Re: New book: American Heart of Darkness - Characteropaths
I am going to quote from my book, American Heart of Darkness..., about Powell and Rice. This comes from my sub-chapter, "Two Lackluster Secretaries of State," beginning on page 93. And I certainly did not cut them or anyone else any slack. These clowns ('cept they ain't funny) have destroyed this country and much of the world. They should have been frog-marched out of the White House in shackles along with the rest of the international criminals there...
...Other faces that came to mind were those of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. Lobaczewski explained that in a pathocracy, the top leaders surround themselves with pathological individuals according to how their psychopathology fits the leader’s needs. In government, however, even pathological leaders understand that to conduct foreign affairs, they need to be represented by people that at least have the appearance of being normal. So for these positions, they tend to appoint relatively bright and competent individuals with the exception that they will do exactly what they are told to do regardless of whether it is right or wrong, good or bad, moral or immoral. Pathological leaders tend to appoint individuals with a warped sense of loyalty that enables them to do whatever the leader chooses them to do without complaint.
Colin Powell has a long history of this that goes back as far as the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam. Major Powell, assigned to the Americal Division, has been implicated in the cover-up of this infamous event. Most Vietnam veterans remember the My Lai Massacre as a horrific event where troops of the American old division went into the village of My Lai, spent four hours rounding up villagers, mostly old men, women, and children. They tied them up, put them in ditches, and shot 347 civilians including babies. They even took a lunch break in the middle of these activities.
This incident was reported by young specialist fourth class named Tom Glen who had served in an Americal Division mortar platoon. In a letter to General Creighton Abrams, the commander of US forces in Vietnam, Glen accused the division of routine brutality against civilians, including the My Lai Massacre. The letter landed on Major Powell’s desk. After his superficial investigation in which Powell did not even interview Glenn, Powell not only admitted to no wrongdoing by the division but stated that Glenn had not been close enough to the front lines to know what he was writing about. Further, he faulted Glenn for not complaining earlier and for failing to be more specific in his letter. Powell’s findings were a collection of distortions and misrepresentations.
It would take an infantryman named Ron Ridenhour to put together the truth about the atrocity at My Lai after completing his tour in Vietnam. Ridenhour interviewed Americal Division members who had participated in the massacre and forwarded a shocking report to the army inspector general. After a thorough investigation, courts-martial were held against the army personnel implicated in the murder of the My Lai civilians, no thanks to Colin Powell.
In his best-selling book, My American Journey, Powell made no mention of his handling of Tom Glenn’s complaint. He did, however, justify killing unarmed civilians. After mentioning the My Lai massacre in his book, Powell put forth a justification of the Americal Division’s brutality.
"I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military age male. . . . If a Hilo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served at Gelnhausen, Lt. Colonel Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter. And Prichard was only one of many. The kill-or-be-killed nature of combat tends to dull fine perceptions of right and wrong."
We are not talking about “fine perceptions of right and wrong” here. We are talking about war crimes and the senseless slaughter of defenseless civilians. I might add that these civilians were supposedly our allies and for whom we were supposedly fighting so that they could supposedly be free. The fact that a field-grade officer who rose to the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff would hold such opinions has ominous implications.
Many years later, Colin Powell would again show us insight into his true character. During Desert Storm, there were mounting concerns about Iraqi civilian casualties. When asked about the growing number of Iraqi civilians killed by US forces, General Powell stated that “that is a figure I’m not particularly interested in.” This coming from an individual of his rank and position is shocking. Further, as Powell well knew, the senseless slaughter of thousands of defenseless Iraqi civilians was a war crime of major proportions, as was the targeting of the Iraqi infrastructure. The almost total destruction of power production and water treatment facilities not only qualified as war crimes but also genocide...
The War Crimes Act of 1996, a federal statute set forth at Title 18 of the US code § 2441, makes it a federal crime for any US national to violate the Geneva Conventions. This law makes it a crime to not only carry out prohibited acts but also applies to those that order it or even know about it and fail to take steps to stop it. Further, this federal law does not have a statute of limitations, and punishment for violations includes life in prison. If even one prisoner dies due to torture, which has happened a number of times, the punishment can be death.
Of course, Colin Powell knows this, and he would have only approved these outrageous acts if he thought he could get away with it. In fact, George W. Bush freely admitted to the process in which these decisions were made. Probably because he does not possess the critical thinking skills needed to foresee the disastrous ramifications of his decisions. He probably believed Alberto Gonzalez’s memos telling him he is exempt from the law because he is the “unitary executive,” and therefore whatever he does is legal because he is the president. On the other hand, Colin Powell was not nearly as forthcoming. When contacted by ABC News, he stated through an assistant that there were “hundreds of [Principals] meetings” on a wide variety of topics and that he was “not at liberty to discuss private meetings.” Colin Powell knows that his hide could be in jeopardy and just as he did in the My Lai Massacre, he is crafting a web of deceit so that he comes out on top of the dung heap.
Condoleezza Rice chaired the above committee as National Security Advisor and, along with Powell, knows the possible consequences of her participation in this dark undertaking. One notices that she is very adept at dodging tough questions and responsibility. When criticized by California Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer in relation to the war in Iraq: “I personally believe, this is my personal view, that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell the war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth. . .” Senator Boxer went on to clarify that who pays the price for the Bush administration’s war adventurism are not the families of Senator Boxer or Condoleezza Rice, but the American military and their families. Rice threw out the red herring that Senator Boxer was making some sort of negative comment about Rice not being married and not having children, which of course had nothing to do with the point Boxer was making.
I have also seen Rice just brush aside pertinent questions about the 9/11 attacks. When asked legitimate questions by the press, she will simply states that “I hadn’t heard that” and just goes on to the next question. She is very good at that. Perhaps good enough that she can be involved in international war crimes and get away with it. It does appear that dodging responsibility is one of the few things that she is good at.
For all of fanfare on her behalf, this author cannot think of anything Condoleezza Rice has been successful at since joining the Bush administration. Apparently, she is a gifted athlete, pianist, and university professor; but her record of giving exactly the wrong advice and doing exactly the wrong thing as National Security Advisor and Secretary of State are unprecedented in modern history, with the exception of Colin Powell. Not only wrong but outright immoral and illegal.
The Iraq war is arguably the most disastrous decision this country has ever made, and Condoleezza Rice was instrumental in promoting this policy. With a doctorate degree in political science, she had to have been aware that Iraq was absolutely no threat to the United States security. This was an illegal war from the very beginning. It amounted to waging aggressive warfare against a virtually defenseless nation. Not only a defenseless nation but a war against the civilian population. Condoleezza Rice used effective metaphors to conjure up images of nuclear mushroom clouds that were very effective in scaring the American people into this disastrous undertaking. She had to know what she was doing, and unlike George Bush, she had to have known the disastrous consequences of this nefarious endeavor. But she did it anyway. She did it because she, along with Colin Powell, is an unprincipled opportunist...
This is why reading Lobaczewski and Laura clarified all of this in my minds eye!!
