Different Man, Different Moment: ‘ Pundits and officials in Washington have dubbed Secretary of State Colin Powell’s attempt to make a case for war against Iraq in the United Nations Security Council an “Adlai Stevenson moment.”

I couldn’t disagree more. My father was Adlai Stevenson, who in 1962, as President Kennedy’s representative to the United Nations, presented the Security Council with incontrovertible proof that the Soviet Union, a nuclear superpower, was installing missiles in Cuba and threatening to upset the world’s “balance of terror.”

That “moment” had an obvious purpose: containing the Soviet Union and maintaining peace. It worked, and eventually the Soviet Union collapsed under its own weight. This moment has a different purpose: war.’ NY Times op-ed