Colin Powell on Occupy Wall Street

If anyone other than Colin Powell had said this, the Far Right would be pulling their hair out and yelling “Who IS that socialist parasite and why does he hate America?!?”

Colin Powell told CNN:

“I was born in Harlem to immigrant parents, and my parents always had a job.  And so, people are concerned now that there is not that source of an income. There isn’t that work source that I remember.  So, what you’re seeing with ‘Occupy Wall Street’ and the others are people who are unhappy, and they’re directing their unhappiness right now towards Wall Street and towards those they think are doing to well in our society.  And so, demonstrating like this is as American as apple pie. We have been marching up and down and demonstrating throughout our history.”

CNN’s Piers Morgan asked Colin Powell:

“Do you understand the anger particularly towards Wall Street, I think?  What really gets their goat is that a lot of these banks and bankers got bailed out by the taxpayers. The first chance they got, when they got back on their feet, to not give themselves huge bonuses again, they ignored that temptation and put their noses back in the trough.”

Colin Powell:

“…one of the things that is of concern to all of us is that there’s an increasing gap between those who are doing very well and I’m doing well, and those who are not doing as well. And those who are not doing as well are not seeing their lives improving. And so, there’s frustration and angriness there.  And so, it isn’t enough to scream at the ‘Occupy Wall Street’ demonstrators. We need our political system to start reflecting this anger back in to how do we fix it? How do we get the economy going again? How do we get businesses that have a lot of money stacked up, how do we get them to invest that money and create jobs?”

The “Pinochet”-ing of Dick Cheney

This needs to happen; hopefully sooner rather than later. If our own spineless “leaders” won’t prosecute the war criminals in our midst, an international agency might have to do their jobs for them.

As you probably know, Chile’s now-deceased dictator, Augusto Pinochet, was arrested in London in 1998 after being indicted for crimes against humanity. And now, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, has said he will testify against Dick Cheney if Cheney is ever put on trial. Wilkerson said:

“I, unfortunately — and I’ve admitted to this a number of times, publicly and privately — was the person who put together Colin Powell’s presentation at the United Nations Security Council on 5 February, 2003. It was probably the biggest mistake of my life. I regret it to this day. I regret not having resigned over it.”

In the same interview, Salon’s Glen Greenwald said:

“The evidence is overwhelming… that Dick Cheney is not just a political figure with controversial views, but is an actual criminal, that he was centrally involved in a whole variety not just of war crimes in Iraq, but of domestic crimes, as well, including the authorization of warrantless eavesdropping on American citizens in violation of FISA, which says that you go to jail for five years for each offense, as well as the authorization and implementation of a worldwide torture regime that, according to General Barry McCaffrey, resulted in the murder — his word — of dozens of detainees, far beyond just the three or four cases of waterboarding that media figures typically ask Cheney about. And as a result, Dick Cheney goes around the country profiting off of this, you know, sleazy, sensationalistic, self-serving book, basically profiting from his crimes, and at the same time normalizing the idea that these kind of policies, though maybe in the view of some wrongheaded, are perfectly legitimate political choices to make. And I think that’s the really damaging legacy from all of this.”

Lawrence Wilkerson was then asked if he thought former Bush Administration officials should be held accountable for their crimes:

“I certainly do. And I’d be willing to testify, and I’d be willing to take any punishment I’m due. And I have to say, I agree with almost everything just said. And I think that explains the aggressiveness, to a large extent, of the Cheney attack and of the words like ‘exploding heads all over Washington.’ This is a book written out of fear, fear that one day someone will ‘Pinochet’ Dick Cheney.”

Well, what are we waiting for? Hurry up and Pinochet that cocksucker before he pulls a Kenneth Lay and pretends to “die.”

Dick Cheney Wanted War With Russia

During the 2008 conflict between Russia and Georgia, Dick Cheney was secretly pushing for a military conflict between the United States and Russia.

This information comes from a book by Ronald Asmus: A Little War That Shook The World: Georgia, Russia and the Future of the West.

In August of 2008, Georgia invaded Abkhazia and South Ossetia. They’re both former provinces of Georgia; most of the inhabitants of these former provinces are ethnically Russian. Russia sent in troops to drive out the Georgian invaders. There was no “right” or “wrong” involved. That part of the world has ethnic hatreds that go back centuries, and tough-as-nails people who won’t take shit from anybody, and who will avenge any perceived “wrong” no matter how long it takes.

But the American press — including that “liberal media” — saw the whole thing as poor little helpless Georgia being invaded by Big Bad Russia.

According to Asmus’ book:

“The sheer scale of the Russian attack did lead several senior White House staffers to push for at least some consideration of limited military options to stem the Russian advance. The menu of options under discussion foresaw the possibility of bombardment and sealing of the Roki Tunnel as well as other surgical strikes to reduce Russian military pressure on the Georgian government.”

Cheney was the most vocal of the chickenhawks. Fortunately he was overruled by Bush and National Security Advisor Steve Hadley.

Was there ever a bloody brutal war that Dick Cheney DIDN’T long for? This sheltered trustfunded chickenhawk must sit in his secret cubbyhole and masturbate endlessly to images of American soldiers getting butchered, maimed and killed.

There’s only one cure for this pitiful chickenhawk: Make him go through the most brutal military training imaginable. I don’t give a fuck how many heart attacks he’s had or how old he is. Make him run obstacle courses until he collapses, and then make him run and crawl and climb some more. Make him do pushups and pull-ups ‘til his arms fall off. Rinse and repeat.

And just today, Colin Powell told Dick Cheney to shut his maggot-infested face, leave with his tail tucked between his legs, and fuck off and DIE (in so many words).

Bush and Cheney: “High Crimes and Misdemeanors”

And who’s the leftwing flagburner who said that? Would you believe Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell’s former chief of staff when he was Secretary of State. Last Thursday he said “The language in the Constitution about impeachment is nice and precise — it’s high crimes and misdemeanors. You compare Bill Clinton’s peccadilloes for which he was impeached to George Bush’s high crimes and misdemeanors or Dick Cheney’s high crimes and misdemeanors, and I think they pale in significance.”

Wilkerson wasn’t actually pushing for impeachment; he made that statement on a radio program in response to a question. Earlier in the program he had said “This administration doesn't know how to effect accountability, in my opinion.”

Wilkerson also said he thought the Founding Fathers intended for impeachment to be used more often. He said “I do believe that they would have thought had they been asked by you or whomever at the time of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia 'Do you think this will be exercised?' they would have said 'Of course it will, every generation they’ll have to throw some bastard out.’ That’s a form of accountability too. It’s ultimate accountability.”

When he was asked about the high crimes of the Bush Administration, Wilkerson said the American public was duped into supporting the Iraqi war: “I think we went into this war for specious reasons. I think we went into this war not too much unlike the way we went into the Spanish American War with the Hearst press essentially goading the American people and the leadership into war. That was a different time in a different culture, in a different America. We’re in a very different place today and I think we essentially got goaded into the war through some of the same means.”

Bravo.