Do you trust Colin Powell's judgement?

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Kasz216 said:

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.

Conflicting intelligence? really? You write as if the information was equally credible on both sides.

The IAEA was quite clear: there was no credible evidence of an active WMD programme or the existence of WMDs in Iraq, and there was no evidence of any plans to resurrect any WMD programme. The best they could come up with was missiles that had a slightly longer range that what the UN allowed Saddam to have after he lost Gulf War 1. That's not even enough justification for bombing raids.

But Bush et al decided to go with the unsubstantiated claims of some dude who the CIA had tagged as lacking credibility.

There's no conflicting intelligence in any meaningful or substantial sense.

Dick Cheney went on TV saying they possessed ironclad, incontrovertable proof that Saddam had WMD, but it was secret and they couldn't show it. History exposes that claim for the lie it is. Cheney et al never had anything like the proof he claimed. Do you think he thought they had the sort of proof he claimed, or do you think he knew he was blowing smoke? I don't think Cheney is a fool, I don't think Cheney believed for a minute that the information they had was adequate to justify going to war. Why do you think Bush, Blair et al changed their justification after the fact and said the reason to go to war was becuase Saddam was a bad guy and he killed lots of his own people with WMD? They had flimsy evidence from the start. Never mind that the only time Saddam used WMD was prior to Gulf War 1 when he was a "friend" to the USA (sure a friend the USA didn't like at all, but he was a bulwark against Iran and its ambitions, so as long as he only did bad stuff to Iran and his own people the US could live with him). Post Gulf War 1 Saddam never used a single WMD ordinance. And he never used WMD outside his own borders or on invading forces during GW1. So even the post facto justification is pathetic.

Calling a spade a spade is hardly unhelpful. The deaths of thousands in a war based on lies, that people knew (or if you want to be charitable suspected might be) lies is evil. Exposing this travesty for what it is isn't going to cause people to make the same mistakes again. Allowing people to carry on with the delusion that the war was right (and righteous) is what will lead to history repeating. Not calling people to account for the part they played in the deceit that brought the war about will allow people to think they can get away with such things again. People saying that everything that comes out of Colin Powell's mouth is golden and can be trusted 100% are guilty of giving him an undeserved free pass on the part he played in the march to an unjust war. And it makes it that little bit easier for the next guy to start an unjust war, yet claim a righteous cause and get away with it.

I respected Colin Powell a great deal, I thought he was president material... until that emperor's new clothes UN presentation.