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Colin Powell Dead at 84


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10 hours ago, bullet said:

We were already at war with Iraq.  They were firing at our planes over Kurdistan every week.  Sooner or later they would hit one and take pilots hostage.  Sadaam had bribed top officials in Russia, Germany and France and so the embargo was disentegrating.  Sadaam was one of the most dangerous and crazy leaders of the last 50 years.  Sanctions were falling apart and oil prices were going up.  A Sadaam with money was very dangerous.  He fired Scuds at Israel.  He gassed the Kurds.  He wasn't like Qaddafi who behaved once Reagan bombed his houses and killed some of his family.  He was a flat out dangerous nut.  Iraq was the right war at the right time even if the intelligence on WMD was garbage.  It was mishandling the peace in the aftermath that cost all the lives.  The war was done flawlessly.  The peace was a disaster.  Nation building was a disaster.  Promoting sectarian differences was a disaster.  Then Obama pretended none of those problems existed and let ISIS take over 1/3 of Iraq and 1/2 of Syria.  Once the war was over there were mistakes aplenty for years.

Was the Kool-Aid tasty?

That's pretty much a re-rerun of all the apologists at the time.

The only solution was a trillion dollar invasion that removed a counter force to Iran, killed hundreds of thousands, created new terrorist enemies, and further eroded international trust in the war policy decisions of the United States?

Now that's imaginitive problem-solving! Right up there with we'll save Thailand and Australia from communism by committing to a long, deadly, costly, and divisive war in Viet Nam.

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The war was done flawlessly.  The peace was a disaster.  Nation building was a disaster. 

You've blundered into succinctly expressing the brutality and stupidity of our foreign policy. Like a football game, winning a war is an end unto itself. The aftermath is a whole different consideration not to be included in deciding to launch a massive invasion of another country. Who is next on the war schedule? I like the way our wars are going, we might just run the table!

This is really handy politically because you can reap the benefit of "victory" while blaming those who follow you for the fallout. You can even dupe millions of people into thinking the same way.

You have evidently decided that lying to start a war that does us harm in the long run is justified if we kick some Haji ass. It's the insecure adolescent male approach to war policy: let's show 'em (safely and vicariously through our Alabama-esque military) that we're tough and not to be laughed at behind our backs!

Hundreds of thousands dead? Wrecked country? Huge debt? We had to do it for reasons other than those given by the administration, you pussy!

Such is the cycle for American wars. We were attacked once by Japan which justified an easy decision on going to war. Fuck yea. We pretend that every war since is the same thing.

Congratulate yourself on your part in this bloody carnage fest carried out with odd pride. I don't usually have such scorn for a poster generally unfamiliar to me, but you earned it.

May God be indifferent to your soul.

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31 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

No I didn’t mean that. Both clearly detest him. Powell was more vocal about it. Bush didn’t criticize sitting presidents. 

Yeah, Trump himself released an unhinged statement trashing Powell the day after his death. I think it’s pretty clear Powell wasn’t on team Trump and never tried to hide it.

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42 minutes ago, hpslugga said:

You’re responding to a quote that’s clearly indicative a truly degenerate mind. We shouldn’t be wasting time responding to people whose values are such that they can justify the fucking invasion of Iraq. That’s about as depraved as it is possible to be.

Because he's responding out of the habit of parroting Rush and GOP nonsense for decades doesn't necessarily mean that he's a Trumpist denying all truth.

If he is just a habitually loyal GOP, maybe he'll abandon them rather than remain loyal to the GQP. Maybe knowing he can do so without being forced to be a life-long Dem or ebil lib, will lead him towards the light.

Many ex-GOPs have already made the leap. They seem to think the water's fine. They likely sleep better at night, too.

He may not abandon his opinion about the war, but maybe he'll put some air between himself and the party doing everything evil they accused feminists, environmentalists, unions, the press, scientists, George Soros, and lawyers of doing. Hate must be exhausting at times.

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45 minutes ago, Dr. Beeper said:

No I didn’t mean that. Both clearly detest him. Powell was more vocal about it. Bush didn’t criticize sitting presidents. 

Trump was clearly an outlier among sitting presidents. Who more than a former president could recognize the extent of Trump's abuse of power, dishoesty, and threat to democratic institutions?

You don't need to extend traditional courtesy to a would-be tyrant. Bush's silence allowed Trump to expand and tighten his grip on Bush's political party. 

Self-preservation is the most innocent of Bush's reasons. Either through intentional blindness or plain stupidity, Bush has lent support of all the dark side of the GOP. His notion of a humble foreign policy and compassion largely evaporated as he stepped in line with the neo-cons and Halliburton's Dick Cheney.

Bush was the head liar promoting the disastrous invasion of Iraq. By not openly criticizing- fuck that, opposing!- Trump, he made his decision of what kind of Republican was tolerable. Trump was/is intolerable.

He's not clean. I wouldn't sit on the porch and laugh it up with him over a couple of beers. He shouild be thankful Trump left the country in worse shape than he did; it actually makes his incompetence look not so bad.

 

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1 hour ago, RomaVicta said:

Bush was the head liar promoting the disastrous criminal invasion of Iraq. By not openly criticizing- fuck that, opposing!- Trump, he made his decision of what kind of Republican was tolerable. Trump was/is intolerable.

FIFY

 

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I don’t know if you’re familiar with Le Show, a program by Harry Shearer that’s broadcast on my local NPR station every Sunday. Today he rebroadcast an interview with Greg Thielmann, a former analyst with the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), the intelligence bureau within the State Dept. where he was working during the run up to the Iraq war. It’s from Jan. 27, 2013 and gives some insight on Colin Powell’s involvement. Everything comports with what I’ve always read, heard, and understood about the subject. You can listen to the interview or you can read the transcript.

https://harryshearer.com/transcript-greg-thielmann-interview/

He wishes Powell would have acted differently but he acknowledges the political pressures he was under. He also says that Powell was the one who wanted to take the case to the UN. The Bush administration wanted to act unilaterally. Nowhere does he claim Powell knowingly lied. He does complain that Powell didn’t listen enough to his own intelligence bureau. But he acknowledges that Powell observed his job to be to give advice to the President behind closed doors and then, when the President made a decision, to salute and follow orders.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

They just had his funeral today. That seems like a long wait. I didn’t know this but apparently he was a big ABBA fan.  Maybe they were waiting for the release of ABBA’s new single. Dick Armitage recounted a story about how Sweden’s Foreign Minister presented Powell with a complete collection of their albums and Powell got down on one knee and sang Mama Mia.

And the band played Dancing Queen. Third song after Marley’s Three Little Birds and before Amazing Grace and God Bless America. Help me out here. I know I know that first song but I can’t put my finger on it.

Those arrangements are sweet and the band is tight. As you might have guessed, i love a good all brass band.

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1 hour ago, WhatTheBuck said:

They just had his funeral today. That seems like a long wait. I didn’t know this but apparently he was a big ABBA fan.  Maybe they were waiting for the release of ABBA’s new single. Dick Armitage recounted a story about how Sweden’s Foreign Minister presented Powell with a complete collection of their albums and Powell got down on one knee and sang Mama Mia.

And the band played Dancing Queen. Third song after Marley’s Three Little Birds and before Amazing Grace and God Bless America. Help me out here. I know I know that first song but I can’t put my finger on it.

Those arrangements are sweet and the band is tight. As you might have guessed, i love a good all brass band.

Paul Simon - American Tune

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On 10/25/2021 at 1:09 AM, WhatTheBuck said:

But he acknowledges that Powell observed his job to be to give advice to the President behind closed doors and then, when the President made a decision, to salute and follow orders.

I've shied away from these threads, but this is what I've heard, and I would like to believe, because outside of Iraq, I think Powell was an amazing person, and he should have been on the ticket in '96 or '00.  He was definitely more fit to be President than everybody we've had since George H.W.. Bush.

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