[Peace-discuss] Fw: [stopthewarpolitics] Why Won’t Obama Scorn and Denounce Powell?

[David Green]

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From: "mecc at comcast.net" <mecc at comcast.net>
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Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2008 5:55:52 AM
Subject: [stopthewarpolitics] Why Won’t Obama Scorn and Denounce Powell?

By Stanley Heller

Back in February Barack Obama was endorsed by Minister Louis Farrakhan of the
Nation of Islam.  When questioned he said he had not asked for his support and
denounced Farrakhan's anti-Semitic comments (of the 1980’s).    Then during a
debate with Hillary Clinton Obama plainly said he rejected Farrakahn’s
support.  Hillary then challenged him to “denounce” Farrakhan and he obeyed
and said he “would reject and denounce” Farrakhan.    Some time later he was
pressed to dissociate and reject his long time Minister Jeremiah Wright.  And
he did.  

Now he has received the endorsement of Colin Powell.  Where are the demands
that he refuse the support of this liar and war criminal?

Here are some the highlights of Powell’s career.

He blindly fought in the Vietnam War.  While the best soldiers of his
generation were questioning the war, opposing it, ending their careers and
risking their freedom, Powell plowed on.  He became executive officer and later
assistant chief of staff of operations for the Americal Division. In that post,
he was charged with investigating a detailed letter by Tom Glen alleging war
crimes against Vietnamese.  Powell did a cursory investigation and wrote: "In
direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American
soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent."  Real evidence of a
first-class mind here.

Powell was National Security adviser to Ronald Reagan from 1987 to the end of
his administration in 1989.  This was a time when the US was helping Saddam in
his war against Iran.    It was the time of Saddam’s Halabja  massacre, poison
gas against his own (Kurdish) countrymen.  The US State Department position in
the day was that Iran was responsible for the attack.  There is no record of
Colin Powell’s dissent.

Vietnam taught him a lesson which he boiled down into principles which others
called the Powell Doctrine.  Reduced to its essentials it said don’t go to
war unless you have enormous support for it, but when you do go use
overwhelming force right away.    No more Mr. Nice Guy. He got his chance to try
this out in 1990-1991 when Saddam took Kuwait and the US launched Operation
Defensive Shield and Defensive Storm.    Powell was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff. Key to Defensive Shield were the sanctions on Iraq which started in
the summer of 1990.  They banned the important of anything (including food and
medicine) into Iraq.  This was “eased” a bit after the 1991 war, but the
sanctions eventually lasted 13 years and killed by UN Assistant
Secretary-General Denis Halliday’s estimate more than a million people.

The war itself was pretty brutal.  Water was seen as an Iraqi vulnerability and
the water purification system was badly damaged.  The electrical grid was
smashed up despite the consequences to civilians.  On February 13, 1991 the
al-Amariyih shelter was bombed and 400 civilians were burned and boiled to
death.    And on and on.

In 1993 Powell left the Army.  As the years went by there were many reports of
mysterious illnesses by US soldiers who had fought in the Gulf War.  Complaints
numbered in the thousands.  They became classified as Gulf War Syndrome and
were ignored by the military brass, classified as “stress” related or
outright faking.  The Syndrome is now thought to be caused by a mix of
reactions to anti-anthrax shots soldiers were forced to take, a toxic plume
caused by chemicals carelessly blown up after the war and inhalation of
depleted uranium liberally sprinkled over Kuwait and Iraq by General Powell’s
forces.  While doctors and some officers started sounding the alarm ex-General
Powell did squat for his men.    After a decade of struggle the military started
paying compensation.  Over 250,000 soldiers now get some kind of disability
payments.  No thanks to Colin Powell.

It was as Secretary of State that Powell clearly became a war criminal.  He
gave the definitive speech for war on Iraq to the UN Security Council on
February 5, 2003. It was breathtaking in its detail, filled with lie after lie.
Yellow-cake from Niger, anthrax, toxic germs produced in mobile trucks,
weaponized VX gas, enough chemical weapons agents to fill 16,000 rockets. The
charges flew fast and thick.  Powell said WMD were taken from the palaces where
they were kept and hidden in the homes of high ranking officials. There was the
“evidence”: audio tapes, a vial of faux anthrax, satellite photos, supposed
accounts by Iraqi defectors, a description of the aluminum tubes essential to
production of nuclear bomb.  Powell said Saddam had the ability to make
smallpox (even though the only known stores of the extinct disease were in
vaults in the US and Russia.).    Saddam had started a “crash program” to
make a nuclear weapon.    And then less than a year and a half after 9/11, Powell
pushed the final hot button, Osama Bin Laden and al Qaida.  Powell detailed the
“sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network” going back
“for decades”.

So then came the second chance for the Powell Doctrine, the 2003 invasion of
Iraq or “Shock and Awe” as it was dubbed at the time.  

On September 16,  2004 Kofi Annan, the then Secretary General of the United
Nations, speaking on the invasion, said, "I have indicated it was not in
conformity with the UN Charter. From our point of view, from the charter point
of view, it was illegal."

If the invasion was illegal, it was aggression, a war crime.  In fact
aggression is classified as the worst war crime because it gives birth to all
the other crimes.  And if you conspire to commit aggression you are a war
criminal.

This is the man who has endorsed Barack Obama for President.  

Of course, far from denouncing Powell, Obama is joyfully embracing him,
offering him a post as adviser and urging him to appear with him at campaign
stops.

Of course this is just the Obama who wants to get elected.  Once in office the
real Obama will be revealed and he’ll turn on all his corporate, military and
Zionist backers. 

Sure he will.



      
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