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24.09.03, 14:46
http://www.counterpunch.org/cloughley09202003.html
Colin Powell's Shame
Lights Candles at Kurdish Graves, Avoids Visiting America's Wounded Soldiers
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
Lots of us had highest hopes about Colin Powell. I was one of many who
thought he should be president because I considered he would be a splendid
leader for America. This was the man, after all, who wrote in his
autobiography that he was "angry that so many of the sons of the powerful
and well-placed . . . managed to wangle slots in reserve and National Guard
units" to avoid the draft during the Vietnam war. Yay! Let's hear it for
Colin, the man who speaks his mind and despises the cowardly sons of the
rich who dishonourably wriggled out of serving their country.
But after he decided against running for president he couldn't resist the
offer to work for a man whose daddy had wangled him a non-combat slot in a
National Guard unit during the Vietnam war. OK; so my formerly unqualified
admiration for C Powell took a bit of a hit. But I recollected he had
written that he distrusted those in government who "devote little thought to
who will eventually pay the bills". Good, good; because that was evidence he
would not support trickery and irresponsibility in budget management. Indeed
he declared himself "a fiscal conservative with a social conscience".
Wonderful. Then there was his affirmation that "I am troubled by the
political passion of those on the extreme right who seem to claim divine
wisdom on political as well as spiritual matters". Now you're talking, my
dear sir. What a splendid, candid and damning rejection of extremism. It was
obvious that this man could never be part of an administration that
contained or drew support from right wing zealots obsessed with religious
righteousness.
I was wrong. The Bush administration doesn't only draw support from right
wing zealots; it is packed with them. And Colin Powell seems comfortable
with Bush and his ultra-right wing weirdoes. Although he had written "I
distrust rigid ideology from any direction" it appears he can accept
ideological inflexibility, and his bizarre support for the Bush war on Iraq
sits strangely with his former liberal views.
When Powell gave his supposedly definitive speech for war on Iraq to the UN
Security Council on February 5 it was greeted at first with the deference
due to a former general who knew what he was talking about because he had
been thoroughly briefed (we thought). In essence he declared that Iraq
possessed actual weapons of mass destruction; that Baghdad was trying to
deceive UN weapons inspectors and conceal WMD from them; and that Saddam
Hussein was harbouring terrorists, including members of the al-Qaeda
organisation. (He noted specifically that there had been "decades of contact
between al-Qaeda and Saddam". Of course al-Qaeda was not even formed a
decade ago; but we'll have to let that pass.)
At first it was gripping stuff. He came into the hall on a wave of
enthusiasm. The British foreign minister, a silly little man called Jack
Straw, eagerly embraced him, and many other delegates, although behaving
with more dignity than Straw, displayed approval for the person who
epitomized the reasonable, let's-talk-about-this, moderate face of the Bush
administration. Or so they thought.
But in the words of Gary Younge of the Guardian newspaper: "The man on whom
so many European hopes of reining in the excesses of George Bush's
administration were pinned had apparently changed sides." For once I
disagree with Mr Younge, because Powell didn't change sides at the time of
his UN dog and pony show. He nailed his colours to the mast of Cheney,
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, and the rest of the zealots when he realised
quite early in the Bush administration that if he didn't toe their line he
would have to quit. If he had done so, and explained his reasons, there
might have been no Iraq slaughter and shambles, such could have been his
influence on the American people. But when power waves a seductively
beckoning hand to a person who would feel incomplete and even inadequate
without the trappings and deference of office, just watch the panting dash
to obey the summons. So Powell betrayed his principles and demonstrated he
is just another grubby trickster who, alas, is prepared to suppress the
truth and promote the false. His recent visit to Iraq was a farcical fiasco
of PR mumbo jumbo and personal insincerity.
"If you want evidence of the existence of weapons of mass destruction", he
declared on September 14, "come to Halabja and see it." Quite so. But the
evidence of WMD was of a poison gas attack by Iraq forces fifteen years ago.
There is no doubt that the attack was an atrocity, a war crime of immense
and disgusting evil. What happened was this: at the height of the Iran-Iraq
war, on 13 March 1988, the Iranians captured the Kurdish town of Halabja,
just inside the Iraqi border, helped by Kurdish militias. Two days
later "the Iraqi air force attacked the town with bombs of cyanide or nerve
gas and killed 4000 people, mainly civilians." ('The Longest War' by Dilip
Hero.)
What is kept quiet by Washington is that the previous year the assistant
defence secretary, Richard Armitage (now Powell's deputy in the State
Department), publicly stated "We can't stand to see Iraq defeated", which
was a flat statement of support that Saddam Hussein took at face value, as
well he might. After all, Ronald Reagan, President during the period of the
Iraq-Iran war (1981-1989), ordered removal of Iraq from the US 'list of
nations that support international terrorism' in 1983, just before Donald
Rumsfeld, as his special envoy, went to call on Saddam Hussein carrying a
message of support from Washington for his war against Iran. Concurrently a
letter was conveyed to the leaders of the Gulf States indicating that the US
would regard an Iraqi defeat as "contrary to US interests" (Washington Post,
4 Jan 84). No sane person condones the hellish poisoning of 4000 people, but
if you are a dictator and the strongest power in the world tells you
formally that it wants you to win the war you're fighting, you might just be
convinced that you can get away with anything you want.
The Economist of 26 March 1988 headlined its article on the Halabja
bombing "If you can think of something even beastlier, do it", which sums
the whole thing up. But Saddam Hussein did get away with it. There was a bit
of international tooth-sucking, but nothing from the Reagan administration.
And who was National Security Adviser to President Reagan at the time of the
Halabja massacre? Why, it was the humane, soft-hearted General Colin Powell,
he of the emotional evidence about atrocities in Halabja . And what did he
advise the president to do? Nothing.
In Halabja on September 14 he said "there was no effort on the part of the
Reagan administration to either ignore [the massacre] or not take note of
it" (Washington Post), which is despicable doublespeak. Then he told the
press "It was roundly condemned" (Chicago Tribune), which is an out-and-out
downright damned lie. This is sickening. Powell was highly emotional during
his showbiz visit to Halabja, telling the relatives of the dead that "the
world should have acted sooner" and lighting candles in memory of the
victims. But where was his compassion in 1988? How many candles did he
light, then, for victims of Saddam Hussein's atrocities? Why didn't he
advise sanctions against Iraq, then, because there had been gross human
rights violations involving chemical weapons? Why did he not propose
prosecution of Saddam Hussein on the grounds of vicious criminality and
heinous offences against international law? He was, after all, the National
Security Adviser to the President of the United States. What a
