The Splendid Failure of Occupation
Part 22: Colin Powell, epilog
By B.J. Sabri
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Nov 20, 2004, 17:08

"It's sovereignty but (some) of that sovereignty they are going to allow us to exercise on their behalf and with their permission," he added. "It is not as if we are seizing anything away from them.��Colin Powell  in describing the future relation� between occupiers and occupied under the terms of Iraq �sovereignty.� [Emphasis added]

"The president is not going to trim his sails or pull back. It's a continuation of his principles [sic], his policies [sic], his beliefs [sic]," Colin Powell commenting on the second term of George W. Bush.

Colin Powell�s hollow knowledge on the issue of liberation is a masterwork of self-importance. He cites the case of Europe during WWII as proof of American �liberation enterprise.� Powell pompously related that experience to the invasion of Iraq, but in doing that, he tripped on pertinent methodical differentiation. For instance, he interchanged the concept of �liberation from occupation� which is noble, with the concept of �occupation as liberation,� which is colonialist.

Powell, � . . . We have done a lot of liberation in Europe after Europeans occupied other parts of Europe. We restore sovereignty; we do not deny freedom or sovereignty to those who own the land.�

Undoubtedly, Powell knows that �Iraq�s liberation� is about imperialism, colonialism, and Zionism, regardless, he talks about it as if it were really about liberation. For all practical reasons, and after 19 months of occupation, Iraq is an occupied, not liberated country. Irrefutably, Iraq was free until the U.S. occupied it.

1.       Powell disregarded the fact that at the end of WWII, Europe itself was still occupying most of the planet. Because Powell pretended that the U.S. was in the business of liberation, why did it not liberate those nations from the yoke of European colonialism?

2.       The United States alone could not have �liberated� not even one eighth of a square inch of Europe from Nazism without the military forces and people of the Soviet Union, Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Yugoslavia, etc.

3.       The crisis of capitalism following the Great Depression, and not opposition to Hitler or his occupation of some European countries, made the U.S. entry into the war a profitable economic enterprise to rescue a system in trouble.

4.       Powell boasted that the U.S. is a �restorer of lost sovereignty.� This is pomposity. Powell translated WWII events to an immutable American standard to gauge successive world events. The falsehood in such a premise is that Powell superimposed American mythology of Europe�s �liberation� over today�s U.S. hyper-imperialist reality. He then updated that mythology to resuscitate America of 1945 and recast it as a unique �restorer of sovereignty� in 2003.

5.       Powell�s phrase, �We restore sovereignty� means that the U.S. is not an imperialist state, as it did not claim formerly occupied France and other European states as spoils of war; hence, this was equivalent to �restoring sovereignty.� This is nonsense, and a tricky proposition when applied on occupied Iraq. After the defeat of Germany, the emergence of the USSR as a world power and despite the presence of hundreds of thousands of American forces in Europe, the U.S. could not have imposed occupation regimes on European states, nor claim them as a prize simply because of geopolitical and strategic considerations.

6.       Moreover, there are structural differences between waging a unilateral war to conquer Iraq, and the temporary Nazi occupation of most of central Europe during war and counter-war.

7.       Powell arrogated to himself the right to bestow sovereignty to those who own land. We can demolish his pretension immediately: just look around you! Can you see if Native American Indians have an exclusive county, state, or an independent country on the 3 million square miles of a land that once belonged to them?

8.       Two questions to Powell: 1) what do you think of giving sovereignty back to the Palestinians over Palestine? And 2) is it not odd that Russian, Yemeni, or Romanian immigrants to Palestine have sovereignty over a land their ancestors never set foot on?

Powell�s Theory on Iraq�s Weapons of Mass Destruction

Iraq�s possession of WMD was the only rationale that Bush and U.S Zionists used to invade Iraq. Although this subject requires special space and extensive treatment, I shall present here a primer on the issue including three points by Colin Powell and one by John Pilger.

From Powell's speech at the World Economic Forum, Davos (Switzerland), January 2003:

�After six weeks of inspections, the international community still needs to know the answers to key questions. For example: Where is the evidence�where is the evidence�that Iraq has destroyed the tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and botulinum we know it had before it expelled the previous inspectors? This isn't an American determination. This is the determination of the previous inspectors. Where is this material? What happened to it? It's not a trivial question. We're not talking about aspirin. We're talking about the most deadly things one can imagine, that can kill thousands, millions of people. We cannot simply turn away and say, 'Well, never mind.' Where is it? Account for it. Let it be verified through the inspectors.� [Emphasis added]

Comment: The evidence that Powell was searching for, was in front of him. Up to the moment of his speech, and after the most meticulous inspections in history, weapons inspectors found no WMD in Iraq.

From Powell's Speech at the United Nations in February 2003:

�Iraq declared 8,500 liters of anthrax. But UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoonful of this deadly material. And that is my third point. And it is key. The Iraqis have never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had and we know they had.� He then added, �They have never accounted for all the organic material used to make them. And they have not accounted for many of the weapons filled with these agents such as their R-400 bombs. This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true. This is all well documented.� [Emphasis added].

Comment: with his �evidence,� his �not conjecture,� and his �documentation,� etc., Powell confirmed that as far as it concerns Iraq, the U.S. has become the only prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner. From an analytical perspective, this also confirms that the United States considered Iraq as its exclusive domain and private business, where all historical and legal codes regarding its status cease to exist.

From Powell's Testimony to the Congress Business Affairs Committee on September 14, 2004:

�There was every reason to believe there were stockpiles. There was a question about the size of stockpiles, but we all believed there were stockpiles. It turned out that we have not found any stockpiles. I think it is unlikely that we will find any stockpiles.� He then added, �The job now, to go back and find out why we had a different judgment.� [Emphasis added]

Comment: Powell presented the Iraq War as if it were a consequence of faulty judgment, and not a deliberate action. All of us, who followed the build up of the case to invade Iraq, expected that after the invasion, the US would plant evidence to validate its pre-war claims over WMD. Because the entire world was watching and warning against such eventuality, the U.S. abandoned this plan and adopted the ruse of faulty intelligence. With this, Powell intended to put the matter to rest, as if the killing of thousands of Iraqis and the ravaging of Iraq were a criminal case where one can get a mitigated sentence if he admits wrongdoing.

Powell, however, did not admit wrongdoing. He only talked about different judgment. In a sense, Powell obliquely admitted to committing �negligence� by using �faulty intelligence.�

Just like that, and with his �The job now, to go back and find out why we had a different judgment,� Powell attempted to sweep U.S. Hitlerian crimes in Iraq under the rug. A fascist Zionist junta that vehemently wanted to invade Iraq, is now covering up its coveted object of desire with new spins��different judgment,� �intelligence mistake,� and �go back and find why,� etc.

Emphatically, the war and occupation of Iraq were not an act of negligence or faulty intelligence�they were the most calculated plans in history, where the Bush administration committed all premeditated degrees of murder. The question is: Will a country that brags about the rule of law prosecute its own administration�the Bush administration�for crimes against humanity?

No, it will not. A country ruled by two identical parties; a country whose democracy, Congress, House, committees, and subcommittees are controlled; a country whose institutions are permeated by fascist edicts; and a country manipulated by oilmen, large corporations, Zionists, Christian Zionists, and militarists will never dare to prosecute itself for crimes it committed abroad. Simply, our dilemma is that the self-feeding American system will never incriminate itself, nor can we force a change to its nature through elections.

From John Pilger's Documentary Breaking the Silence: Truth and Lies in the War on Terror:

Australian Journalist, John Pilger discovered a videotape taken in Cairo, Egypt on February 24, 2001. where Powell admitted the following:

"He [Saddam Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to use conventional power against his neighbors.� Pilger�s documentary reports that Powell had even boasted that �containment� had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator. [Emphasis added]

Pilger also discovered another videotape shot on May 15, 2001, where Powell stated that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "Build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction,� and added, � For the last 10 years, America had been successful in keeping him in a box."

In October 2004, Charles A. Duelfer confirmed John�s Pilger�s discovery and dismantled permanently the hoax of all times. In his conclusive report on Iraq�s WMD, Duelfer shredded all remaining lies that dotted Bush�s invasion of Iraq, but not before advancing a new sterile imperialist speculative alibi, that Hussein kept his �strategic intent� to produce such weapons. Because Duelfer�s report is of exceptional significance, we shall address it separately in the upcoming parts of this series.

The prominent aspect of Duelfer�s report that no one dares talk about is while the U.S. knew there were no WMD in Iraq since after the Gulf war in 1991, it still maintained comprehensive economic sanctions for 13 years, thus killing over 1.5 million Iraqis to �punish� Saddam for weapons that the U.S.-U.N. destroyed 12 years ago.

Conclusion

As a diplomat and a gregarious imperialist, Powell�s position toward Arabs of all religions and Muslims of all nationalities are a reflection of U.S. Zionism that propelled his access to power. As an adulating sycophant of Zionism, Powell knows who rules the United States. (Powell could not have assumed a sensitive position such as that of a national security advisor under Reagan without swearing allegiance to Zionist causes first.)

Powell is the embodiment of arrogant fascism. In his interview with the British �Financial Times� on November 8, 2004, and after the news of Iraqis that had perished by his invasion traveled around the globe, Powell  had this to say: �So the president has had an active foreign policy that has been controversial in the sense of should we have done what we did in Iraq? We did it.� He then added, �Now what we're going to do is complete the effort to give the Iraqi people a democracy.�

Powell scorned the world by his �we did it,� which meant, �We did it, so what! Now beat it,� and insulted the lives he wasted in his imperialist war. He also stressed that he would continue in his war by wanting to �complete the effort . . . etc.� However, by proposing to give the Iraqi people the �democracy� toy as compensation for their devastation, Powell touched the apex of homicidal cynicism�he considered the mass killing of Iraqis, as a fair colonialist quid pro quo. Essentially, Powell�s �generous bonus� to �ease� his criminal burden is similar to that of a vicious rapist who, after assaulting, torturing, and raping a woman, he cynically wishes her a happy pregnancy.

Powell is pathetic. In the same interview, he complained. �Sometimes I get attention deficit syndrome when I listen to people argue with me, why aren't you being more unilateral in Korea and Iran? Why are you, quote, �working with the Europeans or with the six-party framework, when you ought to be doing it one-on-one or unilaterally, or doing something?�" [Emphasis added].

Secretary Powell, inadvertently, exteriorized a suppressed problem. In complaining that he gets Attention Deficit Syndrome when arguing complex issues, Powell exposed several personality disorders as a diplomat. These include an inadequate intellectual capacity to handle arguments requiring reasoning; nervous impatience when a party to an argument refutes his explanations; irritation for having to expose his limited political preparation in explaining the war in terms different from those that he memorized; and hostility toward those who dare to question his diplomatic authority.

But Powell�s Attention Deficit Syndrome is broader than he pretends. It extends to visualizing and hearing the loud rumble of history. His imperialist distraction and personal arrogance did not allow him to listen attentively to a timeless truth: the entire history of humanity is about the struggle for freedom from subjugation.

As an opportunist Zionist and violent imperialist craving to subjugate the Iraqis to his monovision of the world, Powell did not learn anything significant about the struggle against slavery, colonialism, and imperialism.

Next: Part 22: Dick Cheney, Reshaping History with an Ax