RIP Colin Powell, 1937-2021
19 Oct 2021, 2:18 pm
I'll give you the Cliff Notes; Powell is pretty much universally respected up until the 2nd gulf war, after that liberals hate him for helping W convince the country that Iraq had WMDs (most people agree that he knew his info was shaky and went along because of internal pressure), while conservatives dislike him for not being enough of a team player during the war, and turning into a RINO and endorsing Democrats in the post W era. I honestly didn't realize he was quite so old, I'd forgotten that he served in Vietnam and was in the Reagan defense department, for some reason I had misremembered him being in uniform during Desert Storm and had his age off by about a decade.
Your summary seems unbiased enough to trigger more memories. Thanks.
I do still respect his efforts to be an honest independent thinker. Doesn’t mean he never made mistakes.
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ASPartOfMe
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19 Oct 2021, 3:09 pm
Four things you didn’t know about Colin Powell
Powell was awarded the Purple Heart, the Soldier’s Medal and the Bronze Star.
Weeks after U.S. troops killed as many as 500 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians in the village of My Lai, Powell was tapped to investigate general allegations in a soldier’s letter that described rumors of fellow troops regularly engaging in atrocities. Powell probed the accusations and concluded that “although there may be isolated cases of mistreatment of civilians and POWs, this by no means reflects the general attitude throughout the division.”
“In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent,” Powell wrote.
Powell would later be accused of whitewashing U.S. atrocities in Vietnam. In 2004, he told the late CNN host Larry King that he was “in a unit that was responsible for My Lai. I got there after My Lai happened. So, in war, these sorts of horrible things happen every now and again, but they are still to be deplored.”
He warned Bush the second not to invade Iraq saying “If you break it you own it”, then his faulty evidence speech the UN was arguably the key speech that sold the war the war to enough of the American public and Congress because as Dox47 mentioned the gravitas he had at the time.
What does it all mean? No, he was not the all American hero as portrayed during and after the Gulf War and now following his death. The whitewashing of My Lai and the whitewashing of his own doubts to sell the Iraq War, typical of most high level Generals. Careerist just following orders. Heroic whistleblowers quitting out of principle is pretty rare, stuff of Hollywood fantasies for the most part. If a person is that principled they get out way, way, way before that get to Powell’s career level.
War Criminal? I do not have the knowledge to speak legally but morally probably not much more or less than typical. Not as much as the WWII generals who killed hundreds of thousands of civilians they intentionally targeted. Unlike the WWII generals civilians were not the target but collateral damage. You may earnestly try and mitigate the amount of collateral damage but when you execute a war you know you are going to murder countless innocent civilians. When you execute a war for the American military you know you are going to murder more because of the lethal weaponry.
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It is Autism Acceptance Month
“My autism is not a superpower. It also isn’t some kind of god-forsaken, endless fountain of suffering inflicted on my family. It’s just part of who I am as a person”. - Sara Luterman
19 Oct 2021, 4:33 pm
^^^ in my profession, the official standards say I’m supposed to quit if I know my boss is doing something I believe is wrong.
I’d never have a job.
I am one of the few who will tell the boss the truth and work hard to sell it.
It is extremely rare to face a decision that is that black and white. There is usually nuance and gray. Unless one is the boss, that leaves a lot of room to be overridden, leaving one forced to decide between quitting, and playing along. Ultimately one is going to look at the key components of how dark the gray is and what harm is likely to happen to whom if the boss gets their way.
I do remember being disappointed in the UN speech.
You are right that no one can get that high up without having learned to play along. It’s why I jumped off the upward trajectory of my own career when I did. I wanted something of my soul left.
I still see him as a man who was at least trying to find the balance, to have some integrity, in the middle of a swamp, but we can’t claim he was perfect at it.
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Mom to an amazing young adult AS son, plus an also amazing non-AS daughter. Most likely part of the "Broader Autism Phenotype" (some traits).
Kraichgauer
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19 Oct 2021, 11:19 pm
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fox-news-hos ... 34665.html
Called it!
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