The U.N. Deception: What Exactly Colin Powell Knew Five Years Ago, and What He Told the World

[laststeamtrain]

The U.N. Deception: What Exactly Colin Powell Knew Five Years Ago, and What He Told the World

Colin Powell presented the case against Iraq to the UN Security Council five years ago today, on February 5, 2003.

As much criticism as Powell has received for this—he calls it "painful" and something that will "always be a part of my record"—it hasn't been close to what's justified. Powell was far more than just horribly mistaken: the evidence is conclusive that he fabricated evidence and ignored repeated warnings that what he was saying was false.

Unfortunately, Congress has never investigated Powell's use of the intelligence he was given. Even so, what's already in the public record is extremely damning. So while the corporate media has never taken a close look at this record, anyone can go through Powell's presentation line by line to examine the chasm between what he knew, and what he told the world. As you see below, there's quite a lot to say about it.

Powell's speech can be found on the State Department website here. All other sources are linked below.

<more>

http://www.motherjones.com/mojoblog/archives/2008/02/7093_the_un_deceptio.html

[acmavm]

1. This is why everytime someone here tries to make excuses for

this bastard I just want to scream. He was every damn bit as corrupt and dirty. In some ways even moreso because he would have done ANYTHING to play with the big boys.

Just like he lied about My Lai.

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Powell's role in covering up war crimes in Viet Nam explained

A Pattern of Brutality

While a horrific example of a Vietnam war crime, the My Lai massacre was not unique. It fit a long pattern of indiscriminate violence against civilians that had marred U.S. participation in the Vietnam War from its earliest days when Americans acted primarily as advisers.

In 1963, Capt. Colin Powell was one of those advisers, serving a first tour with a South Vietnamese army unit. Powell's detachment sought to discourage support for the Viet Cong by torching villages throughout the A Shau Valley. While other U.S. advisers protested this countrywide strategy as brutal and counter-productive, Powell defended the "drain-the-sea" approach then -- and continued that defense in his 1995 memoirs, My American Journey. (See The Consortium, July 8)

After his first one-year tour and a series of successful training assignments in the United States, Maj. Powell returned for his second Vietnam tour on July 27, 1968. This time, he was no longer a junior officer slogging through the jungle, but an up-and-coming staff officer assigned to the Americal division.

By late 1968, Powell had jumped over more senior officers into the important post of G-3, chief of operations for division commander, Maj. Gen. Charles Gettys, at Chu Lai. Powell had been "picked by Gen. Gettys over several lieutenant colonels for the G-3 job itself, making me the only major filling that role in Vietnam," Powell wrote in his memoirs.

But a test soon confronted Maj. Powell. 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 a 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 Maj. Powell's desk.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/colin3.html

[lumpy]

4. Saw him on video yesterday trying to play innocent.

Infuriating. Obviously the weasel decided to go along with the big boys without conscience.

[KG]

2. the powell myth just won't die! he's been a willing liar for TPTB his whole career.