Colin Powell Resigns
When Colin Powell accepted the post of Secretary of State four years ago, his popularity surpassed every living American. A retired four-star general and former national security adviser, Powell was synonymous with the victory of the first Gulf War. Powell had an aura about him that exemplified courage and dignity, and his mere presence demanded respect at home and abroad.
Four years later, Powell is leaving his position with little to show and a great deal of his aura and reputation tarnished. While history will remember his accomplishments of the first Gulf War, history will also remember his 2003 appearance before the United Nations Security Council where Powell insisted that Saddam Hussein had huge stockpiles of anthrax. Not only have those claims since been proven false, but it has also been shown that Powell, along with others of this administration, knew the claims were false at the time.
Defenders of Colin Powell suggest that Powell was being the Good Soldier, publicly supporting President Bush despite his personal disagreements with the Bush preemptive doctrine. Although the good solider analogy makes good copy, it is like the stockpiles of anthrax; complete fiction.
One lesson of the Abu Ghraib scandal is that the good solider is not always the one that goes along, but rather it is the one that has the courage to go against the grain. White House officials were quick to point out that the soliders involved in Abu Ghraib knew the rules of war and the Geneva convention, and even if they didn’t, they should at the very least know right from wrong.
What’s good for an enlisted soldier, is good for a retired general.
General Eric Shinseki and others put their careers on the line in objecting to the lunacy of the Iraq war plan. Unfortunately, Shinseki and these other courageous good soldiers had neither the political clout nor the public recognition that Powell enjoyed. Aside from President Bush, Powell was the only person that could have put a halt to the march to war. If President Bush would not listen to Powell’s objections in the White House, Powell should have resigned his post then and made every attempt at publicly putting the brakes on this war. He knew the information was false, and more importantly he understood the consequences of what a full-scale war in Iraq would bring. Instead of the good general thinking about the fate of his soldiers, the politician played along to get along.