Posted on 09/09/2005 2:48:40 PM PDT by rightalien
He supports Affirmative Action. That's all I need to know.
The ME is a place where black is black and white is white. There are no shades of grey.
Viewed from 911 as a point of departure (as Richard Armitage once said; it is the beginning of history) the US had to strike at the heart of state sponsored terrorism. Distinction between Al Quaida and other terrorist groups cannot be relegated to an academic exercise no more. Terrorism (state sponsored terrorism specifically) cannot be left to the nuanced arguments that belied a romantic notion of 'freedom fighters like Che Guevara and so on. Keep in mind that OBL is looked upon by people of the muslim world as a modern Che defying the superpower and holding it at bay. To make a leap from Saddaam to OBL is not a flight of the imagination. No more than attacking specific strategic targets simultaneously using passenger jets as a weapon. The legitimacy that Saddaam enjoyed as head of state can confer plausible deniability when it came to accusations of being a state sponsor of terrorism. This legitimacy coupled with the strategic interests of conpeting nations of Europe (french and germany come to mind rather quickly), russia, and china may have forced the US to rely on the only option it had of removing Saddaam from power; the UN itself. the caussus belli was already established when countless UN resolutions went unheeded or dismissed outright. Yes Saddaam quacked like a duck and everybody concluded that indeed he was a duck.
So this Colin Powell!
Welcome to FR, Fred.
The information stated by Powell to the U.N. specifically was not a lie. He doesn't contend it was a lie. It was based on weak intelligence. That doesn't mean that it wasn't absolutely true, and you can't prove otherwise!!
I wish the Administration would have pounded this home more. Saddam was in violation of every UN resolution applied to his regime, and was in violation the 1991 ceasefire agreement that ended the shooting in Desert Storm. In this context, Iraqi Freedom was simply the final act of a war that had gone on for some 12 years.
And he'll turn it down. You heard it here first.
Clinton/Powell '08 BARF!
I've seen nothing to indicate that what Powell told the UN was false. It's just that once we finally deposed Saddam and his regime, the evidence had been cleared out -- some of it destroyed, some of it hidden, some of it moved (persistent rumors about Syria have yet to be addressed), and some of it (chems) dumped in the Euphrates. ABC, the rest of the media, and the left in general, have painted a picture that our government "lied" about Saddam's WMD capability and he was no threat. This is a myth. The left opposed going against Saddam even when every nation in the world was saying that Saddam had WMDs. The question that should be asked is, given what we know at the moment, would we rather have had a pantywaist in the Oval Office on 9/11 and the intervening years since, or George W. Bush. The American people were given that choice last November and choose Bush.
Powell shouldn't even be talking about Katrina, he isn't in Government he doesn't know what the response was or wasn't.
Exactly. Clinton/Powell ticket.
Powell is someone who doesn't get his hands dirty. He is above it all and doesn't get down and dirty and do the detail work.
Hm. Chemical weapons entail some pretty nasty stuff. If it had been dumped in the Euphrates, even 6 or 9 months prior to the invasion, would there still have been enough traces of it to be testable?
I always stated he was the weakest link in the chain.
Marines tested for and found the chem traces after we took Baghdad.
And he'll turn it down. You heard it here first.
You'll notice that I said "first choice for vice-presidential running mate", not "vice-presidential running mate".
(grin)
here here
Powell is not honorable. If he were, he'd keep his thoughts entirely to himself. I hope I never see him again in any public service role.
And I have gained respect for him.
And I have gained respect for him.
That does not say much for you!
Considering how dangerous it was to cross Hussein's Baath regime, I doubt it would be very likely that any information coming from people would be very accurate. Anyone trying to act as a spy against Hussein would be putting his life and the lives of everyone he knew in danger.
When he was young, he was a democrat!
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