Robert Parry on Colin Powell: Failed Opportunist

[Karmadillo]

There's lots more about Powell in the archives at this excellent site.

http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/112604.html

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What we found in our investigation of Powell’s legend was not the heroic figure of his press clippings, but the story of an ambitious man with a weak moral compass. He either hid in the reeds when others were standing up for what they knew to be right or he contributed to the wrongdoing (albeit often while wringing his hands and confiding to reporters that he really wasn’t entirely comfortable).

Another amazing aspect of Powell’s life story was his Forrest-Gump-like quality to show up in frame after frame of turning-point moments in recent American history, except in Powell’s case, he almost never did the right thing. Indeed, one could argue that the reason Powell found himself in the middle of so many historical moments was that he never sacrificed his career on the altar of challenging corrupt or foolish superiors.

That pattern began in the earliest days of his military career when he was part of an extraordinary group of early U.S. military advisers that President John F. Kennedy dispatched to Vietnam.

Burning Hooches

As a 25-year-old Army captain, Powell was assigned to advise a 400-man unit of South Vietnamese troops in the A Shau Valley, near the Laotian border. When he arrived on Jan. 17, 1963, the conflict was at a pivotal juncture.

The South Vietnamese army, known as the ARVN, was losing the war, suffering from poor discipline, ineffective tactics and bad morale. Already, many U.S. advisers, most notably the legendary Col. John Paul Vann, were voicing concerns about the ARVN’s brutality toward civilians. At the time, the dominant counterinsurgency strategy was to destroy rural villages and forcibly relocate inhabitants while hunting down enemy forces.

But Colin Powell was untainted by these worries. Powell's ARVN unit punished the civilian population systematically. As the soldiers marched through mountainous jungle, they destroyed the food and the homes of the region's Montagnards, who were suspected of sympathizing with the Viet Cong. Old women cried hysterically as their ancestral homes and worldly possessions were consumed by fire.

more...

[roguevalley]

1. so true. he's a coward. very good article.

[Karmadillo]

2. Amazing how the corporate media presents an image of Powell

that's completely at odds with the facts.