Colin Powell - Another BushWhacking War Criminal Cashes In...

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Colin Powell - Another BushWhacking War Criminal Cashes In...

Posted By: Watchman
Date: Monday, 11-Jun-2012 22:14:53

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. Powell's latest $27.99 account of his legendary life is billed as a "powerful portrait of a leader who is reflective, self-effacing, and grateful for the contributions of everyone he works with." But the title, It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership, could very well refer to Powell's own careerist ambitions: saying and doing whatever served the interests of power – as a young officer in Vietnam, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the illegal invasion of Panama, as Secretary of State under George W. Bush – has worked out tremendously well for the man, if not so much for those unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of his public service. Though billed as a self-effacing, humble leader prepared to admit mistakes, the real Colin Powell is not the one advertised by the P.R. department at HarperCollins. His book makes that clear enough when he discusses his now infamous 2003 presentation before the United Nations on Iraq's alleged stockpiling of weapons of mass destruction. Nearly every line in that speech has since proven to be false – indeed, much of his presentation was known to be false at the time – but you won't find Powell owning up to that. "There is nothing worse than a leader believing he has accurate information when folks who know he doesn't don't tell him that he doesn't," Powell writes. "I found myself in trouble on more than one occasion because people kept silent when they should have spoken up. My infamous speech at the U.N. in 2003 about Iraqi WMD programs was not based on facts, though I thought it was." 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." more:http://www.blacklistednews.com/Colin_Powell%3A_Another_War_Criminal_Cashes_In_/19916/0/0/0/Y/M.html