Colin L. Powell

If he were to have ran in 1996, Clinton would have probably lost the election.

Who fucking cares?

Well this was interesting and informative. Thank you OP?

He destroyed an entire lifetime of credibility in 2003 by knowingly lying about WMD by Iraq at the UN.

In 2021 he was dealing with multiple myeloma but COVID took him out. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Wut? He said? BEARKING?

I LOST ALL RESPECT FOR HIM..

R3 Welcome. I want to his DL's thought on him.

On one hand, he is part of the Republican establishment who lied to get us into a war.

On the other hand, he was an honorable man who fought hard during the Persian Gulf War, but got bulldozed by neo-conservatives. After 2005, he became an outspoken critic of the political climate.

Scooter Libby and David Addington wrote the UN speech and snuck false stuff in last minute before Powell could proof read it.

He was no hero. He carried the water for the Bush administration and was caught there because they also provided a job to his son as the head of the FCC, even though he had no business being in that position.

He didn't 'sacrifice' his life to public service. He was a career military man. And then he allowed himself to be used as a token black to be paraded in front of the GOP so they don't look as racist as they really are.

Sorry, but the grandizing of this lying man with no real principles to speak up /against the shit he was part of is disgusting. He's no hero to me.

R7 Bwa, ha ha! Total bullshit. He knew it was fabricated gobbledygook but like a good soldier that he was, he told the lies anyway.

R9 I don't think so

No mention of his My Lai coverup?

R11 I didn't think that was a cover up. I thought there was not enough evidence.

German intelligence made it clear that Curveball was a confirmed liar and shouldn't be taken seriously. Powell went to the UN and talked about mobile chemical weapons labs as if they actually existed. He died with a lot of blood on his hands, even if the media respected him.

R12 how do you explain the photos of dead kids laying face down in the dirt? If that's not evidence then I don't know what is.

HIs problem is that he couldn't commit to one political philosophy. He felt he had to embrace the Obama presidency and that embrace of liberal politics ruined him with conservatives. As people have indicated in this thread, Democrats aren't going to forgive for what he did in office under Republican presidents, so he's screwed all the way around.

Fair points. Before the 2003 speech, he was pretty respected. He did not want to go into Iraq and called it a huge mistake. The Pottery Barn Effect, "you break it, you buy it."

R16 And yet he went on the world stage and knowingly presented falsified evidence as facts. I never believed that Iraq had WMD but when Colin Powell made his presentation at the UN, I started to wonder whether I was not viewing the situation with an open mind. And that was the intended effect. To make doubters question whether there were actual WMD in Iraq so they can justify the war (for resources of course).

The problem is they found Chemical Weapons of Destruction years later.

I had forgotten he died. Now I’m wondering what was going on in my life that I could have forgotten this. The stress of the pandemic took out like 2 whole years from my memory. I have very little memory of 2021.

R18 They found old stockpiles of corroded chemicals that were significantly less potent, which by the way the US had sold them years earlier.

Man pretended to have integrity but he was just another sick cog in the republican war machine, willing to lie whenever needed, always putting his career before country.

One of history's minor villains at best.

His two books, My American Journey and It Worked For Me, are pretty good.

I always thought he was called 'Conan' Powell.

He's dead, Jim.

George Carlin has a good piece that includes Colin Powell and how he was only black in skin color.

[quote]If he were to have ran in 1996, Clinton would have probably lost the election.

Doubtful. Clinton was popular in 1996, years before Monica. The Republican party of 2008 went batshit over a black president so I don't see how they would elect a different black president12 years sooner. A lot of Republicans would probably have stayed home or voted for Pat Buchanan, and Clinton would still win.

And he told Hilary to get her own server, like he did... LOCK HIM UP!!

Oh, never mind, he's dead.

[quote] Scooter Libby and David Addington wrote the UN speech and snuck false stuff in last minute before Powell could proof read it.

Oh come on, the whole speech was false stuff and he knew it. He made himself the tool of the neocons, dropped all his long-articulated principles in a moment, and knowingly lied his country into a disastrous and immoral war. Died of covid, but at an advanced age, in wealth and comfort, and with much of the country sympathizing with his sad moral predicament—which he created.

Like the good soldier that he always was he took his tongue and knowingly told the big lie.

Why did I feel that he was married to Condoleeza Rice?

R30 no she was his boss’s girlfriend

R28 No. He was given the speech last minute and his staff did not have the chance to do their proper due diligence.

We also judge him for one lack of judgment. It is well documented that he was against Iraq.

So articulate!

Opposed gays in the military until the end Fuck him.

R34 The last paragraph of the article:

"Powell announced in 2010 that he’d changed his views on gays in the military. In 2012, he announced that he had “no problem” with same-sex marriage."

Both Powell and Robert Gates are okay with gays in the military

Interesting Interview

Cynical, spineless and quite far from books mart. I guess he failed up and up and up.

R19

Same.

He IS Colin Powell!

I agree with R4, Powell knew, and did it anyway!

Just like a Trumper he was.

R8 is spot on. I think I wrote it though.

I remember the joke "You know the country is fucked when it's run by a bush, a dick and a colon."

Powell really hated Trump and what the modern day Republican party stands for.

He voted Obama in 08 and 12. Hillary in 2016, and Biden in 2020.

He WAS Colin Powell.

He put his penis in Barbara Walters!

I love George Carlin, but there are a million ways to be Black, just like there are million ways to be white. His "black in name only" jibe hasn't aged well (and was borderline racist even then).

R47 I agree with you but would quibble with one word. White men opining about what qualifies as black is totally racist, not borderline racist. There is no criticism or endorsement of Powell that has anything to do with his ethnicity. Carlin can be so fucking pretentious sometimes.

The whole "he didn't know what was in the speech" or "it was changed at the last minute" was concocted after to save face.

Watch the speech. He does not pause or appear surprised when reading the text.

He was used and manipulated but he went along with it.

Colin Powell knowingly lied and led us into a disastrous "war"at the bidding of the Bush Whitehouse.

Thousands of needless deaths on all sides.

He is the equivalent of Robert McNamara.

General Powell's widow, Alma Powell, died recently; it was she who persuaded him not to run for President out of fear of assassination.

R50 Alma also had mental health issues. I think she had depression and maybe a pill problem. Colin did not want to put her, or his family, in that kind of spotlight.

R50 Attached is an old Newsweek article from 1995 about Alma

HA!

Colon Bowel!

Tool.

R53 ?