Read other letters about this article

• Sunday, May 11, 2008 05:23 PM

  @JNagarya, RMP

  I feel a certain private irony when I think I'm being read as saying something that is the opposite of what, in talking about other topics, I've said very forcefully. This is not meant as a jab against you guys ... the 'opposite' is usually something I've argued elsewhere, in print or F2F, not here.

  My feelings about Powell are an example. I've been caustic in talking about him for almost 20 years. People think Powell is a cryptoliberal, I say Are you effing kidding me? They express their admiration, I say, this is what it's come to, that this is the kind of guy we 'look up to'. I insist that the 'Powell Doctrine' was no such thing, that it was the 'Weinberger Doctrine', renamed to suit the personal advancement of one C. Powell. If Powell were the principled guy people think, then I would expect him to be the one in the Principals Meetings discussing torture to say, 'Why are we, the senior officials in this government, sitting here discussing torture?' and stop trying to rimlap his way into a more comfortable relationship with his boss.

  I hate the guy, and something else I would personally add to the My Lai and DADT follies and his lies to the UN, is his substitution as CJCS of the 'Just Cause' Panama plan, which killed an extraordinary number of people for no good reason, for a much more nuanced and careful 'Blue Spoon' plan ... leaving aside the question of whether the invasion had anything to do with its purported justifications and whether it wasn't just another imperial knock-down (which I hope you won't call on me to defend, for the reasons I said above).

  So I don't aim to praise, rehabilitate, or excuse Powell. What I do, though is admit a) I've never actually met the guy, b) I wasn't there during any of these latest deliberations he took part in, and c) since it's possible that I could let my animosity color my conclusions about what happened, I'd have to give some credence, with reservations, to any other reports that contained information I have no basis for impeaching. Likewise with the accounts of the truly odious and psychotic John Ashcroft, whom I believe really could have resisted signing off on those controversial memos in his hospital bed, and can believe so without having to back off on any of my loathing for the guy.

  So, what I said was accurate, I think, that Bob Woodward suggests something about Powell in his books that might be true, though I'm not sure, and it's worth thinking about how other people (more worthy of such contemplation) might have been in a similar situation.

  But don't get me started on Bob Woodward. :>

  —quickstrategy Read quickstrategy's other letters
  Permalink
  Flag
  Click "Submit Flag" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

  Cancel