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Admiral Hyman Rickover would have made a good president. As he was not born in the US he was not eligible, but that wouldn't prevent him from being presidentable according to the standards of the post.
Though a bigger fan of Jefferson I am picking Teddy Roosevelt for todays job. Jefferson would get killed or dispensed in my estimation. Teddy was a giant slayer extraordinaire. We have several extraordinary giants badly in need of slaying.
I think at the time Powell would have had the respect coming into office that Eisenhower did. (Both could have chosen which party they wanted to run in)
The problem with Powell is his later connection with the Bush Administration
I was discussing the "Greatest Empires" thread with my kids. One of them posed this question and I found it very interesting.
Would you want someone that would make the US more powerful? Someone that could improve her image? Or someone that could bring the different parties and factions together?
Tell me who you would want to be the next US President, any living or deceased person and why.
A cross between Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman. Someone who does what they think is right, damn the torpedoes, and doesn't buckle under to the political correctness of the day.
I think at the time Powell would have had the respect coming into office that Eisenhower did. (Both could have chosen which party they wanted to run in)
The problem with Powell is his later connection with the Bush Administration
The problem with Powell is that he used his truthworthy image to loan credibility to Bush's Iraq WMD sales pitch which he knew (being in his position, I don't think there's any other possibility) was total BS.
Hence, his image did not reflect the real Colin Powell.
The problem with Powell is that he used his truthworthy image to loan credibility to Bush's Iraq WMD sales pitch which he knew (being in his position, I don't think there's any other possibility) was total BS.
Hence, his image did not reflect the real Colin Powell.
According to the autobiography of one of Powell's state department aides, his intelligence people in State did not accept the analysis out of the CIA (nor did DIA, for that matter, and they all had the same information). Powell went back to George Tenet four times pressing him for certainty, which Tenent gave him every time.
That's where Powell went wrong. The old general Powell would have paid attention to his own people. He should have told Tenet, "You get your people to convince my people, and I'll go with this."
According to the autobiography of one of Powell's state department aides, his intelligence people in State did not accept the analysis out of the CIA (nor did DIA, for that matter, and they all had the same information). Powell went back to George Tenet four times pressing him for certainty, which Tenent gave him every time.
That's where Powell went wrong. The old general Powell would have paid attention to his own people. He should have told Tenet, "You get your people to convince my people, and I'll go with this."
Most intelligence experts in Europe and the ones here who were not aligned with Bush administration were extremely skeptical of that "data".
Also, even a layperson like me realized that removing Saddam would only turn Iraq into another Lebanon, a hotbed for terrorists like the ones who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. As a dictator greatly weakened by that time in what he could do externally yet still very strong internally, he was of benefit to us.
Either Powell is a whole lot more naïve and dumb than he seems, or he's bending the truth in his autobiography trying to distance himself from what was proven to be a disastrous gamble based on known lies.
Most intelligence experts in Europe and the ones here who were not aligned with Bush administration were extremely skeptical of that "data".
Also, even a layperson like me realized that removing Saddam would only turn Iraq into another Lebanon, a hotbed for terrorists like the ones who perpetrated the 9/11 attacks. As a dictator greatly weakened by that time in what he could do externally yet still very strong internally, he was of benefit to us.
Either Powell is a whole lot more naïve and dumb than he seems, or he's bending the truth in his autobiography trying to distance himself from what was proven to be a disastrous gamble based on known lies.
During the early 90s while I was at DIA, I saw three different "Iraq after Saddam" analyses that predicted precisely what has happened.
During the 80s, most Iraq analysts felt that Saddam had successfully quelled sectarianism in the same way it was believed Tito had done in Yugoslavia. But when Yugoslavia spun violently apart right after Tito's death, the Iraq analysts took another look at Saddam's regime, making note of the social stresses the Yugoslavia analysts had fatally minimized. What has happened in Iraq was expected by the nerds in the cubicles who spend all their time studying this stuff.
The efforts of DIA and the Army to derail the Iraq war were really kind of astounding to people who knew what to look for, but the politicians out-maneuvered the generals.
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