The Mystery of Colin Powell

The American press, as well as European diplomats, continue to view Colin Powell as a moderating influence on Bush and Rummy's foreign policy, even after his deceptive claims to the UN on "WMDs." But every time we hear about Powell's influence rising (we're in one of those cycles now), it always gets overruled by the hardline hawks around Rummy and Cheney.

In an interview with Business Week, Powell doesn't seem to be as careful of his moderate image as he usually is. The interviewer suggests that unnamed "war foes" have been "gloating" about the US going back to the UN for assistance. Powell responds:

They'd better not gloat too soon. There are a lot of good things going on that simply don't get reported. [The story is] not as good as a [bomb] going off under a Humvee. But up in the northern sections, things are going swimmingly. In the south, the British have done a good job. The tough area is the so-called triangle, and there are Iraqis who are destroying their own country. They're neither Baathists, fedayeen, nor terrorists. They're people stealing copper. And as soon as we get the economy going...that will pass.

Is Powell reading the newspapers these days? The southern Shiite areas are increasingly the scenes of violence against the US and Britain, and the Kurdish north has also had some ugly incidents. But Powell seems to be saying that the only real problem even in the Sunni center is "people stealing copper"!

He also picked up the "war foes gloating" comment and took it a step further by using a sneer worthy of Rummy, that the "good things" that are happening are "not as good as a [bomb] going off under a Humvee." I have seen some gloating by Bush's critics over his having to go back to the UN to ask for troops. But I certainly haven't heard a single American war critic gloating over Americans getting killed, which is the sleazy implication of Powell's comment.

Other parts of the interview are odd, as well. Like when he says of Europe, "The ... opinion-makers in Europe don't ever want to use force hardly for anything if it can be avoided." News flash for Colin Powell: that's what most Americans believe, too. Regular people just don't like war.

Hearing: Johnny Cash, "Rowboat" (Beck)

Tags: colin powell, iraq war