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Colin Powell can be called many things, but "coward" is not one of them.  A black kid from the South Bronx of the Great Depression whose parents were Jamaican immigrants doesn't become a general in the United States Army by being a coward.  Love him, hate him, or be indifferent to him, -- I'm not a big fan of him after his actions during the run-up to Iraq -- but he's not a coward.

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.
by Drew J Jones (pedobear@pennstatefootball.com) on Sun Jul 16th, 2006 at 01:58:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Well, his record isn't only tained by Iraq 2002-3. There were the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis marched up on the Kuwait-Saudi border, and suppressing the My Lai massacre, and the latter is told to have helped his career rise.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Sun Jul 16th, 2006 at 02:10:33 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Thank you DoDo for your most informative comments.

Doubt that anyone would have known about the history of General Powell if you had not reminded us of it.

Thought DoDos were extinct, but I guess not.

Tis a pity, all in all.

"When the abyss stares at me, it wets its pants." Brian Hopkins

by EricC on Sun Jul 16th, 2006 at 11:09:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
"There were the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis marched up on the Kuwait-Saudi border."

Must have been a conspiracy between Hussein and Powell.

Maybe they had little communication devices, eh.?

Tin-foil antennaes, etc?

Had never thought of that.

"When the abyss stares at me, it wets its pants." Brian Hopkins

by EricC on Sun Jul 16th, 2006 at 11:37:51 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Must have been a conspiracy between Hussein and Powell.

I'm not sure whether I am missing a joke or this is sarcasm stemming from lack of knowledge directed at me; but in case it's the latter, the story I referred to, the second big exposed propaganda lie of the Gulf War (after the babies-thrown-from-incubators stunt of the Kuwaiti ambassadors' daughter). The US convinced the UN SC and Saudi Arabia to consent to the pre-Desert-Storm military buildup after Powell claimed to have satellite photographs of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis marched up on the Kuwait-Saudi border, which he can't show them for security reasons. However, a journalist of the St. Petersburg Times [Florida not Russia!] had the idea to check on the claim with a then publicly awailable Russian Earth-photography satellite -- and it was totally false. Powell later kind-of admitted it.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Mon Jul 17th, 2006 at 03:24:56 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Some links to articles on the invisible 1990 border massing-up I found with a quick search: The Guardian (2003), Christian Science Monitor (2002), Against Bombing (a conservative anti-Empire site).

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.
by DoDo on Mon Jul 17th, 2006 at 03:35:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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