Everything about this situation reveals the dysfunction in NYTimes and their peers. They love wars in principle and so Powell can be a some sort of noble figure standing for the Iraq war that might have been in NYTimes writers imagination, rather than the reality of a tragic figure who was given a choice of lying to kill millions of people or standing on some kind of actual principle and chose the former. And then instead of informing their readers about covid or vaccines or immune systems everything is phrased around horse-race headlines aimed at inflaming partisan sentiment.
Underlying tweet is already deleted though of course there are screenshots. Shouldn't the referring tweet just say, "he died as he lived."?
I have a strong memory of one of my Russian profs in undergrad talking about doing simultaneous translation for him when he was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. She said the Soviets/Russians really struggled with their racism.
I do feel some sadness at his passing and residual admiration for him. I suppose, like the times, I have trouble holding against him the compromises he made for power.
Motherfucker got his start covering up the My Lai massacre and then sold us the Iraq war on a pack of lies, I have zero sympathy.
I'm seeing people talk about him being a great "military commander" (to their credit, in the same breath as war crimes). I guess he got his big reputation with Persian Gulf, but is it plausible he really was ARV purely as a general, or was that just the US overwhelming a conventional military that anyone could have done?
(Pretending arguendo you could actually extricate military ability from politics.)
At least he finally got people to stop walking into Pottery Barn, knocking vases off of shelves, and just leaving.
5: Until I found out he was lying about that too!
6: You mean I stopped for no reason.
Someone else, on the bird site natch, saying to his credit he admitted the Iraq War justifications were false in 2004, opposed don't-ask-don't-tell, endorsed Obama in 2008, and spoke out against Trump.
That's a pretty milquetoast redemption arc - basically denouncing a few extra-shitty things and then little else. I assume he was mostly influence-peddling from 2009 to death; Wikipedia mentions serving on at least two corporate boards of directors.
8: I remember an interview with the CEO of Pottery Barn and he said he had no idea what rule Colin Powell was talking about.
NPR had David Petraeus on to memorialize Powell. It was boot-licking, egotistical, and self-serving. It literally made me forget how popular Petraeus was, once. I was left wondering who would ever let him near bright lights, microphones, or cameras unsupervised.
The staff still didn't like it when you broke stuff.
9: Still makes him the least evil member of the W. administration? Maybe?
12: Do you think it was rogue staff at Pottery Barn that made up the Rule?
9.1: I never know how to assess these things. Republicans and Republican sympathizers make up something approaching half the US population. Can we be appreciative of the fact that Powell aspired to be closer to the median American, decency-wise? Can we say, "I wish there were more Republicans like Colin Powell?"
Why would we say that? He used his credibility to start a pointless war that killed hundreds of thousands of people for no good reason.
I mean, I sort of get what you mean -- he was unprincipled in an incredibly destructive way, but not erratically insane like so many Republicans are now, but I still can't see actively wishing that we were dealing with people like him.
I mean, if he hadn't lied to the UN and the American people, it might not have stopped the war, but it would very likely have wrecked his career, and that seems to have been the top of his priority list. I guess I wish there were more republicans left where it would be possible to sanely appeal to their corrupt self-interest, the way you could have with Powell.
The linked article in the vanished post is very good, and it directly relates to Colin Powell and something I've been thinking a lot about lately: How ought we assess individual behavior in fucked up systems? I mean, Nuremburg taught us to regard with contempt the people who are just following orders, but to one degree or another, we are all complicit in the crimes of our times.
That doesn't relate to Colin Powell at all, who by the time the Iraq war rolled around, had more options that probably literally anyone on earth to choose his course and be a hero to one side or the other. And he knew exactly what he was doing, arching his eyebrows meaningfully when his colleagues said batshit stuff, but never willing to stop the shilling himself.
19: I'm uncomfortable arguing against the first eight words of that comment, because the remainder of it is indisputably correct.
Arguably if Powell were the median Republican instead of the extreme left, the bloodthirsty wing wouldn't have leaned on him to lie to support the war. If Powell were in charge would he have invaded Iraq? He probably would have insisted on a larger coalition (beyond Poland) and if he hadn't gotten that maybe would have gone with an alternative. But he was too much of a coward to stand up to the decision once others had made it. In both cases it's careerism- in a different context (no Rummy/Wolfowitz/Cheney) the wise career move might have been not invading.
I recall an article sometime after the fact which related how Powell had reacted angrily to the initial draft of what he was to say. He was not going to go up and try to sell that horseshit; but then they perfumed it enough to where he was willing to deliver it (and it was not really that convincing of a case even if true). Not exonerating him, but I distinctly recall that the media were much more enthusiastic about what a slam dunk he presented than Powell was himself (for instance Cohen's "only a fool or a Frenchman).
A very minor (but I think completely in character) way he annoyed me was that when it came out that Powell had advised HRC to use private email as SoS rather than just saying "Yes, I did." he released a statement highlighting the differences in how they used it* (IIRC). I'm sure he did not use it as extensively as she did, but be a mensch for God's sake. (But of course not being a mensch was his career operating principal.)
*And of course the feckless media jumped all over that the Clinton campaign was using Powell as an excuse, when they demonstrably had taken great pains not to do so other than confirming the story when it came out.
Had he made different choices on Iraq, he could've been Obama's secretary of Defense.
Reminds me of that thing Comey refused to do while Ashcroft was in surgery. Minor strain among Bush officials of taking a Principled Moral Stand in a way that does not go public until years later & does not effect any change.
I thought the Comey hospital thing was known pretty soon thereafter
25: I think like 2007, three years later? Around this time.
Yeah, I'm not much for forgiving him for not doing more in late 2002 early 2003 to prevent the onrush of events.
I think, though, that I and others are a little facile about his options in Feb/March 2003. The WMD story was bullshit, and *everyone* knew it by March 1, 2003. Did Powell know it by February 1, 2003? If not, he'd have to have been a fool, and he was a lot of things, but I don't think 'fool' is one of them.
But what are the consequences of stopping the train at that point? Mobilization is ongoing, the British government has done all manner of dodgy shit to play along, chips around the world have been called in, and fucking W has put them all on the table. Admitting that Saddam was right, and that the whole Anglo-American establishment had been lying, foolish, or both, would have consequences that are really, as Powell's colleague would say, unknown unknowns.
What senior Anglo-American leadership had decided to do was roll the dice, betting that swift victory and then a decent aftermath would lead most people to forget exactly who said what in the run-up. And it might have worked if they hadn't brought those meddling kids -- the ideologues of the CPA -- along to fuck up the aftermath. If they hadn't fired the Army and a bunch of Baath party members, the whole thing would have looked completely different.
So his choices in Feb 2003 are (a) blow the whistle on the whole thing and knowingly cause the consequences of backing down; (b) resign quietly and give up any hope of trying to influence the aftermath (leaving everything to Feith etc); or (c) grit teeth and hope for the best. He chose the careerist path, sure. Who among us, though, honestly.
Well, there's a lot of history that went into making him the kind of person who they trusted not to fuck up their big lie. If someone is asking you to do that kind of thing, they've got a strong opinion about the kind of person you are. Doesn't mean they're right about you, but they were right about Powell and presumably they had reason.
the whole thing would have looked completely different
Also my view, although I recall Yglesias got a lot of play by calling this "the competence dodge."
He chose the careerist path, sure. Who among us, though, honestly.
Repeating 19, I suppose, but Powell was a made man; his career was guaranteed no matter what he did. I think what he chose was to be in the room, which is what really matters to a lot of these people, and which doesn't seem as forgivable.
30.4: I don't know -- I'm fairly sure if he went against the Bush-Cheney war he would have been accused of cowardice, and/or foolhardy naivete. if not outright treason. It was a crazy time.
charley the entire back half of 27 assumes ponies never in evidence, a fact which powell either didn't know so then complete idiot or did in which case unforgivable. my opinion undoubtedly influenced by direct impact on my sibling's life & many many of his colleagues' lives (profound & v much not good!) with especial bitterness bc it was their bodies spirits & psyches he feasted on for his authority & legitimacy. i think that makes my take more compelling but obviously ymmv.
the whole thing would have looked completely different
I can easily imagine "different", but not good.
Are the kids here old enough to remember Reagan and Bitburg? Reagan visited a cemetery that included Nazi soldiers, explaining that they, too, were victims of the Third Reich. Doonesbury commemorated the occasion with a strip showing the slippery slope you find yourself on when defending people who are just following orders.
34 comments in, and I have already achieved a Godwin. In my defense, the topic is kind of a natural for it.
34: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-L_5HedJbw
I think he could have just refused to give that UN speech. What were they going to do, fire him? They could have someone else give the same speech.
They tried Cheney, but he couldn't stop salivating.
37: Yes, that seems right. It wouldn't have made a huge difference, but maybe he would have felt better about himself.
39: But upon reflection this wouldn't have worked - he couldn't remain Secretary of State and not take a position on the war.
For what it's worth, Powell seems to have taken the actually, I was a fool line.
"Doonesbury commemorated the occasion with a strip showing the slippery slope you find yourself on when defending people who are just following orders."
Exhausted reminder that the Nuremberg defence of "just following orders" is, in fact, a perfectly valid defence in law and was used as such.
"I'm seeing people talk about him being a great "military commander""
This, too, is ignorance. Powell was not a great military commander. He never commanded troops in war. He barely commanded troops at all. He never had a division command appointment! He was a staff officer for the vast majority of his career - not that there's anything wrong with that, but it doesn't make you a commander. I have personally had more time commanding soldiers than Colin Powell had in his entire career.
Oh hey, he was part of the Joint Chiefs when they threatened to resign en masse if Clinton allowed gay people in the military.
43: OK, fine, wrong terminology. Whatever the skills were for someone at his level, then?
42: Also entirely legal: Powell's speech to the UN.
Hey was the name of the beer (Bitburger) in the scene where Magneto tracks down the Nazis in South America a reference to that or is it an actual beer?
Hah! Google knows all.
I hadn't noticed that before, but you have to figure it was deliberate.
I'm with Barry Freed: Try as I might I cannot remove the image of him at the UN, consigning hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis to death and worse, for nothing more than his career. We can all say "we're all complicit". And yes, if we're called to account, we should each have to account for our actions. He had a choice. He made a choice. And then there's My Lai.
Try as I might, I cannot gin up one shred of sympathy. Not even a gram.
I assume that website isn't some residual marketing ploy from the movie?
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"Christian Manley" seems a little too on-the-nose for a Capitol insurrectionist. I mean, come on.
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Charlie Pierce hits the right note I think.
So after reading the comparison between Colin Powell and Eliot Richardson in the linked Charlie Pierce column I had to look up what happened to Richardson after he became the "Watergate martyr" for loudly resigning rather than go along with Nixon's firing of Archibald Cox. What happened to him: a cabinet position in Ford administration, then ambassador to UK, various awards. Seems like a soft landing for a martyr. Maybe Powell would have been thrown to the slavering monkeys instead, I guess we can't know, because he didn't explore that option.
Who is the Chuck Colson of the Trumpians?
This Greg Mitchell book excerpt is a good read on the speech and the media aftermath.
From the NYT "straight news" stories:
Weisman called Powell's evidence "a nearly encyclopedic catalog that reached further than many had expected." He and Clymer both recalled Adlai Stevenson's speech to the U.N. in 1962 exposing Soviet missiles in Cuba. Gordon closed his piece by asserting that "it will be difficult for skeptics to argue that Washington's case against Iraq is based on groundless suspicions and not intelligence information."
32 Right, the gamble was stupid and immoral and cost countless lives. If there was a hell, Powell would burn in it.
I imagine that he knew they were going to do it with or without him, and guessed that the chances of pulling it off were greater if he played ball. And maybe they were, but the gamble was still stupid, immoral, and unsuccessful. Everything is worse for having done it.
The role of elite media in the whole episode is also unforgiveable. If there was a hell, it would need to be expanded for all the people who earned spots in it over this.
44.2 - accusation of ignorance not meant for Minivet but for whoever is calling Powell a great commander.
Schwartzkopf, on the other hand, seems to have had a rather better life. Stayed out of politics, raised money for grizzly bears.
I still think Charley was mostly right in his first judgment. I was against the war from the very beginning, but also convinced, mostly by the Daily Telegraph, that it was inevitable. This is not because I believed a word of the Telegraph's propaganda, but because the scope and vehemence of that propaganda campaign, the summer before the war started, showed that the defence establishment really wanted a war. This would have been around the same time as the UK ambassador's report from Washington that "evidence was being fixed around this aim". The Pentagon clearly wanted the war, which means Rumsfeld, Bush and Cheney did, and so it was going to happen regardless of the evidence.
So that is when Powell should have resigned, nine months before he gave his fatal speech. Once he had gone along with what his political masters wanted -- and this is the definition of a democratically responsible soldier -- he had to do whatever was necessary to get it done. That's what soldiers do, again -- within limits, but these limits are pretty broad.
And his gamble that it would all come out right was not unusual. No one reaches the top, or stays there, without gambling and having their bets pay off. Similarly, Blair gambled, and the British army did, on very reasonable, if humiliating grounds: the very expensive (but still inadequately funded) British Army has no longer any independent function. It's only cash value in diplomatic terms is as American mercenaries. Until Iraq and Afghanistan, it was possible to think of the British forces as elite and highly valued mercenaries. I understand this is no longer the American view. The French army could, and did, stay out of the Iraq war because it had uses to French policy, in Africa especially, quite independent of the USA. Ours could not afford to. So, you bet that the conventional war will be quickly over (true) and that the subsequent attempts at colonial governance won't be a grotesque and murderous shitshow (emphatically not true). None the less, these were bets which a reasonably decent person, not particularly sociopathic, might understandably have made.
I find it very much harder to forgive their lackeys in the press.
NW: [first, I'm not blaming you: I've seen him described this way elsewhere, and have been perplexed]
I don't understand why we speak of Powell as a soldier in that context. He was a former soldier, but retired. He was a secretary of state, right? Equivalent of UK Foreign Minister.
It seems difficult to argue that a never-military SoS, let us say, Condi Rice, should be thus constrained to execute the policy of their President, and never dissent even in the process of resigning. For if that were true, then the Saturday Night Massacre, during which the Attorney General and then his deputy were each ordered to fire the Watergate Special Prosecutor and refused, each resigning publicly, would never have happened, right?
Put another way: we have all been reassured by many of The Good And The Great that is perfectly fine for ex-military officers to hold civilian positions in the government, because they are no longer bound by military chain-of-command rules and can act as regular civilian civil servants and officials. This argument that Powell remained a soidier even as he was Secretary of State, blows that rationalization completely out of the water.
I should have added:
He served at the pleasure of the President, sure. But his *oath* was to the Constitution.
60: yes, NW is badly confused here. Powell was a civilian, not a soldier. He had no obligation to do this.
OK. I'll take these points. I still believe he thought like a soldier, even if he shouldn't have done. And he shouldn't. Irrespective, he should have resigned when it became apparent that Rumsfeld and co were determined to have their war, not nine months later, when he was put up to justify it at the UN.
But I remember thinking at the time that he had authority as a former soldier (and a victorious one) not as a great diplomatist.
His "loyal soldier" pose was just that; it didn't stop him threatening to resign, *while still actually a soldier*, over allowing gay soldiers to serve, or being incredibly obstructive over Bosnia.
so nw if once you ought to have done the right thing but didn't and it is subsequently convenient to your personal ambition to continue not doing the right thing but rather personally put your (grotesque & ill gotten) personal credibility behind materially furthering the wrong thing, you get a pass?
you are correct that elite opinion & including the press will never hand out negative consequences to the likes of powell *until forced to do so* including by widespread revulsion widely shared.
I also don't buy that Powell's complicity was obviously not necessary for making the war happen, so his failure to go along with it wouldn't have had any effect. Powell staying honest probably wouldn't have stopped the war by himself, but it would have been an immense help to the anti-war movement. Powell's stated belief in the case for war was one of the strongest arguments that the people saying it was all obviously a tissue of lies were ignorant loonies: this "honorable", respected, competent man who wasn't one of Bush's political cronies, with access to all the confidential information the public couldn't evaluate, believed war was necessary. Either there was a solid case for war or Powell was a shameless liar; anyone calling Powell a shameless liar thereby destroyed their credibility; and then it turns out he was a shameless liar.
Just because 42 continues to bother me, can we agree on inserting a "depending on the order" in there someplace? There are some orders for which the person giving the order is a war criminal but the person carrying it out is not. But there are some orders for which "I was just following orders" (say, to go bayonet that baby over there) is not a defense.
I guess we could try raising baby Hitler in a different environment, but really they gave us a bayonet and told us to not stay more than a half hour.
67: agreed. The phrase is I think "manifestly unlawful".
66 really says it all perfectly.
66: I don't know how necessary *Powell's* complicity was in making the war happen. Obviously, Blair's complicity was redundant. Powell may have been more important*. The point about timing was that if he had resigned earlier, it would have been much more effective than a later resignation when almost all the military preparations must have been in place already. This is [analagous] to the argument that WW1 was caused by railway timetables, I know. But it still has some merit.
* as I remember the predominant American mood in those days, it was that "Something must be done; Invading Iraq is something: therefore we must invade Iraq."
Underlying this were two false beliefs -- that (1) Afghanistan was settled and fixed and (2) America was invincible in war. You didn't have to believe either of those on the evidence. I know I didn't. But they were axioms in almost all the US media then and I think even some opponents of the war believed them.
Spackerman discusses how Powell possibly could have stopped the war -- https://foreverwars.substack.com/p/the-only-man-who-could-have-stopped
Thanks, peep. That's a really good piece and strengthens considerably the case that he should have gone as early as possible.
66 I think he probably would not have prevented the war -- either by resigning in the summer of 2002 or in February 2003 -- but would never say it wouldn't have changed anything. Resigning late would surely have made all sorts of differences in how the thing came off. Many differences might well have been worse for the success of the project. That's the risk I suppose he was mistakenly trying to avoid.
If the stupid policy is going to be pursued, and if he thinks his staying on board increases the chances of it not having the worst outcome -- well, he still should have been in the Oval every time the word "Iraq" is mentioned from Sept 11, 2001 through March 2003 saying 'listen up, I know something about this outfit, and I'm telling you this is a really bad idea.'
75: That really seems to me to give him too much credit. He lied a lot in support of a war crime (aggressive war -- I'm pretty sure that's on the list). Once you have someone who's willing to do that, what's your basis for thinking that he only did it to minimize harm as opposed to either for coldblooded careerist reasons or nationalistic endorsement of the war crime as good for the US?
Again I can understand not resigning, but there's an option here if not resigning but also not being a shameless liar. I think the question of resigning or not is trickier and reasonable people could disagree (well, I would simply not be a Republican) but what he actually did was obviously horrible and wrong.
Did I use the word only? I did not.
He lied to facilitate a war crime. Doing so helped himself. Can he also have thought that the national interest aligned with his own? I don't think that's as far a reach as you think it.
I'm not giving him credit. I don't think he could have stopped the war in Feb 2003, but he should have been doing a whole lot more. Might he have stopped it in March through May 2003? Probably still not, but maybe.
78: Comity.
71: I think this describes the thought process fairly well, aside from the whole "war crimes? What's a war crime?" aspect of it -- that starting a war of aggression is a straightforwardly criminal act. Which I think supporters of the war at the time, and people who don't like being hostile about disagreements, would like to forget or at least deemphasize, and I think should not be forgotten.
Who was it who described the Iraq War as a "war of choice"? Was it Friedman? That turn of phrase really stuck with me as writing the prohibition on wars of aggression out of the discussion.
66 is correct. Powell was enormously influential (though Spackerman in 73 oversells that influence, I think).
There is a better analogy available for Powell than Elliot Richardson. When Richardson acted (or failed to act) Nixon was already in big trouble, and the firing of the special prosecutor was obviously going to be a huge problem. His deputy, William Ruckelshaus, also refused. In the moment, it seemed entirely possible that the guy who fired Cox* would be ruined. Richardson (and Ruckelshaus) could easily have made the calculation that their careers were best served by resignation, and even in retrospect, it's not clear they were wrong.
My preferred analogy is Cyrus Vance Sr., who resigned as Carter's secretary of state before the Iran hostage rescue mission. (For reasons of secrecy, the resignation was only effective afterwards.) That was a gutty and principled move that, in the moment, wasn't popular -- and of course, would have been particularly unpopular if the rescue had succeeded.
*That guy was Robert Bork. And now you know ... the rest of the story.
It's only a crime if you lose.
Slightly related, would love to have interviews for this one recorded and broadcast:
https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/617650900
Yes. My doctor says that's what happens when you get to my age without stopping eating things that taste good.