I’ve never been as impressed with Colin Powell as the media establishment has long demanded that I be. I cheered this morning when, on Face The Nation, Dick Cheney said that if he had to choose between Powell and Rush Limbaugh, he’d take the latter. Bob Schieffer seemed shocked. He apparently remains under the delusion that the man who turned on his long-time fellow squish, John McCain, and endorsed Barack Obama last year is still a Republican.
Anyway, Mark Steyn isn’t impressed, either:
One of Powell’s more famous utterances was his rationale, after the 1991 Gulf War, for declining to involve the U.S. military in the Balkans: “We do deserts, we don’t do mountains.” Actually, by that stage, the U.S. barely did deserts. The first President Bush’s decision, at Powell’s urging, not to topple Saddam but to halt the coalition forces at the gates of Baghdad sent the world a message about American purpose whose consequences we live with to this day. As for the Kurds and Shiites to whom it never occurred that the world’s superpower would assemble a mighty coalition for the purpose of fighting half a war to an inconclusive conclusion, Saddam quickly took a bloody revenge: That’s an interesting glimpse of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of Colin Powell’s much-vaunted “moderation.”
So I have no great regard for Powell’s strategic thinking, at home or abroad. As the general sees it, the Republican party ought to be a “big tent”: Right now, the tent is empty, with only a few “mean spirited” and “divisive” talk-radio hosts chewing the limbs off live kittens while gibbering to themselves. By comparison, over in the Democrat tent, they’ve got blacks, gays, unions, professors, Ben Affleck: diversity on parade.
In fact, the GOP’s tent has many poles: It has social conservatives, libertarians, fiscal conservatives, national-security hawks. These groups do not always agree: The so-cons resent the libertarians’ insouciance on gay marriage and abortion. The libertarians don’t get the warhawks’ obsession with thankless nation-building in Islamist hellholes. A lot of the hawks can’t see why the fiscal cons are so hung up on footling matters like bloated government spending at a time of war. It requires a lot of effort to align these various poles sufficiently to hold up the big tent. And by the 2006 electoral cycle, between the money-no-object Congress at home and a war that seemed to have dwindled down to an endless, half-hearted, semi-colonial policing operation, the GOP poles were tilting badly. The Republican coalition is like a permanent loveless marriage: There are bad times and worse times. And, while social conservatism and libertarianism can be principled to a fault, the vagaries of electoral politics mean they often wind up being represented in office by either unprincipled opportunists like Arlen Specter or unprincipled squishes like Lincoln Chafee.
As he notes, don’t count the Republicans out yet. And they can do quite well without creatures like Benedict Arlen. Or Colin Powell.
[Update a few minutes later]
More thoughts on the poor put-upon “moderates” by Melissa Clouthier.
I don’t expect Cheney to show gratitude. He’s just one of the cretins shamed by Powell’s professionalism and competence.
And if one wishes to second guess the outcome of the Persian Gulf war, it’s worth considering supply lines. I strongly doubt any country other than Kuwait would have allowed overflight for a US invasion of Iraq. That means all supplies for a major invasion has to go through the Strait of Hormuz possibly with interference from former allies like Saudi Arabia.
My view is that the decision not to invade Iraq in 1991 was the correct one. And given how the 2003 invasion turned out, Powell would have been much better as Secretary of Defense than Rumsfeld.
As others have pointed out, the difference in the “moderates” of the two parties is striking. On the Dems side, it’s go to the back of the bus, shut up, sit down, vote the way we tell you and be thankful for what you get. On the GOP side, the moderates go into Specter-like snits when someone has the audacity to suggest that maybe they shouldn’t be running things and maybe it’s “moderate” policies that have gotten the GOP to where they are today.
It’s not a “purge” to want to slap down the GOP moderates and put someone else in charge. In a parliamentary system, after their performance of the past few years the few who didn’t resign would be backbenchers. Instead, they really seem to believe that the problem is that their policies weren’t tried hard enough, and next time they’ll get it right. (Funny, that’s the same excuse the Socialist Left keeps giving for their failures, isn’t it?)
I don’t expect Cheney to show gratitude.
Gratitude for what, exactly? What has Powell done that anyone should be grateful for, other than supporting the proposition that Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs tend to be political suck-ups?
Powell could have been President in ’96, all he had to do was say he wanted it and Dole would have been dumped and spared us Monica Lewinsky. That he choose not to says a lot about his leadership abilities.
Gratitude for what, exactly? What has Powell done that anyone should be grateful for, other than supporting the proposition that Chairmen of the Joint Chiefs tend to be political suck-ups?
To start with, winning the Persian Gulf war. And being the voice of reason in the build up to the Iraq Invasion. Plus, Powell was instrumental in building up the coalition that invaded Iraq and in disabling interference from China, France, and Russia.
…which too many seem to confuse with astuteness or wisdom. Powell’s never shown a whole lot of those traits.
Wasn’t that Schwarzkopf? I don’t remember Powell actually being in theater, and I tend to give credit to the generals in the field when wars are won.
Powell was instrumental in building up the coalition that invaded Iraq and in disabling interference from China, France, and Russia.
He “disabled interference from China, France and Russia”? Who knew?
Wasn’t that Schwarzkopf? I don’t remember Powell actually being in theater, and I tend to give credit to the generals in the field when wars are won.
I shouldn’t have implied Powell was the sole factor. You are correct that Schwarzkopf played a more important role.
He “disabled interference from China, France and Russia”? Who knew?
Powell’s presentation in the UN of WMD in Iraq was the decisive moment that brought the UN on board with the invasion. All three countries I mentioned have a permanent veto in the UN Security Council. Any one of them could have blocked UN sanction for an invasion of Iraq. That wouldn’t necessarily prevent the US from invading, but it’d greatly weaken international support for the action.
Any one of them could have blocked UN sanction for an invasion of Iraq.
Perhaps you missed it, but they did. And France pressured Turkey to disallow us from using it as a base to invade from the north.
If I recall correctly, Powell didn’t want to fight Iraq in ’91. Before the fighting started he said he would’ve been happy if we had kept the troops sitting in the desert for a year or two to wait for sanctions to ‘work’.
Powell didn’t have too many friends in the army because in all of his years he barely had any combat commands. Like brigade, division, etc commander. He was a staff officer and a political one at that.
I guess I did miss it. My recollections are wrong here.
“Powell didn’t have too many friends in the army because in all of his years he barely had any combat commands.”
Sounds like George Marshall
“Sounds like George Marshall”
Replace merit with affirmative action and you might be right.
…and don’t forget that Colin Powell suggested stopping the “slaughter” on the Highway of Death, and suggested we not chase their murdering a$$es right back into downtown Baghdad. What would the Security Council think of us?!
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Thus creating the need for the SECOND Gulf War.
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Would we have shown gratitude if Ike had chased the Wehrmacht back across the Rhine, then STOPPED!?
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I think not.
I’m starting to wonder if Cheney’s been replaced by a clone who’s working for the Democrats. Every time he opens his mouth he convinces more independent voters that they don’t want the GOP back in charge. Whether he deserves it or not, Colin Powell is very popular with independent voters. Rush Limbaugh, not so much.
The Republican moderates are in a lather because they see the Obama administration as on course for a one term crash and burn.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Obama administration wouldn’t be quite happy with a Republican which would seal the “transformative” changes they’re about to enact instead of rolling them back into some kind of sane policies.
How many thousands of Iraqis did Saddam kill after we left? The first WTC bombong was in ’93. Makes you wonder if the Towers would still be standing had we stayed. Those pragmatists sure know their stuff.
Every time he opens his mouth he convinces more independent voters that they don’t want the GOP back in charge.
How would you know?
Powell was “parodied” in the move “Mars Attack” as the ass-kissing rear echelon futher mucker he really is.
To be fair Karl was partly right. The only reason the Iraqi Republican Guard made it out of Northern Kuwait in one piece is because our offensive was bogging down.
It was such a turkey shoot that ammunition was having a hard time flowing up to the front. Apache’s for instance were having to go further and further to get up to the front and then back to rearm.
A major mistake was made though when we had the Iraqis at the negotiating table. We told them that there would be a no fly zone implemented. They asked to keep the use of helicopters for “humanitarian purposes”. We agreed with little thought and the Iraqis were just beside themselves that we had so easily allowed them the use of such powerful asset. Within a short time there was footage of Iraqi Helo’s raining down attacks on Kurdish rebels. Not certain who was responsible for that bit of genius, though.
Powell was respected enough that in 2000, he was on the short list for VP
for Bush and Gore. Both men messed up in not selecting him.