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Colin Powell has died

cnn.com

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Re: Colin Powell has died

#221

Post by gremlinsinc »

uberman wrote: post #78

I see many people here hating on Colin Powell and perhaps there is cause for that. In my opinion though, I will remember him an uncommonly principled man. Did he have party loyalties? Sure. Did they sometimes conflict with his personal views? Sure. I'll admit that there were some disappointments. However, his ultimate ability to break with powerful past loyalties that conflicted with his personal views and to speak p…

> I will remember him an uncommonly principled man...

Might as well say the same of Stalin, Kissinger, Mauo Te sing, ...

He literally lied out his ass his entire career, starting with the report on the 1968 Mai Lai massacre ... where he basically white washed and probably strong-armed the media to cover it up, since nobody would touch it for nearly a year until a journalist just blasted it out to as many newspapers as he possibly could reach and like 50 published it, and then bigger publications followed.

Otherwise we'd maybe never know of the atrocities we committed during vietnam by massacering women and children.

I'd really hate to meet someone you think is an unprincipled man, because honestly I'd hate to meet this guy you think is 'uncommonly principled'.

Re: Colin Powell has died

#222

Post by gremlinsinc »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #102

I 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.

> All that changed when he outright lied to the world and the nearly unimageable suffering he in part, brought to people.

Which time? Iraq, or when he tried to hide/white-wash/coverup the Mai Lai massacre back in 1968? I'm not religious but I think I recall a scripture or maybe just a quote: By their actions ye shall know them...

that early career move, definitely showed you who this guy was.

Re: Colin Powell has died

#224

Post by gremlinsinc »

eric_b wrote: post #113

Some truly wild comments in this thread. The moral self-righteousness of the commenters here is really something to behold. I'm particularly saddened by so many of the obviously partisan comments. From my recollection it was Barack Obama who continued the conflict in Afghanistan and was responsible for scores of extra-judicial assassinations throughout the world. And while many people died in the Afghanistan conflict…

I've crucified him plenty, and I'd do the same for Obama as he's responsible for countless drone strikes, and setup the cages at the border, which Trump only made worse...

I'd also do it for Biden or Trump.... they all are as evil as each other. The less or two evils bullshit is a dark dark road.

Haven't had a decent President since Jimmy Carter, and JFK before him, and then FDR, Eisenhower, Truman regardless of party they all were more progressive than half the progressive caucus of the democrats now... even the right wanted universal healthcare at one point...now it's taboo.

Edit: Jimmy Carter was decent as a person, very moral, he didn't necessarily get much accomplished, but he's the last President I respect after JFK.

Re: Colin Powell has died

#225

Post by gremlinsinc »

rajamaka wrote: post #219
lowkey_ wrote: post #115

This is one of many obituary posts on HN I've seen a ton of hate and accusations on, along with questions like "why does everyone venerate the dead regardless of their acts in life?" Some of us have a different threshold than others for at what point a life is valuable, and the loss of that life tragic. While there can be a time and place for discussions of the 2003 UN performance, calling someone a war criminal, rag…

Genuinely curious whether you would have made the same comment of "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all" on the post of "Osama Bin Laden has died" in 2011.

Op: Please don't talk bad of Osama, he's dead... let bygones be bygones....

or something like that.

Re: Colin Powell has died

#226

Post by jl6 »

sofixa wrote: post #210
jl6 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be really easy to find some examples of people attempting to put him on trial, given such a slam dunk case.

Please name one american war criminal higher than a soldier killing innocents in the dozens ( like someone who ordered a war or a strike or torture or kidnapping or whatever) who was actually tried and served time for his crimes. That just doesn't happen with US war criminals, so the question is moot.

I didn't ask for a successful prosecution, I just asked for examples of people attempting to put him on trial.

Here are 4 arguments, drawn from 10 seconds of Googling, put forward for trying Bush and other members of his administration. The usual names are here - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Tenet:

https://trialinternational.org/latest-post/criminal-complain...

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jul/08/usa.wa...

https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-play-putting-george-w-bush...

https://www.salon.com/2014/12/20/put_the_evil_bastards_on_tr...

And here's a "tribunal" in Malaysia who actually did convict Bush and Blair in absentia:

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2011/11/28/kuala-lumpur-t...

Notably absent from all these perp lists? Colin Powell.

Re: Colin Powell has died

#227

Post by aklemm »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #183
CapricornNoble wrote: post #24

Colin 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…

> That's a rare career for ANY American, let alone a black one. I had to do an image search of him because until now, I didn't think of him as "black". He's certainly mixed race, which would make him black and white. Is it usual in USA to call people black if they kinda look black? Edit: according to Wikipedia, his ancestry is mixed Scottish and African, parents immigrants from Jamaica. He was raised in South Bronx,…

“Culturally black” is the only kind of black there is. That’s why if you look even a little black you end living the black experience, because that’s how people approach you.

Re: Colin Powell has died

#228

Post by trasz »

betterunix2 wrote: post #129
iSnow wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it's a stretch and I don't want to Godwin the discussion too much, but that is really not an excuse. The Nuremberg trials clearly rejected this "Nuremberg defense", but of course it was the beaten party standing before the court back then. But in principle, since 1945, no one can evade personal responsibility for a clearly unlawful act by pointing to superior orders.

"They did it too" was an acceptable defense at Nuremberg; Donitz was not sentenced for the specific crime of unrestricted submarine warfare because the Allies had done the same thing (the US in the Pacific). Iraq also lied to the UN many times. Really though, this is a stupid comparison. People generally remember the Nuremberg trials in the context of the Holocaust -- genocide, slave labor, and all the horror that ac…

Indeed, in Iraq there were just one million dead, not six million. Entirely different thing, isn't it.
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