Originally published at: General Colin Powell, first Black US secretary of state, RIP | Boing Boing
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The man was a badass and badly compromised. It seems unlikely that the world will ever see anyone similar again.
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[EDIT] strike that, as I’m being reminded. But, ultimately, I have to wonder at his culpability for the Iraq war and how much he knew that the evidence he presented to the world was built upon lies and distortions.
The truly sad part here is how many anti-vax folks will now point at him as a reason to continue to deny vaccines, ignoring the statistics in favor of a cherry picked anecdote. Yes, no vaccine is 100% perfect. Still WAY better than your chances of surviving covid without it.
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CNN goes long on that he was fully vaxxed, blah blah on breakthrough infections, but never bothers to mention that he was probably immune-compromised due to battling Multiple Myeloma.
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Ehhh… more than most Republicans maybe. But whatever his accomplishments he also let George W. Bush use his credibility to push the “Iraq has WMDs” story even though Powell himself privately called it “bullshit.”
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How strange that the detailed obituary failed to cover one of the more high-profile elements of his career.
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Although tarnished by poor decisions, he did good by the USA, as best as one could hope for considering the Bush Co. / Cheney debacles. Many condolences to his loved ones.
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See also Mỹ Lai.
Nope. Not buying the he was a good guy spiel.
ETA
I see @Purplecat has mentioned it already.
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Colin Powell, then a 31-year-old Army major serving as an assistant chief of staff of operations for the Americal Division, was charged with investigating the letter, which did not specifically refer to Mỹ Lai, as Glen had limited knowledge of the events there. In his report, Powell wrote, “In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between Americal Division soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.” Powell’s handling of the assignment was later characterized by some observers as “whitewashing” the atrocities of Mỹ Lai.[79]
In May 2004, Powell, then United States Secretary of State, told CNN’s Larry King, “I mean, I was in a unit that was responsible for Mỹ Lai. I got there after Mỹ Lai happened. So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored.”[80
No. He did more or less what he did for Iraq: lied for career purposes.
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Colin Powell was one of the real “adults in the room” at a time when the country needed one. Then again, because he was an “adult in the room,” people listened when he made the case for war. One can admire his career before the Bush administration, but the stench of Iraq does not wash off.
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Maybe read the thread first before you comment. It’s not even all that long at this point.
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A tragic figure, in the sense of Greek tragedy. A smart, capable soldier festooned with the outward trapping of honour who continually debased himself to the demands of viilains for what he saw as his greater mission of service.
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Who knows, we weren’t inside his head.
Whatever his intentions were, his silence was complicity.
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And no one is going to have this type of discussion about anyone in Trump’s administration. Not even Trump supporters.
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No doubt. He was apparently fond of calling some of the Cheney regency’s neoCons like Wolfowitz and Perle “pissants” in private but he never called them out in public.
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Yeah. When you’re a good soldier for an empire, a lot of your soldiering will consist of heinous actions.
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Sorry, a lot of the comments about My Lai were posted while I was writing my comment, so I did not see them until my comment went up. In any case, I think it probably would have been more apt to say, “One might possibly admire his career before the Bush administration, but certainly not after.”
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“Hey, those guys had a whole hour on how to treat the Vietnamese civilians [whose villages they were burning to the ground as per orders].”
Little surprise he supported another horrific war in the 90s, seeing as he’d been doing that for the last few decades.
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