” .... Wait -- is he suggesting the 'intelligentsia' endorses pedoephilia? I do hear often the Roman Church is now an international pedoephilia network. . . . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sologdin Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 Saddam Hussein claimed to have WMD's. Doesn't really matter what Powell claimed. no need to take hussein's idle boasts seriously, considering that the UN inspectors had thoroughly locked down the weapons programs after 1991. members of the US government had previously thereto (rice, for instance) boasted that iraq was contained in a way that no state had ever been contained. not only the apogee of international cynicism, the US invasion reveals perhaps the ultimate act of world historical cowardice in using the UN to disarm iraq to the point of defenselessness before invading--worse than dropping more ordnance on indochina than was dropped in WW2 by all belligerents in all theaters, worse than invading tiny grenada for no reason, worse than deposing former CIA employee noriega for alleged narcotics trafficking, worse than overthrowing the elected governments of guatemala, iran, chile, brazil, and so on. perhaps sun tzu would approve the US tactic--engage only when victory is certain--but no one else has to like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Altherion Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 6 minutes ago, sologdin said: perhaps sun tzu would approve the US tactic--engage only when victory is certain--but no one else has to like it. It's a very good trick, but the only reason it worked was that Iraq was already thoroughly defeated in 1991. They would never have accepted the UN inspectors before the Gulf War; UNSC Resolution 687 (which orders Iraq to destroy the WMD and authorizes inspections) was the main component of the ceasefire agreement. It's not obvious why the Americans and Saudis declined finishing Saddam off in 1991 and then decided to do it in 2003 -- maybe he proved to be more of a nuisance than they thought he would or maybe the internal power structure of the US and Saudi Arabia changed to a point where elimination was favored. In more current news, it looks like the reconciliation package it is slowly being negotiated into form. This CNN article has a long list of things that are in, out or fluid, but if you just want the overall number: Quote Biden made clear the range was between $1.75 trillion to $1.9 trillion, though he repeatedly referred to it as a "$2 trillion" proposal, one member said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DireWolfSpirit Posted October 20, 2021 Author Share Posted October 20, 2021 2 hours ago, Centrist Simon Steele said: At the time, had he done that, it would have probably changed lots of people's minds. Not the hardcore conservatives (of which I am ashamed to admit I was one at the time), but I kind of wonder if it would calmed down the bloodlust (too strong a word?) the U.S. was feeling at the time. If I remember right, he was well-respected by both sides which is why he was the one to deliver the message of why we needed to invade in the first place. I remember being on a bus from Chicago where a bunch of protesters had converged. We were taking that bus to D.C. to protest the seeming imminent invasion. Bush was holding out to get some proclamation from the U.N., something, something, where it would make it legal under international rules. Powell's speech was the straw that broke everyone's back, most of us were hoping against hope that Bush could be dissuaded. I remember the collective groans and disappointment on that bus when someone played the speech. Scott Ritter had (the former weapons inspector) had already published his book going into great detail how Saddam had already completely dismantled his wmds inventory and it was documented by his team of inspectors. But the lazy and/or deceitful Bush administration couldn't be bothered to listen to the truth about a dismantled program. They had a lie to sell and Colin Powell, Cheney, Condi, Rumsfield, Wolfowitz will forever be the face and architects of that lie. Even though ordinary citizens like us on that bus and weapons inspectors were clamoring to point out the lie, we where drowned out. Colin helped make that possible in a major way. He will never be forgiven by me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rippounet Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 Had a class with master's students in international law just yesterday (many of them not French btw), just a few hours after Powell died, so that came up somehow... 5 hours ago, Morpheus said: 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. Yes, this is how he will be remembered outside the US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 9 minutes ago, Rippounet said: Had a class with master's students in international law just yesterday (many of them not French btw), just a few hours after Powell died, so that came up somehow... Yes, this is how he will be remembered outside the US. I think this is an interesting and useful point. What @Tywin et al. says about him - that he was a paragon of US military culture and success - is totally reasonable. This is also likely why he should be condemned. He was, at his core, not particularly different from any of the other military leadership that we have had for 40 years, and did not change things there in any meaningful way. At every turn he was decidedly with the status quo and good at promoting the standard way forward. And in 2003, his complicity was part of one of the largest war crimes in history. I guess I might say it another way - if you would celebrate US military leadership and think that they are good, Colin Powell is a great example of that. I would recommend that you don't celebrate that leadership. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Week Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/10/senator-joe-manchin-democratic-party-exit-plan-biden-infrastructure-deal-exclusive/ "SCOOP: Manchin Tells Associates He’s Considering Leaving the Democratic Party and Has an Exit Plan He could pull the trigger if he doesn’t get his way on the Build Back Better bill." More posturing IMO -- I can't imagine he'd ever stain himself by associating with the GQP. Maybe he thinks his life would be easier as an Independent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Prince of the North Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 42 minutes ago, Week said: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/10/senator-joe-manchin-democratic-party-exit-plan-biden-infrastructure-deal-exclusive/ "SCOOP: Manchin Tells Associates He’s Considering Leaving the Democratic Party and Has an Exit Plan He could pull the trigger if he doesn’t get his way on the Build Back Better bill." More posturing IMO -- I can't imagine he'd ever stain himself by associating with the GQP. Maybe he thinks his life would be easier as an Independent. Well, for what it's worth, Manchin says this isn't true. Quote Manchin told reporters that the story is “bullshit” and that he has “no control over the rumors.” ETA: fixed link, hopefully Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindwalker Posted October 20, 2021 Share Posted October 20, 2021 I wouldn't believe Manchin if he told me water was wet. That's not to say the story is true, but who cares which threats exactly he made? Point is they worked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalbear Posted October 21, 2021 Share Posted October 21, 2021 FUCK JOE MANCHIN HERE ARE OTTERS SPINNING Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
A True Kaniggit Posted October 21, 2021 Share Posted October 21, 2021 11 hours 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 Others have already made their points, but I want to quote my favorite Harry Potter FanFic. Reversed stupidity is not intelligence; the world's stupidest person may say the sun is shining, but that doesn't make it dark out... Methods of Rationality. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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