Secretary of Defense, Who's Next?

[StrangeSox]

OK, I find your views on this bizarre and lacking consideration of the realities of the job. I also think you are placing blame in entirely the wrong place. But clearly I won't be changing your mind.

 

What are the realities of the job that force him to ignore the vetting of his speech by his own intelligence group? What are the realities of the job that require him to abandon his own conscience if he truly had doubts? Would you willingly give a speech full of claims you know are questionable at best, a speech designed to gain international support for launching a war?

 

Powell is not solely to blame for the Iraq war. He did not push the administration into it. There are plenty of others that failed miserably in the run-up to and execution of the war and reconstruction period. But he willingly allowed himself to be exploited to convince the international community of the strength of their claims despite knowing the serious doubts about those claims. He does not deserve to be excused or forgiven for his disastrous UN speech or his previous history of lying to the public to please those in power. He should not granted a similar position ever again.

 

edit: Powell may be like Joe Paterno. He's far from the worst person in the story, but he's still pretty terrible and deserves plenty of blame for his actions and for his part in the cover-up.

Edited November 27, 2012 by StrangeSox

[knightni]

There's only one Secretary of Defense.

 

[Jake]

George Schultz threatened to quit his job as SoS several times when he disagreed with his POTUS's position.

 

The 'Saturday Night Massacre' in the midst of Watergate is an example of TWO people quitting their job to avoid doing something shady. The third guy did the deed and immediately resigned afterwards.

Edited November 27, 2012 by Jake

[Texsox]

Sold out his entire career? Where do you get this stuff?

 

Powell was the one guy in the close circle with Bush who tried, repeatedly, to talk him and the others out of going into Iraq. He questioned it from multiple viewpoints, and tried to sell his reasoning to Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and others... to no avail. The policy direction was set, and he could not control that. So, he was given partial charge of getting the intelligence associated with Iraq's bad intentions. He shot down multiple of these as well, and was even accused of hiding some of it from the administration. Finally, when that frat boy who was running CIA had what he called the evidence that was needed, Powell pressed him hard. Frat boy gave the now-infamous "slam dunk" response - the head of the CIA said the evidence was a slam dunk. Powell, at this point, was STILL skeptical, but knew he had a job to do. So he said, fine, I'll show this stuff to the UN and the world... but you, CIA guy, are going to stand right be-f***ing-side me while I do it. If I go down for this, you are coming with me.

 

Now... tell me how, that person, instead of the dozens of others who feverishly pushed the war machine into Iraq, is somehow responsible for starting the war in Iraq. And tell me how he sold out, when he clearly tried every avenue available, and still had a job to do.

 

Powell is the guy LEAST responsible for any of that s***. And his performance during it, is exactly why I think he'd made an excellent SecDef for Obama.

 

Wish I wrote this.

[lostfan]

If the realities of the job at the state department involve lying to the American Public to start a war...then it's not a job worth keeping, because any concept that he was somehow making things better by providing a different voice was untrue.

 

Colin Powell destroyed his reputation that day and should have known better. But we never condemn people for advocating for war in this country, we never condemn people who fail to stop war, who enable it, whatever.

 

Oh...and in terms of Powell actually making things better by staying in his position...a large portion of the post-war reconstruction failures ought to be laid at his feet as well. The State Department had a full year to plan for what to do when the rest of them got their war...and it took an extra 3 years, until Rice took over and Powell was gone, for the State Department to figure out a strategy in Iraq and actually have anyone listen to them.

This had more to do with the priorities of the administration than it did with Powell. Billions and billions for the DoD but the State Department was an afterthought, and they'd even have the military doing stuff State should've been doing. That didn't change until some time well into Bush's second term (by which time Rice was SoS). Remember the surge and Rumsfeld leaving, Gates coming on, and the military doing a complete change in strategy after the administration admitted (through actions, not verbally) it didn't know what the f*** it was doing? Something like that. It all kinda happened at the same time. That wasn't Powell's fault, it was Bush's security team of neocons and loons who had no business in positions of power.

[Balta1701]

This had more to do with the priorities of the administration than it did with Powell. Billions and billions for the DoD but the State Department was an afterthought, and they'd even have the military doing stuff State should've been doing. That didn't change until some time well into Bush's second term (by which time Rice was SoS). Remember the surge and Rumsfeld leaving, Gates coming on, and the military doing a complete change in strategy after the administration admitted (through actions, not verbally) it didn't know what the f*** it was doing? Something like that. It all kinda happened at the same time. That wasn't Powell's fault, it was Bush's security team of neocons and loons who had no business in positions of power.

And so clearly, it was incredibly important that Colin Powell stay in that position. After all, everyone was listening to him, he was doing such great work, refusing to sell his soul in that speech and instead resigning would have cost the state department so much influence and made them so much less effective!

[Texsox]

This had more to do with the priorities of the administration than it did with Powell. Billions and billions for the DoD but the State Department was an afterthought, and they'd even have the military doing stuff State should've been doing. That didn't change until some time well into Bush's second term (by which time Rice was SoS). Remember the surge and Rumsfeld leaving, Gates coming on, and the military doing a complete change in strategy after the administration admitted (through actions, not verbally) it didn't know what the f*** it was doing? Something like that. It all kinda happened at the same time. That wasn't Powell's fault, it was Bush's security team of neocons and loons who had no business in positions of power.

 

I think your military perspective adds extra validity to your points.

[lostfan]

I think your military perspective adds extra validity to your points.

Nah it adds jack diddly s***, I saw all the same things you guys saw when you saw them. The only differences:

 

1) I watched Powell give his speech in Kuwait. I watched Bush give his speech in the same building, in a different office

2) You guys found out about the 26 Tomahawk missile strikes that started the war when they hit Baghdad. I found out about them when they were launched hours earlier. That happened in prime time for you at something like 8 pm whereas for me it was almost the crack of dawn.