The rise and fall of Colin Powell

Colin Powell had everything going for him before he decided to join the deceptive Bush-Cheney gang.

Unfortunately, as events unfolded and our nation was being dragged into an UNprovoked war on Iraq, a war that Powell clearly opposed, he missed his big chance to leave a major mark on U.S. foreign policy by....resigning.

By distancing himself from the WAR mongers, he would have earned the respect of most Americans as well as the world community and MAY even have prevented a war that was clearly NOT in the U.S.'s best interests.

But, that was not to be. Instead, he allowed himself to be USED by delivering a speech at the U.S. to win the approval of member nations for a resolution that threatened war against Iraq and did, indeed, result in (unanimous) Resolution 1441.

It didn't take long until Bush and his "neoconservative" cohorts charged into Iraq given that the decision to do so had been made long ago and the starting date had been tailored with the 2004 election in mind.

Powell was obviously not in the inner circle loop as to the most sensivite details given that he was not part of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Wolfowitz-Feith-Sharon club.

In fact, I suspect that he did not know that these right-wing bullies had decided to restructure the whole Middle East in their image by "winning the hearts and minds" of Arabs/Muslims by...FORCE.

Result: Anti-Americanism (read: anti-Bushism) and anti-Semitism continue growing given that these WAR mongers have antagonized friend and foe alike.

As for Powell, he missed his big chance to be remembered as a great leader....

SAD...:-(

Wash Post - Thursday, May 20, 2004

Decline of a Doctrine and a Diplomat By Richard Cohen

SHUNEH, Jordan -- On Sunday Colin Powell sat with his back to the Dead Sea
and took questions from the American and Arab media. He was asked about Abu
Ghraib prison and how things were going generally in Iraq. He was asked about
Israeli-Palestinian relations and whatever happened to the "road map." He was
asked about the weapons of mass destruction that he had told the world were in
Iraq and that have not materialized. Powell happened to be talking at the lowest
point below sea level in the world. It perfectly matched his standing in this
region -- and maybe in his career.

The secretary of state is a short-timer now. Although he manages to deflect
the question, it is assumed that he will not choose to serve in a second Bush
administration -- and he might not be asked to anyway. He has been at odds with
other, more hawkish, senior members of the Bush administration, particularly
Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon and Dick Cheney, who sits at Bush's right
hand. The very doctrine to which he lent his name, the Powell Doctrine, was
brushed aside when the United States went to war in Iraq. Instead of a massive
number of troops, a minimal number were used. The results are before us now -- a
country where security cannot be guaranteed or, on a given day, even envisioned.

In this region, Powell is seen as a much-diminished figure who is more a
spokesman for policies he opposes than a policymaker with real clout at the White
House. His once immense stature and popularity are gone -- and not without
regret. Had he gotten his way -- on Iraq, on the Israeli-Palestinian problem --
U.S. prestige in the Arab world would be far higher. Things may change, but for
the moment the antipathy toward America, and Americans, in this region is
downright palpable, and Colin Powell is thought not to matter very much at all.

Powell started here with a formal address. "Let me, for a moment, take off my
diplomat's suit and put back on the uniform that I proudly wore for 35 years,
as a soldier of the American people, as a soldier in the United States Army,"
he said. Then he described his shock at what he had seen in the photos from
Abu Ghraib, the prison where Iraqi detainees were sexually humiliated and
physically abused. As someone who met Powell back in his Army days, I found his
contrition -- his shame -- moving. This was an awfully proud soldier talking
about the institution that had taken a black kid from the streets of New York to
the highest levels of the U.S. government. His apology, and it was that, could
not have come easily.

Yet his audience was stone cold. What it expected from him is hard to say.
But the anger at the United States is so great -- along with the strong feeling
that the prison abuses had to be sanctioned at the top -- that no mere apology
could suffice. In this part of the world, only a high-level resignation will
do: Rumsfeld, obviously, but he, after offering an apology, swiftly visited
Abu Ghraib. All over the Arab world, Rumsfeld was seen on television embracing
the prison's personnel. One Arab diplomat I talked to could not contain his
dismay. The "optics," as he called it, were awful.

In a way, Powell has become the personification of all that has gone wrong
with Bush's foreign policy. Everyone knows, via Bob Woodward, that Powell had
deep reservations about the war. Everyone knows that the secretary favored a
more even-handed approach toward the Israeli-Palestinian mess, including an
insistence that Israel dismantle illegal settlements with dispatch. About a year
ago, Powell told me he had the president's full backing in this approach, but
Bush has sided -- in policy and body language -- with the Sharon government.
Even as Powell was here deploring Israel's intention to demolish housing in the
Gaza Strip, Israel plowed ahead -- and Bush once again said Israel had a right
to defend itself. Powell, it seems, speaks only for himself.

The mess at Abu Ghraib is both a vindication and an indictment of Powell. He
famously warned Bush of the consequences and difficulties of an occupation --
"you break it, you own it," he said of Iraq. At the same time, the excuses now
coming from military personnel accused of the Abu Ghraib abuses are not all
that different from Powell's reasons for supporting what he opposed. They said
they were following orders. So does he.<<