After joe Wilson’s revelation that Saddam had not tried to purchase Uranium in Niger, when Colin Powell piled on and said be was “betrayed’ by bad intelligence and the Bush Administration, I had a bad feeling that something wasn’t right with Colin Powell.
That piling on gave credence to the “Bush Lied” notion that grew and grew, and grave consequences for the Bush Administration and for our effort in Iraq followed. It was the tipping point moment that changed a positive outlook of the American Public on the War to a negative one.
Only much later do we find out that:
• Joe Wilson lied and Colin Powell had to know it at the time.
• That the Plame leak came out of Powell’s office, by his #2 Richard Armitage.
• That Marc Grossman, Powell’s #3, was a good friend of Joe Wilson and his former college roomate.
• That Colin Powell was always against the War in Iraq, as he was against the Gulf War.
• That Iraq was actually much closer to a nuclear weapon that the “bad intelligence” alleged as evidenced by the 1.8 tons of enriched uranium at Al Tuwaitha, and the ongoing secret nuclear program Iraq operated with Libya.
• That Colin, Richard and Marc let Scooter Libby twist in wind for three years and eventually let Scooter go to Jail while they refused to reveal who the real leaker was.
The combination of these facts just leave a real bad taste.
It’s just too convenient to me, that Colin Powell made the central point of his argument for the War to the UN in February 2003, about weapons of mass destruction, and then four months later he complains he was betrayed by CIA intelligence and the Bush Administration on WMD. It’s feels too much like a set up. He could have emphasized a range of threats that Saddam posed and reasons to invade Iraq, but he chose to really emphasize WMD. A little too coincidental to me.
As far as betrayal goes, I think it’s Colin Powell who betrayed the men and women he once led, by undermining the whole war effort.
How many good men and women died at the hands of the insurgency and Al Qaeda because of the” Bush Lied” mantra he helped to instigate.
I really liked the idea behind Thrasymachus’s post of the “bien pensant Republican”. But I don’t think Powell was ever really a Republican in spirit. To me, he will always be more of a selfish self absorbed moderate leftist posing as a Good Soldier General and a moderate Republican, so when he would encourage leftist ideas, it would give the ideas credibilty and himself good pub in the media. But even more important to his ego , because of his”sensible” ideas, he could play the ‘reasonable” General and create the image of the “Wise Elder Statesman” before a fawning and adoring press. That was the real ticket.
To me, a Good Soldier and a real Republican owes his allegiance to the United State of America.
I think Colin Powell’s allegiance went first, and above all else to himself, just like so many other leftists.
