Tuesday, February 5, 2008

The Unmasking of Colin Powell

I never bought into Colin Powell as being this totally honorable, squeaky-clean person that so many have painted him as over the years. That cynical feeling only intensified when I saw him as Bush's leading cheerleader for invading Iraq. It made sense for Bush/Cheney to use him as the spokesman. Powell's reputation preceded him, and people would think twice about questioning him or what he said.

This is the 5-year anniversary of Powell's presentation to the United Nations on how Iraq was hiding their WMDs and not cooperating with inspectors. At the time, everyone was praising him for his air-tight case. I didn't buy it, Bush was going to invade Iraq no matter what. If Saddam had had his WMDs (if they existed, that is) lined up on the Baghdad Airport runway, our soldiers would still be there today.

This is a really good post from the Mother Jones blog, that will hopefully be re-printed in their magazine. It goes back to that day, and shows many ways in which Powell was knowingly misleading all of us. He claims that he was the one who was "misled" by others; this painstaking research shows that he knew what he was doing. Powell has always prided himself on being a soldier and a "reluctant warrior." What kind of soldier and warrior puts other people in harm's way on the pretext of lies?

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