Thursday, March 16, 2006

Powell and the "good soldier" argument

There was an interesting conversation at the woodshop yesterday. The woodshop is a government recreation facility a couple of blocks up the road where Lex spends much of his free time. The woodshop is run by a socialist British guy who, except for his socialist ideas, is a fine man.

Yesterday the woodshop guy and a Lib government employee were having a conversation about what a great guy Colin Powell is. The reasoning among Pete and Repeat went along the line that Secretary of State Powell was just being a “good soldier” for going along with the Iraq war and making the US case at the UN.

After listening to the “good soldier” argument for several minutes, I butted in and said that Powell was a duplicitous, lying, coward or he believed what the rest of the world believed, that Saddam Hussein had WMDs. I got a stunned mullet look for the two. Weird huh.

So, I followed up, a “good soldier” does not lie to the UN and drag his nation into war on a false pretext. So either Powell believed what Bush believed or he is the worst kind of coward. Which is it?

Well the two had no answer but to say something about the truth coming out after Bush leaves office and Powell writes a book about what really happened. I continued to ask, so which is it? Did he knowingly lie to the American people and the UN or believe, as Bush did, the intelligence? They could not confirm either. They wouldn’t dare call Powell a liar and couldn’t bring themselves to lump Powell in with Bush, whom they dispise. I guess we’ll just have to wait for the book.

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