Colin Powell, military leader and first Black US secretary of state, dies after complications from Covid-19

RIP General.

RIP he had an interesting career with many firsts

And already the asshole anti-vaxxers are using his death to undermine the vaccines.

Still RIP.

2003 his reputation was used to lie a nation into war. He never recanted even when it was apparent to all. For that he will be remembered.

R.I.P. Mr. Powell. He was a pretty cool dude, and I always found his press conferences quite interesting.

-J.

They might have a point, though.

I mean, it's not like the fact that General Powell was in his mid-80s and had a recent cancer scare could have meant he was already in poor health to begin with and would have been more vulnerable by default to anything he caught, right?

(sarcasm, obviously)

Good on him for owing his failures on the Second Gulf War. I saw a couple of articles today reminiscing on how he was a hot prospective candidate for the White House in the 1990s but declined to run. Makes you wonder how the 2000s would have turned out if he'd been the one to become President in 2000 instead of Bush Jr...

Powell WAS a likable figure but he did sell his soul to lie a nation into war and he fell in line after the fact. He was regretful, but only after it made no difference. He never recanted his roll. He KNEW this was wrong and a lie and went along with it. He had the power to stop this and chose not to.

Secretary of State can't countermand a Presidential order. Powell should have resigned before the Iraq invasion to make his views known to the public. Other than that he had zero authority or ability to stymie any of the plans Bush and the hardcores like Cheney & Rumsfeld had already put into motion.

Political clout super cedes authority. That's why he made the speech at the UN and not Bush. It was to sway enough people to go along with the scheme. Once that was done they can make up any laws or authorities they want and that is exactly what they did.

Had Powell recanted at that time that clout would have evaporated and there would be no way Bush could go to war on his own.

The Authorized Use of Military Force was in effect since the Clinton days. As such Bush already had the existing law on his side, and almost all of Congress rubber-stamped anything further that he wanted because none of them wanted to be seen as "soft on terror" in the wake of Sept 11. As for the UN, Powell's WMD speech didn't sway the Security Council in the slightest. Russia, China, France, and Germany maintained their refusal to endorse the American plan to invade - all they did after Powell's speech was to agree to stronger sanctions on Iraq, something the Bush Admin had already told them wouldn't be good enough. The US simply moved forward without giving the UN a second thought, totally deaf to any criticism or condemnation coming from the rest of the world's nations.

If Powell did what you suggested, he just wouldn't have been immediately fired as SoS. He probably would have been arrested and charged with treason. He was trapped and the chance to escape through resignation probably didn't even enter his mind, given that he stayed on in the position until the end of the first Bush term.

The speech to the UN wasn't for international consumption it was for DOMESTIC to create the casus belli. It was the same lie as the Iraqi soldiers were killing Incubator babies during the Gulf War. getting more international approval was considered supplemental but not the primary goal. Chretien saw thought this fa�ade correctly and that's why we didn't go.

Powell would have been thrown out of the GOP but after 2004 they didn't have a use for him anymore anyway. Did you see him given one cabinet post after that speech? At least if he stood up to them he would have had his reputation and could have ran on the democratic ticket for president.

That's a lot of good fantasizing but not much else. And in 2004 most of the Dems were still as much pro-war as the entire GOP was - John Kerry's entire presidential campaign was about fighting the war differently & smarter than Bush was, and not about immediate withdrawal from Iraq. There was no open door for Powell to take to get out of the mess, aside from resigning and going into private life which he obviously opted not to do. He wouldn't have become a critic of the admin anyway, even if he had quit before the 2004 election. He wasn't wired that way. Most of these military guys who end up in advisory or secretary positions in a presidential admin hold on until the bitter end, as shown by McMaster/Mattis/Kelly with Trump, where they either get fired or only resign when it becomes obvious the POTUS will never listen to them at all.

IF he recanted then the dems wouldn't be on board to begin with. They signed on because people like and especially Powell signed off on it. Had he pulled pin that very act of patriotism would have ensured the dems would have rallied to his cause and paved the way for his presidential run.

He never wanted that thou, his ambitions were not of that scale. Just killing hundreds of thousands and shitcanning trillions to private contractors.

The hairless cat makes some valid points.