Thursday, December 01, 2005

Colin Powell, the wimp

This article sums up my feelings about Powell, as well as my contemporaneous reaction to his presentation to the Security Council in the runup to our invasion of Iraq. Maybe because of my lawyer background I videotaped Powell's speech and went through portions of it afterward, especially his dog-and-pony show about the mobile labs for producing biological weapons, and it had a familiar smell to it: bullshit. I recalled at the time the U-2 overfilight photos that President Kennedy showed the nationwide TV audience to demonstrate the Soviet Union's actions in Cuba to install long-range missles. Now there was evidence! But the video graphics of Iraqi trucks equipped with laboratories?--c'mon, already.

As to Colin Powell? I've defended him heretofore as a "soldier," honor-bound not to denigrate his commander, the Commander in Chief. But I've changed my mind after these weeks of hearing from his Chief of Staff, Col. Wilkerson. Obviously, Wilkerson's statements are Powell's too, and so now it's clear that Powell is hiding behind Wilkerson's skirts to save his image.

It's time for Powell to step forward in person. Not as a soldier, not as a diplomat, but as a human being. Otherwise, I label him a coward, and so, I hope, will history.

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