General Powell; Fatally Flawed

October 19, 2008
General Powell; Fatally Flawed

I appear to be reacting instead of acting lately! General Powell's endorsement of Obama brought to the surface some very strong feelings of betrayal that had sort of gotten buried a bit by time. But when they hit, they hit hard. I still honestly believe General Powell to be a good man. I used to believe he might even be a great man. But I learned, to my great disappointment, that his "fatal flaw" is that his judgment and recommendations are simply not to be trusted.

At one time I had a great deal of respect for General Powell. That was before he stood before the United Nations and stared us all in the eye and lied about the existence of WMDs in Iraq, claiming personal knowledge that he knew this to be true. I think the war in Iraq is an abomination and horrendously immoral [and said so, loudly, long before "shock & awe" when I was a very lonely voice].

I wasn't blogging then, but see this from "the last time around": four years ago, shortly after that election:

http://alaskanwoulds.blogspot.com/2008/09/monday-november-08-2004-preemptive.html

I wouldn't have been so lonely in opposing the war initially if General Powell had not made the case for the war ... by flat-out lying. Lots of people who didn't trust Bush trusted Powell. And he sold us down the river. We might never have got into that immoral disaster that has ruined our standing in the world and destroyed our economy (and had more additional negative effects than there is room to list) if it hadn't been for Powell.

This is a link to the verbatim transcript of what he said (plus video, plus copies of the slides he showed ... everything). It was a few years ago so you've probably forgotten parts; it is well worth reading again:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html

For those who can't be bothered, a few specific quotes ... the exact words of General Powell:

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."

"Saddam Hussein and his regime are not just trying to conceal weapons, they're also trying to hide people."

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries."

"I believe that Iraq is now in further material breach of its obligations. I believe this conclusion is irrefutable and undeniable."

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are sophisticated facilities. For example, they can produce anthrax and botulinum [sic] toxin. In fact, they can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. And dry agent of this type is the most lethal form for human beings."

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction."

"Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets ... Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them again, against his neighbors and against his own people."

"People will continue to debate this issue, but there is no doubt in my mind, these elicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program, the ability to produce fissile material."

"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more."

"The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world."

And to top it all off, he basically asks the world (and us) to trust him (as so many did because we believed we could) by saying:

"I cannot tell you everything that we know."

And that is just a few tiny snippets ... he really lays it on thick. And we know that he wasn't just innocently making a mistake! He ran the State Department and he insisted that "we know". And we now know that he absolutely did not know and in fact a lot of the supposed evidence was forged, fraudulent junk!

So who is starting to look more like the "continuation of George Bush" now? Bush and Powell lied to us and by doing so did us incalculable damage. Now we have Obama, a proven liar, glowing in the endorsement of the most destructive liar we've experienced in a very long time.

Thank goodness Powell didn't endorse McCain! For any thinking person who believes that we shouldn't have attacked Iraq (one of whom Obama claims to be!), an endorsement by the liar that got us there should be considered the kiss of death. [Yeah, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld ... they all lied also ... but most of us didn't trust them! We, myself included I'm ashamed to say, did trust Powell. When he said we should go to war because he knew Iraq had WMDs I was almost physically ill because someone I respected so much said that (and that was without having a clue that he was lying!).

Well, I don't respect him nearly so much now (although I tried to regain some over the years by attempting to convince myself that he was just repeating what he had been told, but that just isn't a good enough justification - nor is it true - nor is it what he said. He said he knew that Saddam had WMDs) ... but once again he has proven his judgment has huge holes in it. Both his assertion that he knew Saddam still had WMDs and that we should take him out because of it ... and his endorsement of Obama are terrible, terrible judgments.

If his endorsement proves critical to Obama winning, Powell will have the singular distinction of being the only non-president who has led this nation into its two worst mistakes of the last few decades.

I might well have voted for Powell for President in 2000 if he would have run. That's one of the things that keeps me aware that even my own judgment can be wrong; a realization that is clearly not shared by many other bloggers or posters :-)