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Colin Powell has died
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Re: Colin Powell has died
#102I thought of him as a dedicated and intelligent
general who got things done and done right.
I was even hoping he would run for president.
All that changed when he outright lied to the world and the nearly unimageable suffering he in part, brought to people.
Re: Colin Powell has died
#103Earlier quoted context omitted.
That argument didn't fly for people at a similar level of authority at Nuremberg.
Not even remotely the same situation. Nuremberg was about officers delivering and obeying direct orders to kill civilians and commit war crimes. Powell simply delivered a speech to get international support for a war the US was going to fight no matter what. He had nothing to do with the war crimes.
The US wasn't going to fight it "no matter what." The US was going to fight it if the US government was reasonably capable of doing so, which depended on political support at home, the ability to find allies, and functioning internal logistics. All of these things he had a hand in.
Suppose he fled the US for some neutral country, resigned his position, and made a public announcement that he knew that the case for war was fraudulent and that the international community had an obligation to stop the US. What would have happened?
Suppose he simply resigned to spend more time with his family the night before his speech to the UN.
Suppose he did not decide (as he did in real life) that he was going to support the president in waging war without the support of the UN, and he told the world as much.
Suppose he insisted on having more time to review the material himself before making the speech to the UN.
There were a number of times where he could have changed the course of history. Yes, it would have come at significant personal cost to himself and perhaps significant embarrassment of America on the world stage. If you're unwilling to do that for a raise, sure, that seems reasonable; if you're unwilling to do that to prevent tens of thousands of deaths, you are absolutely morally culpable for those deaths.
The invasion of Iraq on false premises was itself a war crime, and the killings of Iraqi soldiers was just as immoral as killing civilians. Quoting one of the rulings at Nuremberg: "War is essentially an evil thing. Its consequences are not confined to the belligerent states alone, but affect the whole world. To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole."
Re: Colin Powell has died
#104Original title: "Colin Powell, military leader and first Black US secretary of state, dies after complications from Covid-19" From the article: > "We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American," they said, noting he was fully vaccinated. The ongoing high profile, fatal breakthrough Covid-19 cases should not be underestimated. They are to be expected statistically, but taken in…
> The ongoing high profile, fatal breakthrough Covid-19 cases should not be underestimated. They are to be expected statistically, but taken individually continue to feed into the idea that "vaccines don't work" and conspiracy theories.
It's not expected when the administration and other "health agencies" keep parroting that COVID19 would be over tomorrow if everyone was vaccinated. They are lying just as much.
EDIT: a new publication on this very topic:
"Increases in COVID-19 are unrelated to levels of vaccination across 68 countries and 2947 counties in the United States"
Re: Colin Powell has died
#105Colin Powell is a textbook case of "A thousand 'Atta-boys!' and one fuck-up!". He joined the Army in the 1950s, served through 2 tours in Vietnam, and made it all the way to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs by the end of the 1980s, leading the military through Operation Desert Storm and the post-Soviet era. That's a rare career for ANY American, let alone a black one. But all that went "poof!" after his shameful performa…
I was 17 when we invaded Afghanistan and 19 when we invaded Iraq. Through the lead-up to both of those conflicts I remember watching scores of demonstrators marching outside the White House, chanting slogans against the wars. What did they know that Colin Powell did not?
The invasion of Afghanistan should not be lumped in with Iraq.
The first had broad public support in both parties and in the public. ... over 90%. As well as support from NATO, the EU, and many other nations as it was an operation to get Osama Bin Laden after 9/11.
The invasion of Iraq was far more controversial and motivated by oil politics.
They are completely different animals.
Re: Colin Powell has died
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hate that phrase: "They are to be expected" I expect better. I expect a vaccine that would have saved Colin's life.
With ~90% efficacy, how do you expect that to work when rolling the dice thousands of times? It's a heck of a lot better than none. And sadly people still don't care to treat Covid seriously, and nowhere near high enough vaccination rates in most places - thus no herd protection yet.
> With ~90% efficacy, how do you expect that to work when rolling the dice thousands of times?
The data shows we are very far from 90% efficacy with the Delta variant.
> in a report released from the Ministry of Health in Israel, the effectiveness of 2 doses of the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine against preventing COVID-19 infection was reported to be 39%, substantially lower than the trial efficacy of 96%
Re: Colin Powell has died
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
That argument didn't fly for people at a similar level of authority at Nuremberg.
Not even remotely the same situation. Nuremberg was about officers delivering and obeying direct orders to kill civilians and commit war crimes. Powell simply delivered a speech to get international support for a war the US was going to fight no matter what. He had nothing to do with the war crimes.
[deleted]
Re: Colin Powell has died
#108Around half a million innocent Afghani and Iraqi civilians died in Afghanistan and Iraq during those wars. I dont understand why the American news media neglected to report on that. Another interesting observation: Halliburton ran the supply chain for both the Vietnam war and the Gulf wars. Not alot of sympathy from me for that guy.
I was against the Iraq war as well. It was clearly based on lies. It also lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis. What surprised me and I noticed then when Donald Rumsfeld died. Both Iraqi and Afghanistan have nearly doubled their populations since 2001: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/iraq-populati... https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/afghanistan-p... I wonder if t…
Maybe you produce more children when you expect to lose some of them to bombings.
Re: Colin Powell has died
#109Colin Powell is a textbook case of "A thousand 'Atta-boys!' and one fuck-up!". He joined the Army in the 1950s, served through 2 tours in Vietnam, and made it all the way to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs by the end of the 1980s, leading the military through Operation Desert Storm and the post-Soviet era. That's a rare career for ANY American, let alone a black one. But all that went "poof!" after his shameful performa…
This is your reminder that being assigned to cover up the My Lai massacre was the thing that really jumpstarted Powell's career. His 2003 UN speech was part and parcel of what his career was built on.
Reference: http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin3.html
Edited to add: he also appears to have lied under oath about his knowledge of the Iran-Contra affair.
Re: Colin Powell has died
#110If there's one thing I hope we learn from him, it should be "never lie to support starting a war"
Let's also not forget that he was not alone to push for the war. For younger people out there, the New York Times, of all media sources, was warmongering from Day 1.