Do you trust Colin Powell's judgement?

[Kasz216]

binary solo said:

Kasz216 said:

binary solo said:

Kasz216 said:

binary solo said:
I stopped trusting his judgement the day he held up hand drawn vehicles as "proof" of Iraq's WMD programme at the UN and not a shred of solid photographic evidence in sight.

That's not really fair.

The vans he was talking about did exist... and there were photographic proof of their existence, he could of showed had he wanted.

It's just that said vans were Hydrogen generation vans and not Chemical Weapons vans.

So, no solid photographic evidence. I rest my case. They were bullshitting, and they knew they were bullshitting, then they changed the whole justification for the invasion after the fact. Colin Powell was possibly the least willing conspirator in that whole charade, but he was a conspirator nonetheless. Hence can't really be trusted. You need to know who's pulling his strings before you can judge the worth of his word.

That's as solid of photographic evidence as you would ever get.

I mean what... do you want photos from inside?  If they had that you wouldn't need war because you could always just plant a bomb...

and no.  The facts don't really support the fact that they knew they were bullshitting... espiecally not Colin Powell.

The facts largely support the belief that a number of offials wanted war with Iraq so badly they were willing to believe an intellegence asset who intentionally lied because he wanted to get rid of Saddam Hussein from his country.

Ahhh yes! If you're going to invade another country and kill thousands of people, some you're own, you need damned good evidence, not some trucks that look a bit suspicious. If you don't have evidence of WMD production then don't use WMD production as your justification for war. Powell's performance at the UN was a joke, a cruel and nasty joke that cost thousands of lives an billions of wasted dollars, and distraction of efforts away from the actual threat to lives on US soil.

You are incriminating them by your own explanation of their actions. They chose to take the lies from the "intelligence asset"over the IAEA not because the bullshitter had a credible story and the IAEA didn't, but because the bullshitter had the story they wanted. I credit the intellegnce guys and Cheney with brains, I just don't credit them with much in the way of scruples or ethics. I don't believe for a second that they were taken in by this asset. They could smell bullshit when it was being presented to them. But it served their purpose and lying their way to war was an acceptable means to a desireable end; heck they may have even believed it was a righteous end which outweighed the evil of thousands of deaths hanging off a web of lies.

It's not like i'm defending the war.   Hell... even if the WMD information was correct that wasn't justification for the war.   Some bombing and commando raids?  Sure why not... but all out nation building?

 

Also, i'm not argueing that they took the story they wanted because they wanted it.  I'm argueing that they had conflicting intellegence, and their predisposed inclination to invade convinced them to take the weaker intellegence story.

It's really not that uncommon a thing.  You see people do that shit all the time.

Your going way out of your way to come up with a more elaborate explination when there is a much more simple, and easy explination.

It's easier to just label someone evil or something... but it isn't constructive or helpful, and will only lead to people making the same mistakes over and over again.