Instead of helping the hurt and the family of the dead people, they erect monuments for the criminals. I had no idea about Powell. At the time still in Europe, we were shown him as a hero.
We all knew this about trump didn't we? how he bragged about walking through the girl's dressing rooms at the beauty pageant. I am not at all surprised.
Modern Pardoners have moved with the times. Within the Western system, and especially its Anglo branch, there is an officially unbreakable code. But also a widespread feeling that the code can and should be broken when the need is great. Hence the need for official investigators who will appear to check the facts, but actually be looking to sow confusion and cast darkness on any embarrassing incidents.
My Lai came to light, because Powell and his military colleagues were not doing the investigation. It came to light, because the war was being lost and the USA was full enough of self-doubt to let things drift. Colin Powell had been in charge of an earlier investigation into the Americal Division, one that didn’t name My Lai as such, but should have led to it. But Powell did a complete ‘Hutton’ on the matter: gave them a whitewash at a time when a pattern of attacks on ‘soft targets’ was being alleged.
“Powell had the bad luck to be caught up in two of the most notorious scandals of his time—the My Lai massacre and the Iran-contra affair… Though Powell discusses these incidents in his autobiography, the book smooths over some hard truths.
“My Lai: … as deputy operations officer of the Americal Division eight months later, the then Major Powell drafted its first official response to rumors that U.S. troops had run amok—and his denial of the event, in which up to 400 Vietnamese civilians died at the hands of U. S. soldiers, is part of what investigators concluded was a cover-up.
“Powell has consistently said he knew nothing about My Lai until much later—in his new book, he says nearly two years later. Senior officers who were in Vietnam at the time are quietly skeptical of his account. They point out that word of the massacre—which did not become public until November 1969—quickly spread through the region, and to the Americal Division’s headquarters. In the fall of ’68, the top brass in Vietnam had the first blurry hint in an ominous letter from an 11th Brigade grunt named Tom Glen. Powell got the job of drafting the division’s response. He reported the rumors were unfounded but never talked to Glen. And though Powell says he knew nothing of My Lai even after it became news in November ‘69, Lt. William Calley was charged with multiple murders in September—only nine months after Powell had dismissed the rumors.
“Iran-contra: As Weinberger’s military assistant, Powell was in the loop on the Reagan administration’s secret plan to supply Hawk and TOW missiles to Iran.” (Newsweek, September 11, 1995)
I’ll leave aside Iran-contra, where Powell may indeed have done nothing wrong. It is notable that Ronald Reagan’s memory got selectively bad, long before his current mental deterioration. And when Bush Senior succeeded as President, he made the baffling choice of Dan Quayle as his Vice-President. Baffling if you consider Quayle’s mediocre talents and habit of sounding stupid. But had Bush Senior been impeached or driven from office over his own role in one of the scandals of the Reagan years, Quayle would have inescapably succeeded as President. Understandably, US politicians lost there enthusiasm for removing Bush when they saw what it would mean.
There was obviously much dirt, but was it Powell’s dirt? Best to give him the benefit of the doubt. My Lai is much clearer, and much worse. Iran-contra was a technical breach of the rules in a process that was generally assumed to be happening and was supported. Massacres were not how the USA was supposed to be fighting. It was in fact the way they won several key conflicts in South America, not to mention Indonesia, where the supposed ‘Communist coup’ was almost certainly a dummy to give the army a pretext for massacre. But all of these things were done with ‘local agents’ who buffered the guilt and could be repudiated. This had indeed been the pattern in Vietnam, but the ‘local agents’ were left-overs from French colonial rule and were ineffective. Powell himself would have been familiar with all this:
“While a horrific example of a Vietnam war crime, the My Lai massacre was not unique. It fit a long pattern of indiscriminate violence against civilians that had marred U.S. participation in the Vietnam War from its earliest days when Americans acted primarily as advisers.
Senator John Thune thinks $900M a day for war in Iran is completely justified - because it's something 'generational for the entire world'.... Trump's Boys are winning....
A statement circulates, attributed to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: “International law does not apply to the Jews. This is the difference between the chosen people and the others.”
The sentiment echoes a pattern of documented rhetoric. Smotrich has publicly stated that “there are no Palestinians, because there isn’t a Palestinian people,” dismissing an entire population as a “fictitious” invention. He has called for a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank to be “wiped out” after violent settler attacks. And in August 2024, he asserted that blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza “might be justified and moral” even if it causes two million civilians to die of forced starvation.
These are not stray remarks from the political fringe. They reflect an ideology that has been voiced openly, repeatedly, and from within the highest levels of Israeli zionist government. It is the same logic that permits the bombardment of hospitals and schools, the seizure of land, and the designation of safe zones that become kill zones. It is the framework that treats Palestinian life as conditional and Jewish supremacy as a divine mandate. When the law applies only to some, violence against the rest becomes administration. More so, it becomes inevitable.
Instead of helping the hurt and the family of the dead people, they erect monuments for the criminals. I had no idea about Powell. At the time still in Europe, we were shown him as a hero.
We all knew this about trump didn't we? how he bragged about walking through the girl's dressing rooms at the beauty pageant. I am not at all surprised.
Modern Pardoners have moved with the times. Within the Western system, and especially its Anglo branch, there is an officially unbreakable code. But also a widespread feeling that the code can and should be broken when the need is great. Hence the need for official investigators who will appear to check the facts, but actually be looking to sow confusion and cast darkness on any embarrassing incidents.
My Lai came to light, because Powell and his military colleagues were not doing the investigation. It came to light, because the war was being lost and the USA was full enough of self-doubt to let things drift. Colin Powell had been in charge of an earlier investigation into the Americal Division, one that didn’t name My Lai as such, but should have led to it. But Powell did a complete ‘Hutton’ on the matter: gave them a whitewash at a time when a pattern of attacks on ‘soft targets’ was being alleged.
“Powell had the bad luck to be caught up in two of the most notorious scandals of his time—the My Lai massacre and the Iran-contra affair… Though Powell discusses these incidents in his autobiography, the book smooths over some hard truths.
“My Lai: … as deputy operations officer of the Americal Division eight months later, the then Major Powell drafted its first official response to rumors that U.S. troops had run amok—and his denial of the event, in which up to 400 Vietnamese civilians died at the hands of U. S. soldiers, is part of what investigators concluded was a cover-up.
“Powell has consistently said he knew nothing about My Lai until much later—in his new book, he says nearly two years later. Senior officers who were in Vietnam at the time are quietly skeptical of his account. They point out that word of the massacre—which did not become public until November 1969—quickly spread through the region, and to the Americal Division’s headquarters. In the fall of ’68, the top brass in Vietnam had the first blurry hint in an ominous letter from an 11th Brigade grunt named Tom Glen. Powell got the job of drafting the division’s response. He reported the rumors were unfounded but never talked to Glen. And though Powell says he knew nothing of My Lai even after it became news in November ‘69, Lt. William Calley was charged with multiple murders in September—only nine months after Powell had dismissed the rumors.
“Iran-contra: As Weinberger’s military assistant, Powell was in the loop on the Reagan administration’s secret plan to supply Hawk and TOW missiles to Iran.” (Newsweek, September 11, 1995)
I’ll leave aside Iran-contra, where Powell may indeed have done nothing wrong. It is notable that Ronald Reagan’s memory got selectively bad, long before his current mental deterioration. And when Bush Senior succeeded as President, he made the baffling choice of Dan Quayle as his Vice-President. Baffling if you consider Quayle’s mediocre talents and habit of sounding stupid. But had Bush Senior been impeached or driven from office over his own role in one of the scandals of the Reagan years, Quayle would have inescapably succeeded as President. Understandably, US politicians lost there enthusiasm for removing Bush when they saw what it would mean.
There was obviously much dirt, but was it Powell’s dirt? Best to give him the benefit of the doubt. My Lai is much clearer, and much worse. Iran-contra was a technical breach of the rules in a process that was generally assumed to be happening and was supported. Massacres were not how the USA was supposed to be fighting. It was in fact the way they won several key conflicts in South America, not to mention Indonesia, where the supposed ‘Communist coup’ was almost certainly a dummy to give the army a pretext for massacre. But all of these things were done with ‘local agents’ who buffered the guilt and could be repudiated. This had indeed been the pattern in Vietnam, but the ‘local agents’ were left-overs from French colonial rule and were ineffective. Powell himself would have been familiar with all this:
“While a horrific example of a Vietnam war crime, the My Lai massacre was not unique. It fit a long pattern of indiscriminate violence against civilians that had marred U.S. participation in the Vietnam War from its earliest days when Americans acted primarily as advisers.
https://gwydionwilliams.com/52-usa/colin-powell-and-vietnam-massacres/
You will not be able to stay home, brother
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and
Skip out for beer during commercials
Because the revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In four parts without commercial interruptions
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
Blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John Mitchell
General Abrams and Spiro Agnew
To eat hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star
Natalie Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs
The revolution will not make you look five pounds thinner
Because the revolution will not be televised, brother
There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
Pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run
Or trying to slide that color TV into a stolen ambulance
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
Or report from 29 districts
The revolution will not be televised
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
Brothers on the instant replay
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young
Being run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process
There will be no slow motion or still lifes of Roy Wilkens
Strolling through Watts in a red, black and green
Liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion
Green Acres, Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction
Will no longer be so damned relevant
And women will not care if Dick finally got down with Jane
On "Search for Tomorrow" because black people
Will be in the street looking for a brighter day
The revolution will not be televised
There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock news
And no pictures of hairy armed women liberationists
And Jackie Onassis blowing her nose
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb
Or Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell
Tom Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink or the Rare Earth
The revolution will not be televised
The revolution will not be right back
After a message about a white tornado, white lightning or white people
You will not have to worry about a dove in your bedroom
The tiger in your tank or the giant in your toilet bowl
The revolution will not go better with Coke
The revolution will not fight germs that may cause bad breath
The revolution will put you in the driver's seat
The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised
Will not be televised, will not be televised
The revolution will be no re-run, brothers
The revolution will be live
--- Gil Scott Heron
Senator John Thune thinks $900M a day for war in Iran is completely justified - because it's something 'generational for the entire world'.... Trump's Boys are winning....
Oh, those Jews . . . .
A statement circulates, attributed to Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich: “International law does not apply to the Jews. This is the difference between the chosen people and the others.”
The sentiment echoes a pattern of documented rhetoric. Smotrich has publicly stated that “there are no Palestinians, because there isn’t a Palestinian people,” dismissing an entire population as a “fictitious” invention. He has called for a Palestinian town in the occupied West Bank to be “wiped out” after violent settler attacks. And in August 2024, he asserted that blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza “might be justified and moral” even if it causes two million civilians to die of forced starvation.
These are not stray remarks from the political fringe. They reflect an ideology that has been voiced openly, repeatedly, and from within the highest levels of Israeli zionist government. It is the same logic that permits the bombardment of hospitals and schools, the seizure of land, and the designation of safe zones that become kill zones. It is the framework that treats Palestinian life as conditional and Jewish supremacy as a divine mandate. When the law applies only to some, violence against the rest becomes administration. More so, it becomes inevitable.