Don't worry, The Corner is already cranking up the stab-in-the-back machine.

and check out the blatant spinning:

The administration has been under pressure from European and other governments, as well as from members of Congress, to share responsibility on Iraq.

one almost gets the impression that other governments such as France, Germany and India have been just begging to be allowed to have their soldiers shot at with RPGs.

Tom Sawyer whitewashing the fence!

Young Bush has always had someone out there to pull him out of the mud puddle into which he fell. Now, he's got Powell out there leading the way. But, who at the UN will believe Powell now.

Unfortunately most of America won't remember that the Bushmen didn't want an international operation.

"Bring'em on!"

Checking some of your links - it seems we need our men out of there inorder to put them elsewhere?

And by the way, whatever's happened to Powell?

Powell.....how does a man deconstruct himself so completely? What a sad loser.

Hmmmm, yes... Fits right in with all previous policy statements...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,918812,00.html

Thank God for the death of the UN

Its abject failure gave us only anarchy. The world needs order

Richard Perle
Friday March 21, 2003
The Guardian

Saddam Hussein's reign of terror is about to end. He will go quickly, but not alone: in a parting irony, he will take the UN down with him. Well, not the whole UN. The "good works" part will survive, the low-risk peacekeeping bureaucracies will remain, the chatterbox on the Hudson will continue to bleat. What will die is the fantasy of the UN as the foundation of a new world order. As we sift the debris, it will be important to preserve, the better to understand, the intellectual wreckage of the liberal conceit of safety through international law administered by international institutions.

As free Iraqis document the quarter-century nightmare of Saddam's rule, let us not forget who held that the moral authority of the international community was enshrined in a plea for more time for inspectors, and who marched against "regime change". In the spirit of postwar reconciliation that diplomats are always eager to engender, we must not reconcile the timid, blighted notion that world order requires us to recoil before rogue states that terrorise their own citizens and menace ours.

A few days ago, Shirley Williams argued on television against a coalition of the willing using force to liberate Iraq. Decent, thoughtful and high-minded, she must surely have been moved into opposition by an argument so convincing that it overpowered the obvious moral case for removing Saddam's regime. For Lady Williams (and many others), the thumb on the scale of judgment about this war is the idea that only the UN security council can legitimise the use of force. It matters not if troops are used only to enforce the UN's own demands. A willing coalition of liberal democracies isn't good enough. If any institution or coalition other than the UN security council uses force, even as a last resort, "anarchy", rather than international law, would prevail, destroying any hope for world order.

This is a dangerously wrong idea that leads inexorably to handing great moral and even existential politico-military decisions, to the likes of Syria, Cameroon, Angola, Russia, China and France. When challenged with the argument that if a policy is right with the approbation of the security council, how can it be wrong just because communist China or Russia or France or a gaggle of minor dictatorships withhold their assent, she fell back on the primacy of "order" versus "anarchy".

This is classic GWB. Do exactly as you damn well please until something stops you. Then make a deal to resolve whatever and claim victory.

I can only recall one time that it didn't work, and even then it was only because Turkey demanded more money than GWB could cough up. Now we get to see if Putin and Chirac are smarter than Blair or the DEMs.

Hey p mac, thank you so much for that Perle link. I went and read the whole silly goddamn thing--forcing my way right through all the historical revisionism about the Balkans ("peace was made in Dayton, Ohio"--so do we, like, have a copyright?), right through all that typical blather and swill and puke that has been flowing in abundant cataracts from the gaping maws of Perle, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell, and of every last member, friend and supporter of this administration ever since it siezed power. Yes, I read the whole thing, and laughed so hard, so violently, and for so long that I finally burst into apoplectic tears. And now, friends, now I am going to go out and get so abominably drunk that I am going to forget my own name.

Quinn,

no need to book-mark that link. All you have to do is search for

"existential politico-military decisions" perle

with google. I still don't know what that phrase means, although I *think* it means declaring total war against another state.

In any case, it's pretty clear what Perle's priorities are. "Existential politico-military decisions" are "even" more important than "great moral decisions".

If the Neocons are no good nation builders, Colin seems to be a very talented Golden Bridge builder, though.

Nonetheless, in reality, the river is still very wide:
"the necessity of giving the United Nations a significantly greater role in the political process in Iraq." (Gerhard Schroeder) does not mean ".. you get more foreign troops in there.."(Pat Roberts).

It rather means: Proconsul out, United Nations in.

How to sell that to Shrub in a way that he'd believe, there is a way to save face through all of this, that is the real question.

But, a beginning it is. Yahoo already called the occupational Coalition Forces "Peacekeepers" in this article. When did that happen? Who made them that?

And, marvin at September 3, 2003 04:59 PM:
It was Fischer above all, if I recall correctly, who defended Powell against international critique even in the run up to war. The Neocons don't like Powell. Remember, how Powell refused to use certain passages provided by the Pentagon as evidence against Iraq. I don't recall any broadsides fired against the Chocolate Makers by the State Department - and vise versa. It's politics - there is fractions, wings infighting, what have you; Governments are not a homogenous mass.

And to Joanna at September 3, 2003 05:05 PM:
My money says, he was very, very, very busy, just not in the spotlight. Powell doesn't strike me as one of the smoke-and-mirror ideologists. My 2 cents.

Ever watch a cat go full tilt against a glass sliding patio door, run headlong into it, and then walk away looking like it meant to do that?

That, on a much more tragic scale, is what we have going on here.

sgc

According to Yahoo News: The United States went to the United Nations (news - web sites) Wednesday to seek help with troops and money for Iraq (news - web sites), but said it would not give up command of military operations or its dominant role in the country.

Sounds like reality hasn't quite sunk in. And I'm pretty certain he means this.

My take? Bush is doing this as a token gesture, so that come election time he can blame the UN (especially the French) for each dollar spent, and every life snuffed out.

After all, he asked for help, but the French and the Germanys refused to see past their base motives and overwhelming greed and refused to send their troops to die for the greater glory of Bush and Hallibruton.

OK, someone beat me to the cat anology. I think at present the Bushies can still claim this is not a change in policy but an extension of their current plan only, ONLY, because they have no plans to relenquish any control. Once they agree to that, they have to officially admit they have changed course. Not that they will, I mean I am sure they have a whole lot of people taking crash courses in HTML so they can edit the web sites to make it seem like this was the idea all along and they have no idea what people are talking about with this "about face" nonsense.

And to Werner Dieter Thomas,- Tasquared @ 5:06p.m. speaks to my question.
Powell has sold out and the question is why?
Or he is a smoke and mirror guy after all.

With credit to "When Johnny Comes Marching Home", Colin, "we hardly knew ye".

Every day that goes by Bush is a lame duck president and everyone knows it. Very little room for negotiations here. Bush can't backpedal too far. The Europeans have their own voters, other more urgent worries, etc. I'd be AMAZED that anything more than tokenish gets accomplished.

Morat: My take? Bush is doing this as a token gesture, so that come election time he can blame the UN (especially the French) for each dollar spent, and every life snuffed out.

After all, he asked for help, but the French and the Germanys refused to see past their base motives and overwhelming greed and refused to send their troops to die for the greater glory of Bush and Hallibruton.

Yes, yes, that's exactly what I was thinking. It's too odd that Bush is going to the UN demanding the impossible, and it's too odd that at the same time some minion chooses to insult the Europeans. I think it's a way of telling everyone who is pleading with Bush to go to the UN for help "see, I tried, but it didn't work."

So now the Administration is going to sweet-talk the chocolate-making countries for some chocolate to help them pay for the mess the U.S. has made in Iraq? Who said irony is dead?

Is this just another attempt by Bush to produce a win-win situation for himself? Maybe.

If the chocolate-making countries - and others - refuse to step in given the U.S. restrictions, then Bush can tell Congress and the American people: See, they're all a bunch of weasels. You can't count on the UN, which is why we went unilaterally preemptive in the first place. Bush wins, though there is still the problem of persuading Americans to cough up $30 billion annually to occupy Iraq - plus whatever rebuilding costs.

If, on the other hand, the chocolate makers are somehow cajoled into helping out, then, by being able to show diplomatic savvy, Bush appeases the fence-straddlers who mildly object to what the Administration did in Iraq. He has alleged to have said that he doesn't want any more American deaths by March, because that could interfere with the reelection campaign. But more American deaths seem inevitable. If the Security Council says OK to international involvement, Bush can blame each and every one of these deaths on UN incompetence and its rules of engagement.

If the UN steps in, Bush also gets the added benefit of reducing the number of troops, something the Congressional Budget Office says is crucial if America is to meet its other international obligations. (See Steve Gilliard's blog today.)

Last post by me.

Crow-eating surrender-monkeys???

always at war with eurasia?

I was thinking along the same lines as Meteor Blades today, but then it occurred to me that the fly in the ointment for Bush to pull this diplomatic win-win (not to mix metaphors or anything) is the fat Halliburton contracts.

The point is that the US can't "concede authority" anymore, which the UN likely-suspect nations will of course demand, because all the potential profits have already been divvied up. Conceding authority to the UN will make for too much chaos over the spoils of war.

"But then, everything they do is a continuation of what they've been doing, right?"

Indeed, they continue to lie and mess things up.

What an incredible coincidence that the overtures to the UN followed immediately on the release of the CBO report that stated plainly that our forces were close to the breaking point. I guess that was the goal all along--
to screw up our defense forces and drive away recruits for the next decade, and then display our neediness to the UN. The neocons were trickier than I thought. All along they were planning to reduce US military, economic and moral power in the world. So . . . everything has gone according to plan.

re:Joanna at September 3, 2003 07:05 PM:
"Powell has sold out and the question is why?"

Dear Joanna, I am not clear if I do understand you correctly.

Sold out from the start by selling a war to the UN Security Counsel that Colin himself neither believed in, nor in it's reasoning or validity
(ie:knowing that there is no WMD's),
nor believing in the motive beneath the Neocon agenda (ie:disturbing all powerbalances in the Middle-East, destabelizing all political systems there, pitching these states against each other like some third rate Latin American backyard and reaping the fruit of stabilizing the Israel situation whilst harvesting the grand-prize of controling ALL of the worlds major energy recources from the Kaspian to the Red Sea, not just to use for the US, but more importantly to control them before China and Europe can)
- yea, that could be argued.

But, could he have done so in order to be there in a position of influence to save whatever is saveable as soon as this phantasmagoric bubble collapses (Now), whilst not being a Neocon himself at all
- that would be the point I argue.

Does that make Colin a 'liberal'? No, not really.
It makes him a politician and a diplomat. A classical, tragic figure, if you want. (Being a failed, hack filmmaker myself, I am probably overly fascinated by the tragic dimension that I see in Colins story. Having lived in the shadow of the Berlin Wall in the Reagan years, I probably also laugh about many things that normal people never would. Take me with a pound of salt.)

Does that make Colin the only adviser in the Administration that has a chance to talk some reasoning into the 'supreme commander', before this world as we know it disappears into utter madness,
- that would be my real fear.

My question, Joanna, thus is: how do you define selling out?
Don't get me wrong, I am eager to learn and surprisingly naive.

There is no need to go attributing subtle psychological processes, let alone high motives to Powell in order to explain his behavior--too many people have already been doing this with the entire Bush Administration from the start, and we always do so with politicians and celebrities in general.

In a wolf pack, those who are close to the leader play along in order to hold their own positions. There is nothing surprising, let alone sophisticated or "tragic" in Powell's bare-faced lying, cajoling, whining, or "behind-the-scenes" temper tantrums.

We give far too much credit and benefit of the doubt to those in power--they may often be intellectually capable people, but they are emotionally vapid and childish and spiritually bankrupt. The last half-decent person in American politics, Paul Wellstone, was killed in a plane crash that many believe was not an accident. Who is left? Dean? Wait until he is given a little real power, and watch how fast his actions will divorce themselves from his words. Just you wait, just you watch.

Political power simply does not attract the best and brightest among us, it attracts the cleverest and most ambitious--there is a huge difference. If such people happen to behave ethically from time to time, it is only because it is in their best interests.

If you're looking for the best and brightest, go spend some time in those out of the way places where the poets, gypsies, philosophers, composers, saltimbanques, vagabonds, bon vivants and sages gather. They are still far, oh, very far from the media limelight (not to mention Internet chat rooms). Shut off the computer, put down the New York Times and the Guardian and what-have-you, and go read Yannis Ritsos, or Nazim Hikmet; forget the headlines, and go listen to some George Brassens or Zakir Hussein; turn off CNN, and go study the works of Sri Aurobindo or of Michel Serres.

In fact, that is what I'm going to do right now. But first let me state this as plainly as I can:
Colin Powell is not worth a single hair from the head of any of these creators mentioned. He is a writhing little worm. There is no real question of his "selling out," since he had nothing to sell out in the first place. Tragic? He's not even comic. There's not an ounce of real drama or real laughter in him--there's only costumes and theater.

To Dieter Thomas, selling out definitions:
Democrats who voted to authorize Bush to use force against Iraq. Secretary of State who knowingly uses "bullshit" in address to UN to support an Administration built on "bullshit". These people are not only selling out, they are cowards as well.

The Washington Post has a suge story out this morning about how the Joint Chiefs of Staff--who report to Rusfeld--went behind the back of the Secretary of Defense to work with the State Department to approach Bush with an ultimatum to go to the U.N.
Bush met with Powell alone on Tuesday, his first day back from vacation, and then the decision was announced. Rumsfed met with Bush alone yesterday and probably found out that he had lost control of his own Defense Department. This was undoubtedly dictated to Bush Junior by his father and old hands like Baker and Snowcroft. "W" fails his Dad one more time.

The GREAT WURLITZLER is something to behold isn't it?

To Werner Dieter Thomas, thank you for your response.

Quinn and Tsquared are "right on". Naively believing that Powell was a man of ethics and morals, the question was, what happened to him?

Am new to this. The responses are great for my ego and stimulating to my mind,
(since I don't have a J O B - am looking - - however on a humerous note, I was invited to join the Garden Club today - Weeee!!)

I don't think that going to the UN is just an "I-tried" maneuver from Bush. For his base, it would have been a lot better not to have gone to the UN at all. And anyway, he's going to the UN because we are really in a bind: there aren't enough soldiers, and there's no end in sight. The UN tells him to piss up a rope, and we're still in a bind.

I think that this bunch of ideologues are so self-righteous and arrogant that they do honestly believe (or hope) the other world powers will trip over themselves to get their citizens shot at for no gain in Iraq. The desperation level is going to have to go up quite a bit before anything really breaks. As other people have said, you don't have to construct these three-bank pool shots to figure out what Idiot Boy & Co is up to.

Dear Joanna, and I thank you kindly for your clarification.
I agree with some that Quinn and most of Tsquared have stated ( Really love the recommendations of authors, though ).

Where I cannot follow is the jump from 'He..' to 'these people' , and throwing me a 'If you're looking for the best and brightest' condamnation. Too emotional. Wrongly concluded that I'd confuse a good story with fanship, blindedness, support etc. Heinar Kipphardt, before his untimely death, wrote a fantastic play about "Brother Eichmann" - that didn't make Kipphardt a Nazi, now did it.

In condemning dangerous ideologists (like the Neocons), it is not so helpful to bring further Ideology into the discourse (Quinn:"If such people happen to behave ethically from time to time, it is only because it is in their best interests. " - as opposed to what exactly? True and righteous believers? All people only behave ethical, because it is in their best interest! Cathegoric Imperative.)

But, again, I don't mean this as flamebait. I am not a Colin apologist, but maybe I left this wrong impression.
I am sorry, if I did.

It is far from me to glorify the last reminant of something akin to logic and reason in a desasterously incompetent Administration.

The point I argue is rather this: had Colin quitt or being replaced by a hardline Neocon - how exactly would the world be in a better position right now? Hence, my point of seeing tragedy.
Quinn argues, if I understand him right, that the only ethical choice would have been for Powell to resign.
I don't know that. He, who fights and runs away, survives to fight another day.

I live 7 years without TV, and only had one before to hone my North American language skills.
I am naive, as to always assume that I know nothing - and have the fixed intend to stay that way until I die.

However, I believe this world is infinite complex - and I fear, that the neocon Iraq debacle could change much more than just the next US Federal electoral choice between two evils.

Gee, WDT, I don't know where to begin here... First of all, I am not arguing that the only ethical choice for Powell would have been to resign. I am saying that there has been no ethical choice involved in any of his actions regarding Iraq. (That ALL people act ethically only in their best interests--now there is a sweeping generalization I'm not ready to make. First of all, I can't stomach Kant, I'm a Nietzsche man. Secondly, would you include people like Giordano Bruno, Ghandi, Che or Malcolm X in that accusation? If so, then these men had a funny idea of their own "interests".)

Powell's song-and-dance in front of the UN was more than just a mere compromise--it was a revelation of an absolute lack of spine, character, values, and balls. He cannot possibly be tragic--all the tragedy is to be found among the victims of his actions as a high-salaried representative of a band of murderous whores. The leap from the "he" to the "they" is no more jarring or inconsistent than discussing a shortstop and the baseball team he plays for in the same paragraph.

The "best and brightest thing" was in no way a "condemnation" of you or anything you said, and there was not much emotion involved in it (though there seems to have been quite a bit in your reaction to it). It was just a way of supporting my point that we give too much credence to people in power simply because they happen to be in power. For some reason, we (not you specifically, but "we," meaning people in general, myself included) have a habit of automatically assuming they must be intelligent and profound--but there is no reason whatsoever to believe this when their actions consistently prove otherwise.

The list of poets, philosophers and so on, then, was simply a perspective check--a way of showing Powell's real spiritual stature by making him stand next to a few giants. Something like putting a thorn bush next to a redwood and saying, "See?"

There is no ideology involved here (let alone Ideology), but merely cynicism and disgust with the sub-human behavior of our so-called leaders. If it comes out sounding harsh, I apologize, but cynicism and disgust generally are harsh, so there's little I can do about it.

Thanks Quinn for taking your time to defining your thoughts to me, I do appreaciate.
I didn't mean to appear emotional, sorry if I did. It's just my way of picking peoples brains who I don't know and where I sense that I might not fully understand their views. I am wiser now.
But, nor do I feeble in the face of cynicism (yours is only settle, if noticable). Whence I lived in the shadow of the Berin Wall in the Reagan years, I learned to laugh about things no North American I ever met would laugh about. It is a psychological mechanism to protect oneself; it's fight, flight or laughter - or crack up. I understand on my end, we have more differences in semantics than in our views.

Nonetheless, it is a refreshing and stimulating discourse - and Billmons Banner promised me to hang out in a Mahagonny Whiskey Bar (Berthold Brecht-ian type; and so I do). No offense meant, none taken. Love you lots,
Werner

PS: I am definitively not awed or starstruck, by anyone, politicians, movie icons, sports giants etc. I treat everybody with the same respect, though. I used to be a politician, I work in movies, and I don't care for sports ( other than that I snowboard).