[Peace-discuss] letter to the news gazette

[Carol Inskeep]

for folks who didn't see it, here's matt's letter to the editor as it
appeared yesterday...


Dont trust Colin Powell. In spite of his image as an honest moderate
within the Bush administration, Colin Powell can hold his own with the
worst characters of the conservative far right.

Powell went to Vietnam as an executive officer with the American Division
in July 1968, four months after soldiers within that division slaughtered
hundreds of civilians in the My Lai massacre.  Even after the massacre was
uncovered, Powell did nothing to pursue officers responsible for covering
up the facts of the case.

Powell does not mind supporting drug dealers and paramilitary groups that
kidnap, torture, and kill nurses, doctors and teachers, and destroy farms,
schools, and clinics.  He did this during the Reagan years when he was the
chief advocate of the Nicaraguan Contras. He justifies his close work with
the Contras by saying, we worked with what we had.  

Powell can lie with the best of them.  During the Iran/Contra scandal he
misled congressional investigators about whether his boss, Secretary of
Defense Caspar Weinberger, kept a diary.  First he flatly denied it, then
changed his story saying that some notes were kept, then later called it a
diary.  This was crucial information and his deception helped shield
Weinberger from investigators.

And now, desperate to sell to its dishonest Iraq war policy to the world,
the Bush administration has put Colin Powell up as a trustworthy front
man.  Trust Powell?  Sure, go ahead and trust him (and Bush, Cheney, and
Rumsfeld) for [Powell] is an honorable man, so are they all, all honorable
men. My apologies to Shakespeare!

Matt Murrey