Revolution Online, November 2, 2008


Colin Powell–And His Endorsement of Obama

Here, in the person of Colin Powell, is a war criminal many times over. He committed towering war crimes and crimes against humanity in his role as a top U.S. military official in the first war against Iraq, in 1991, which led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Iraqis and the destruction of much of Iraq’s civilian infrastructure—which in turn led to many more deaths. And there was Powell’s insistence that it was justified for the U.S. to attack civilian targets: recall, for example, the air raid shelter in Baghdad that was bombed during that 1991 war, killing hundreds of civilians, including many children, while Powell repeatedly insisted that this was a legitimate target—claiming that it was a “military bunker”—in the face of the undeniable fact that it was inhabited by civilians who were mercilessly slaughtered by this U.S. attack. Or who can forget Powell’s infamous role, as part of the Bush regime, in relation to the second war against Iraq, beginning in 2003—including his performance of overt lying about Iraq’s (non-existent) WMDs and ties to al-Qaeda—to justify the invasion and occupation of that country, which has brought about massive destruction, has completely disrupted life there, causing millions of Iraqis to become refugees, and has cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (along with over 4,000 U.S. soldiers). And then there is the lesser known, but certainly no less horrendous, role that Powell played in attempting to play down, and cover up the horror of, the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War, in which U.S. troops slaughtered hundreds of non-combatants in My Lai village in South Vietnam, including huge numbers of old people and children, as part of the overall devastation and death that the U.S. rained down on that country, resulting in several millions killed as a result of this massive war crime and crime against humanity.

Obama’s consistent “wooing” of this world-class war criminal Colin Powell, and the “payoff” in Powell’s finally endorsing Obama, is yet another indication of what Obama actually represents—as is Obama’s repeated professions of great “respect” for McCain’s “service to the country,” that is, McCain’s role as yet another war criminal in the Vietnam War, in which McCain, as a bomber pilot, was part of the mass destruction and murder of Vietnam and its people carried out by the U.S.

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