Colin Powell is seen by many as one of America's better and decent military men and politician. It is misplaced, as a piece on Information Clearing House so clearly articulates in a piece "Colin Powell: Another War Criminal Cashes In", in the light of yet another book by Powell just released.
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"Blinding obeying authority – always for personal gain – has been a hallmark of Powell's career. As the top deputy to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger during the Reagan administration, Powell was a party to the transfer of thousands of missiles to Iran as part of an illegal arms-for-hostages swap, with proceeds from the sales used in defiance of Congress and the World Court in support of the right-wing Contra insurgency in Nicaragua, later known as the Iran-Contra scandal. And as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under the first George Bush, Powell led a brutal invasion of Panama in which hundreds of civilians died, an illegal act that was widely condemned by Latin American governments.
Powell's career culminated with the illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq. Rather than apologize to the victims of that war, however, he has decided to cash in, hawking his latest volume of apologia at a Costco or Sam's Club near you. Since President Barack Obama had decided to let Bush administration war criminals go free – a "look forward, not backward" privilege allowed powerful men in Washington but denied America's 2.3 million mostly non-violent prisoners – it's up to us to remind Powell that while his subservience to deadly state power may have worked for him, it didn't work out so well for the hundreds of thousands of victims that lay in his wake. And not all of us are willing to forget."
"One could be forgiven for thinking there's anything honorable or honest about Colin Powell. For more than two decades now the Washington media has portrayed the former Secretary of State as something of a real life action hero, a reluctant warrior whose greatest fault – should they deign to mention any – was just being too darn loyal to a guy named George and his buddy Dick. What you might have missed is that Powell is a war criminal in his own right, one who in more than four decades of "public service" helped kill people from Vietnam to Panama to Iraq who never posed a threat to America. But don't just take some anti-war activists' word for it: Powell will proudly tell you as much, so long as he can make a buck from doing it in a book."
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"In other words, according to Powell, the fact that he lied to the American public as well as the international community on the eve of a disastrous war is not his fault – heavens no – but the fault of his anonymous underlings, the allegedly timid State Department staffers who lacked the courage to speak truth to their courageous boss. Like much of Powell's anecdotes, it's a tidy little story about leadership that's about as truthful as his U.N. speech.
The reality is Powell, like most powerful men in Washington, is a well-documented liar. In fact, those State Department employees Powell blames for his repeating thinly sourced lies before the international community did in fact speak up. Powell just ignored them since what they had to say wasn't convenient to the task at hand: selling an unjust war against a third-rate military power.
As writer Jonathan Schwarz notes, State Department staff actually went through all the claims Powell was to make in his U.N. speech – and they found most of them wanting. But Powell ignored them, boasting that "every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
The reality is Powell, like most powerful men in Washington, is a well-documented liar. In fact, those State Department employees Powell blames for his repeating thinly sourced lies before the international community did in fact speak up. Powell just ignored them since what they had to say wasn't convenient to the task at hand: selling an unjust war against a third-rate military power.
As writer Jonathan Schwarz notes, State Department staff actually went through all the claims Powell was to make in his U.N. speech – and they found most of them wanting. But Powell ignored them, boasting that "every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."
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Powell's career culminated with the illegal and disastrous invasion of Iraq. Rather than apologize to the victims of that war, however, he has decided to cash in, hawking his latest volume of apologia at a Costco or Sam's Club near you. Since President Barack Obama had decided to let Bush administration war criminals go free – a "look forward, not backward" privilege allowed powerful men in Washington but denied America's 2.3 million mostly non-violent prisoners – it's up to us to remind Powell that while his subservience to deadly state power may have worked for him, it didn't work out so well for the hundreds of thousands of victims that lay in his wake. And not all of us are willing to forget."
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