Question for Conem Powell

[moof]

could you tell us Mr. Powell if the handleing of the current torture & mistreatment of POWs in Iraq is similar to the way it was handled
during your coverup of the Vietnam atrocities?

[drumwolf]

1. Wrong spelling of Powell's first name....

...and no, I'm not going to say "Colin."

It should actually be COLON, because he's such a cowardly asshole. (ADDED ON EDIT: What's more, he shit out an even bigger asshole -- his son Michael.)

:evilgrin:

[moof]

2. you don't think he has earned it ?

By conservative count his preformance at the UN was at least the 6th time he has conned people into buying a total frabrication.

The colon reference is a nice bit of irony though,
are you aware of how he got one of his first injuries in Viet Nam ?

Yep, stepped on a wrong end of a pointed stick if you get the drift ?

[drumwolf]

3. Heh. I saw him as a spineless lapdog, not a con artist.

What other occasions has he conned people? Besides the UN and covering up My Lai?

He did a con job on the UN for sure, but I figured he was just doing his bosses' bidding. My impression was that he initially tried to talk reason into the Bush administration but got squeezed out by the neocons in the Pentagon and just buckled under and went with the flow. Word has it that he will not be on board if Bush gets a second term.

[moof]

4. with the utmost respect, why can't he be both ?

Con man

n : a swindler who exploits the confidence of his
victim

more or less in order

1. He is a war crininal and admitted to many war crimes in his book
"My American Journey"
------------
"We burned down the thatched huts, starting the
blaze with Ronson and Zippo lighters," Powell
recalled. "Why were we torching houses and
destroying crops? Ho Chi Minh had said the people
were like the sea in which his guerrillas swam. ... We
tried to solve the problem by making the whole sea
uninhabitable. In the hard logic of war, what
difference did it make if you shot your enemy or
starved him to death?"
-----------

well for one, to answer his question, it's a war crime.

2. Is My Lai but in the interest of stressing the point here is his war crime on this topic.
--------------
A letter had been written by a young specialist
fourth class named Tom Glen, who had served in an
Americal mortar platoon and was nearing the end of
his Army tour. In the letter to Gen. Creighton
Abrams, the commander of all U.S. forces in
Vietnam, Glen accused the Americal division of
routine brutality against civilians.

Glen's letter was forwarded to the Americal
headquarters at Chu Lai where it landed on Major
Powell's desk.

Major Powell undertook the assignment to review
Glen's letter, but did so without questioning Glen or
assigning anyone else to talk with him. Powell simply
accepted a claim from Glen's superior officer that
Glen was not close enough to the front lines to
know what he was writing about, an assertion Glen
denies.

Major Powell undertook the assignment to review
Glen's letter, but did so without questioning Glen or
assigning anyone else to talk with him. Powell simply
accepted a claim from Glen's superior officer that
Glen was not close enough to the front lines to
know what he was writing about, an assertion Glen
denies.

It would take another Americal hero, an infantryman
named Ron Ridenhour, to piece together the truth
about the atrocity at My Lai. After returning to the
United States, Ridenhour interviewed Americal
comrades who had participated in the massacre.

On his own, Ridenhour compiled this shocking
information into a report and forwarded it to the
Army inspector general. The IG's office conducted
an aggressive official investigation, in marked
contrast to Powell's review.

Confirming Ridenhour's report, the Army finally faced
the horrible truth. Courts martial were held against
officers and enlisted men who were implicated in
the murder of the My Lai civilians.

But Powell's peripheral role in the My Lai cover-up
did not slow his climb up the Army's ladder. After
the scandal broke, Powell pleaded ignorance about
the actual My Lai massacre.

Luckily for Powell, Glen's letter also disappeared
into the National Archives -- to be unearthed only
years later by British journalists Michael Bilton and
Kevin Sims for their book, Four Hours in My Lai.
----------------
Therefore he helped to coverup a war crime and
that is a war crime in itself.

3. yet another war criminal he helped.
-----------------
In a court martial proceeding, Powell sided with an
Americal Division general who was accused by the
Army of murdering unarmed civilians while flying
over Quang Ngai province. Helicopter pilots who
flew Brig. Gen. John W. Donaldson had alleged that
the general gunned down civilian Vietnamese
almost for sport.

In an interview, a senior investigator from the
Donaldson case told us that two of the
Vietnamese victims were an old man and an old
woman who were shot to death while bathing.
Though long retired -- and quite elderly himself --
the Army investigator still spoke with a raw
disgust about the events of a quarter century
earlier. He requested anonymity before talking
about the behavior of senior Americal officers.

"They used to bet in the morning how many
people they could kill -- old people, civilians, it
didn't matter," the investigator said. "Some of the
stuff would curl your hair."

For eight months in Chu Lai during 1968-69, Powell
had worked with Donaldson and apparently
developed a great respect for this superior
officer.

When the Army charged Donaldson with murder on
June 2, 1971, Powell rose in the general's
defense. Powell submitted an affidavit dated Aug.
10, 1971, which lauded Donaldson as "an
aggressive and courageous brigade commander."

Powell did not specifically refer to the murder
allegations, but added that helicopter forays in
Vietnam had been an "effective means of
separating hostiles from the general population."

The retired Army investigator told us that Powell
was questioned in that case. But the investigator
said Powell volunteered little knowledge about the
atrocities. The investigator doubted that any
record was made of the interview.

Nevertheless, the investigator claimed that "we
had him dead to rights," with the
testimony of two helicopter pilots who had flown
Donaldson on his shooting expeditions. Still, the
investigation collapsed after the two
pilot-witnesses were transferred to another Army
base and apparently came under pressure from
military superiors.

The two pilots withdrew their testimony, and the
Army dropped all charges against Donaldson.
"John Donaldson was a cover-up specialist," the
old investigator growled.
-------------

4. criminal conspiracy and if you think helping to ship weapons to terrorists and kidnappers is treason then he dodged treason go to his ability to get people to take him at his word.
-------------

The available evidence from that period suggests
that Weinberger and Powell were very much in the
loop, even though they may have opposed the
arms-to-Iran policy. On Aug. 22, two days after the
first delivery, Israel notified McFarlane of the
completed shipment. From aboard Air Force One,
McFarlane called Weinberger.

When Air Force One landed at Andrews Air Force
Base outside Washington, McFarlane rushed to the
Pentagon to meet Weinberger and Powell. The
40-minute meeting started at 7:30 p.m.

That much is known from the Iran-contra public
record. But the substance of the conversation
remains in dispute. McFarlane said that at the
meeting with Weinberger and Powell, he discussed
Reagan's approval of the missile transfer and the
need to replenish Israeli stockpiles.

If that is true, Weinberger and Powell were in the
middle of a criminal conspiracy. But Weinberger
denied McFarlane's account, and Powell insisted
that he had only a fuzzy memory of the meeting
without a clear recollection of any completed arms
shipment.

"My recollection is that Mr. McFarlane described to
the Secretary the so-called Iran Initiative and he
gave to the Secretary a sort of a history of how
we got where we were that particular day and
some of the thinking that gave rise to the
possibility of going forward ... and what the
purposes of such an initiative would be," Powell
said in an Iran-contra deposition two years later.

Congressional attorney Joseph Saba asked Powell
if McFarlane had mentioned that Israel already had
supplied weapons to Iran. "I don't recall
specifically," Powell answered. "I just don't recall."
When Saba asked about any notes, Powell
responded, "there were none on our side."

In a later interview with the FBI, Powell said he
learned at that meeting that there "was to be a
transfer of some limited amount of materiel" to
Iran. But he did not budge on his claim of
ignorance about the crucial fact that the first
shipment had already gone and that the Reagan
administration had promised the Israelis
replenishment for the shipped missiles. To have
admitted that would have been to admit being
part of a criminal conspiracy.

This claim of only prospective knowledge would be
key to Powell's Iran-contra defense. But it made
little sense for McFarlane to learn of the missile
delivery and the need for replenishment, then
hurry to the Pentagon, only to debate a future
policy that, in reality, was already being
implemented.

5. again he obstructs justice by misleading an investigation.

-------------
When asked if Weinberger kept a diary that might
shed more light on the issue, Powell responded,
"The Secretary, to my knowledge, did not keep a
diary. Whatever notes he kept, I don't know how
he uses them or what he does with them. He does
not have a diary of this ilk, no." As for his own
notebooks, Powell announced that he had
destroyed them.
---------------
There is more about this later when powell tried to say that the diary
that was later found was not a diary as powell undersdtood the definition to be.
........
In early 1986, Powell short-circuited the Pentagon
covert procurement system that was put in place
after the Yellow Fruit scandal. Defense
procurement officials said that without Powell's
interference, the system would have alerted the
military brass that thousands of TOW anti-tank
missiles and other sophisticated weaponry were
headed to Iran, a terrorist state.
.........
Weinberger officially handed Powell the job of
shipping the missiles to Iran on Jan. 17, 1986. That
was the day Reagan signed an intelligence
"finding," a formal authorization to pull arms from
U.S. stockpiles and ship them to Iran.

In testimony, Powell dated his first knowledge of
the missile transfers to this moment, an important
distinction because if he had been aware of the
earlier shipments – as much evidence suggests –
he potentially would have been implicated in a
felony.
............
As Powell's strange orders rippled through the
top echelon of the Pentagon, Lt. Gen. Vincent M.
Russo, the assistant deputy chief of staff for
logistics, called Powell to ask about the operation.
Powell immediately circumvented Russo's inquiry. In
effect, Powell pulled rank by arranging for
"executive instructions" commanding Russo to
deliver the first 1,000 TOWs, no questions asked.
.............

6. It would be interesting to hear what people call this episode, but it appears to be the kingpin of an illegal operation getting pledges on immunity from the top people in order for him to lend his conning ability to the effort to get them all off the hook.

----------------
“This is serious,” said Colin Powell’s old mentor,
Frank Carlucci, who in in December 1986 was
President Reagan’s new national security adviser.
"Believe me, the presidency is at stake."

With those words, Colin Powell re-entered the
Iran-contra affair, a set of events he had
dangerously advanced almost a year earlier by
secretly arranging missile shipments to Iran.

But just as Powell played an important
behind-the-scenes role in those early missile
shipments, he would be equally instrumental in the
next phase, the scandal's containment.

His skillful handling of the media and Congress
would earn him the gratitude of Reagan-Bush
insiders and lift Powell into the top levels of the
Republican Party.

In late 1986, Carlucci called Powell in West
Germany, where he had gone to serve as
commander of the V Corps. Powell thus had
missed the November exposure of the secret
shipments of U.S. military hardware to the radical
Islamic government in Iran. Though Powell had
helped arrange those shipments, he had not yet
been tainted by the spreading scandal.

President Reagan, however, was reeling from
disclosures about the reckless arms-for-hostage
scheme with Iran and diversion of money to the
Nicaraguan contra rebels. As the scandal
deepened into a potential threat to the Reagan
presidency, the White House searched for some
cool heads and some steady hands. Carlucci
reached out to Powell.

Powell was reluctant to heed Carlucci’s request.
“You know I had a role in this business,” Powell
told the national security adviser.

But Carlucci soon was moving adroitly to wall
Powell off from the expanding scandal. On Dec. 9,
1986, the White House obtained from the FBI a
statement that Powell was not a criminal suspect
in the secret arms deals.

Carlucci also sought assurances from key players
that Powell would stay outside the scope of the
investigation. The next day, Carlucci asked
Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, Powell’s
old boss, "to call Peter Wallison, WH Counsel -- to
tell them Colin had no connection with Iran arms
sales -- except to carry out President's order."

Weinberger wrote down Carlucci’s message.
According to Weinberger’s notes, he then "called
Peter Wallison -- Told him Colin Powell had only
minimum involvement on Iran."

The statement wasn’t exactly true. Powell had
played a crucial role in skirting the Pentagon’s
stringent internal controls over missile shipments
to get the weapons out of Defense warehouses
and into the CIA pipeline. But with the
endorsement of Weinberger, Carlucci was satisfied
that his old friend, Powell, could sidestep the
oozing Iran-contra contamination.
-------------
Other major war crimes

Panama

Iraq highway of death

This one appears to be almost all Powell's handi work.
-----------
"The National Security Council was about to meet,"
Schwarzkopf wrote, "and Powell and I hammered
out a recommendation. We suggested the United
States offer a cease-fire of one week: enough
time for Saddam to withdraw his soldiers but not
his supplies or the bulk of his equipment. ...

“As the Iraqis withdrew, we proposed, our forces
would pull right into Kuwait behind them. ... At
bottom, neither Powell nor I wanted a ground war.
We agreed that if the United States could get a
rapid withdrawal we would urge our leaders to
take it."

An Angry President

But when Powell arrived at the White House late
that evening, he found Bush angry about the
Soviet peace initiative. Still, according to
Woodward’s Shadow, Powell reiterated that he
and Schwarzkopf “would rather see the Iraqis walk
out than be driven out.”

Powell said the ground war carried serious risks of
significant U.S. casualties and “a high probability of
a chemical attack.” But Bush was set: “If they
crack under force, it is better than withdrawal,”
the president said.

In My American Journey, Powell expressed
sympathy for Bush’s predicament. "The President's
problem was how to say no to Gorbachev without
appearing to throw away a chance for peace,"
Powell wrote.

"I could hear the President's growing distress in
his voice. 'I don't want to take this deal,' he said.
'But I don't want to stiff Gorbachev, not after he's
come this far with us. We've got to find a way
out'."

Powell sought Bush's attention. "I raised a finger,"
Powell wrote. "The President turned to me. 'Got
something, Colin?'," Bush asked. But Powell did not
outline Schwarzkopf’s one-week cease-fire plan.
Instead, Powell offered a different idea intended
to make the ground offensive inevitable.

"We don't stiff Gorbachev," Powell explained. "Let's
put a deadline on Gorby's proposal. We say, great
idea, as long as they're completely on their way
out by, say, noon Saturday," Feb. 23, less than
two days away.

Powell understood that the two-day deadline
would not give the Iraqis enough time to act,
especially with their command-and-control systems
severely damaged by the air war. The plan was a
public-relations strategy to guarantee that the
White House got its ground war.

"If, as I suspect, they don't move, then the
flogging begins," Powell told a gratified president.

The next day, at 10:30 a.m., a Friday, Bush
announced his ultimatum. There would be a
Saturday noon deadline for the Iraqi withdrawal, as
Powell had recommended.

Schwarzkopf and his field commanders in Saudi
Arabia watched Bush on television and immediately
grasped its meaning. "We all knew by then which it
would be," Schwarzkopf wrote. "We were marching
toward a Sunday morning attack."

When the Iraqis predictably missed the deadline,
American and allied forces launched the ground
offensive at 0400 on Feb. 24, Persian Gulf time.

Though Iraqi forces were soon in full retreat, the
allies pursued and slaughtered tens of thousands
of Iraqi soldiers in the 100-hour war. U.S.
casualties were light, 147 killed in combat and
another 236 killed in accidents or from other
causes.
---------------

So much for going to war only as a last resort.

As far as moof is concerned Powell is responsible for all deaths
in Iraq resulting from the 100 hour ground war.

That includes the thousands of Iraq people slaughtered on the highway of death.

There is more read a very good short version of powell's treason & war crimes here.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/121700a.html

It is where all these exerpts were gathered.

[drumwolf]

5. thanks!

And the bottom line is, a lot of us saw him as the one anchor of sanity in entire administration, and whether you want to attribute that to being a con man, a lapdog or both, we were in for quite a bitter surprise.

And his son Michael, who heads the FCC, is a real fucking piece of work too.