Tag Archives: Colin Powell

Colin Powell’s anthrax vial taught the US a valuable lesson – that it can get away with any lie it wants, by Azǝrbaycan24

Posted on February 9, 2023 | 1 comment

The U.S. didn’t start lying with Colin Powell’s anthrax vial, but it’s been lying with impunity ever since. From Azǝrbaycan24 at azerbaycan24.com:

US Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he said was the size that could be used to hold anthrax as he addresses the United Nations Security Council 5 February, 2003 at the UN in New York. ©  Timothy A. CLARY / AFP

It’s been 20 years since the Secretary of State made his UN Security Council address, fake anthrax vial in hand, which led to the Iraq war and millions of deaths Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector. @RealScottRitter@ScottRitterUS Secretary of State Colin Powell holds up a vial that he said was the size that could be used to hold anthrax as he addresses the United Nations Security Council 5 February, 2003 at the UN in New York. © Timothy A. CLARY / AFP

Twenty years ago, former Secretary of State Colin Powell delivered his now-infamous address before the United Nations Security Council, making the case for war against Iraq.

The presentation would later be revealed as lies. Sadly, it would also turn out that no one seemed to care.On February 5, 2003, I watched it all with a sense of boiling anger. The day before, I had made the following prediction to Japanese media:

“He’s [Powell] going to present circumstantial evidence that packaged together and presented will make a compelling case that [UN weapons] inspections don’t work, inspections can’t work, that Iraq is actively conspiring against inspections, thereby, denigrating the efficacy of inspections, while the world waits for inspectors to do their job. The purpose of Colin Powell’s presentation tomorrow is to destroy international trust and confidence in weapons inspections and that is a darn shame.”

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Morality, Politics, Propaganda

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Creator Of World’s Most Effective Anti-War Meme Dead At 84, by Caitlin Johnstone

Posted on October 19, 2021 | Leave a comment

Caitlin Johnstone and SLL won’t be contributing to the Powell hagiography. From Johnstone at caitlinjohnstone.com;

Colin Powell, creator of the viral anti-war meme featuring himself holding a stage prop while lying to the United Nations about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, has died at the age of 84.

Over the years Powell’s meme has been an invaluable asset for opponents of western military interventionism and critics of US propaganda narratives about empire-targeted nations, serving as a single-image debunk of any assertion that it is sensible to trust the claims US officials make about any government that Washington doesn’t like.

In online discourse the Powell meme makes the perfect response to anyone regurgitating an unsubstantiated claim about a government that has been targeted for disobeying the dictates of the US empire.

“We must remove Assad by any means necessary because he’s killing Syrians with poison gas!”

Oh yeah? Boom. Powell meme.

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Posted in Government, History, Horseshit, Politics, Propaganda, War

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Let Them Eat Yellowcake, by Tony Cox

Posted on August 21, 2020 | Leave a comment

The old-time neocons have coalesced and regrouped in the Democrat party. From Tony Cox at lewrockwell.com:

The neoconservatives have a new party. It’s called Democratic, and it’s every bit as warmongering and interventionist as the Republicans were during the Reagan era or that of the Bushes.

We keep hearing how radical leftists have taken over the Democratic Party, but guess who stole the limelight at Tuesday’s Democratic National Convention: the disgraced former Secretary of State Colin Powell who endorsed their presidential candidate, Joe Biden.

In fact, Powell, who helped George W. Bush’s administration lie America into the ruinous Iraq War, was given a full extra minute to speak when compared to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the face of the woke left.

He didn’t disappoint. Although Powell, 83, might be a bit rustier than when he laid out the false US case on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to the UN in 2003, he deftly leaned on old stand-bys of patriotic values and love for the troops. “Joe Biden will be a president we will all be proud to salute,” Powell said. “With Joe Biden in the White House, you will never doubt that he will stand with our friends and stand up to our adversaries.”

CIn other words, Biden will pledge undying fealty to NATO and make sure Russia knows who’s boss. Powell put a finer point on the theme: “I support Joe Biden because on Day One, he will restore America’s leadership and our moral authority. He’ll be a president who knows America is strongest when, as he has said, ‘We lead both by the power of our example and the example of our power.’ He will restore America’s leadership in the world and restore the alliances we need to address the dangers that threaten our nation, from climate change to nuclear proliferation.”

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Powell & Iraq—Regime Change, Not Disarmament: The Fundamental Lie, by Scott Ritter

Posted on July 19, 2020 | 1 comment

George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Colin Powell’s whopper got the 21st century off to an ugly start. From Scott Ritter at consortiumnews.com:

Regime change, not disarmament, was always the driving factor behind U.S. policy towards Saddam Hussein. Powell knew this because he helped craft the original policy.

The New York Times Magazine has published a puff piece soft-peddling former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s role in selling a war on Iraq to the UN Security Council using what turned out to be bad intelligence. “Colin Powell Still Wants Answers” is the title of the article, written by Robert Draper. “The analysts who provided the intelligence,” a sub-header to the article declares, “now say it was doubted inside the CIA at the time.”

Draper’s article is an extract from a book, To Start a War: How the Bush Administration Took America into Iraq, scheduled for publication later this month. In the interest of full disclosure, I was approached by Draper in 2018 about his interest in writing this book, and I agreed to be interviewed as part of his research. I have not yet read the book, but can note that, based upon the tone and content of his New York Times Magazine article, my words apparently carried little weight.

Regime Change, Not WMD

I spent some time articulating to Draper my contention that the issue with Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was never about weapons of mass destruction (WMD), but rather regime change, and that everything had to be viewed in the light of this reality—including Powell’s Feb. 5, 2003 presentation before the UN Security Council. Based upon the content of his article, I might as well have been talking to a brick wall.

Powell’s 2003 presentation before the council did not take place in a policy vacuum. In many ways, the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq was a continuation of the 1991 Gulf War, which Powell helped orchestrate. Its fumbled aftermath was again, something that transpired on Powell’s watch as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the administration of George H. W. Bush.

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Posted in Foreign Policy, Geopolitics, Governments, History, Horseshit, Morality, War

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