Mostly quiet since making the administration’s bogus case for war at the United Nations more than three years ago, Colin Powell made headlines this week when he wrote a letter, decrying Bush’s attempt to rewrite the Geneva Convention. In it he said:
The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk.
Redemption for Powell or simply a case of disingenuous moralizing? The answer can be found in today’s Washington Post, where Powell’s spineless weaselhood and the Washington Post’s lack of journalistic integrity are exposed…
The article begins with this rather remarkable statement from Powell on why he decided to come out against Bush’s attempt to “clarify” his torture policies:
If you just look at how we are perceived in the world and the kind of criticism we have taken over Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and renditions, whether we believe it or not, people are now starting to question whether we’re following our own high standards.
Ummmm, Colin? Given that laundry list of outrages done in our name, isn’t it rather insane to suggest that we possess high standards? That ship sailed long, long ago.
And what about Powell’s speech at the United Nations? The speech that gave Bush’s plan to invade Iraq some sort of moral gravitas? Powell “regrets” it. No doubt the thousands of dead in the Iraq debacle are bestowing their forgiveness from heaven now that they know he “regrets” presenting a case for war that he knew was cherry-picked and overblown.
And of course the White House reaction to Powell’s letter was addressed in the article…remember that? First there was the White House press briefing:
Q So do you think that Colin Powell, a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is just confused about what you’re trying to do?
MR. SNOW: Yes.
And then George W. Bush characterized the letter as a:
…comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists
In other words, according to this administration, Powell is an addled, terrorist-appeaser. His reaction?
Powell declined yesterday to address Bush’s comments.
Ouch! A rebuttal like that from a man of Powell’s standing had to hurt.
And now let’s move on to the shoddy journalism on the part of not one, but two Washington Post (so-called) reporters…little sins of omission here and there that once again gives cover to the incompetence of the Bush administration. There’s this:
He has also said that he believes the administration should have sent more troops to invade Iraq and provided a better postwar plan.
Perhaps constrained by space limitations, the article didn’t bother to mention that:
Months before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld forbade military strategists from developing plans for securing a post-war Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said Thursday.
In fact, said Brig. Gen. Mark Scheid, Rumsfeld said “he would fire the next person” who talked about the need for a post-war plan.
Rumsfeld did replace Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff in 2003, after Shinseki told Congress that hundreds of thousands of troops would be needed to secure post-war Iraq.
Details, details, don’t bother them with details…
And then there was this:
Last fall, over administration opposition, Powell publicly supported McCain’s successful effort to ensure that restrictions in the Army Field Manual outlawing torture be adopted as the definitive guidance for military treatment of detainees.
Successful effort? This certainly seems like a good time to mention that that “successful effort” was anything but, considering that when Bush signed the bill, he also issued a signing statement , announcing his intention to ignore the law.
And how did the Washington Post article interpret Bush’s characterization of Powell’s letter?
The president followed up the next day with a stern reaction at a Rose Garden news conference, when he reinterpreted Powell’s position to suggest that the former secretary of state was equating U.S. tactics to those of terrorists.
Calling the President of the United States temper tantrum, where he was absolutely yelling, a “stern reaction” gives Bush’s response a certain dignity…a non-existent dignity. And Bush didn’t “suggest” anything. He flat-out said it:
It’s unacceptable to think that there’s any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective
The only saving grace to this pitiful offering by Colin Powell and the Washington Post was a quote from Jimmy Carter:
The Bush administration, Carter told Reuters, has “redefined torture to make it convenient for them,” adding: “Things that are . . . globally assumed to be torture they claim . . . [are] not torture.”
Amen, Jimmy.