Colin Come Lately

Colin Powell is out trying to resurrect his reputation again.

Former Secretary of State Colin Powel revealed that he spent 2.5 hours “vainly trying to persuade President George W. Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today’s conflict cannot be resolved by U.S. forces. ‘I tried to avoid this war,’ Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. ‘I took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers.’” In terms of the current situation in Iraq, Powell said: “It is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States.”

This isn't big news. And many other officials have said much the same kind of thing. But for some reason Colin Powell's attempts to clear his air really piss me off.

I think I might be particularly angry with Powell because it's possible that he may have been the only one who could have stopped the war. His performance at the U.N. gave unprecedented credibility to Bush's claims about Iraq. Had Powell resigned in protest and made his arguments public, it may .... I repeat may ... have stopped the momentum for war. Of course we'll never know, but I can't think of anyone else who was in that position who had their head on relatively straight.