Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, delivers a blistering attack on his former Bush Regime colleague Dick Cheney — and the idea of rapacious empire that Cheney serves and embodies — in language rarely seen in the mainstream press from a thoroughly entrenched Establishment figure. A sample:
Whether murder and plunder in India, slaughter in Algeria, devastation in Cameroon, or torture and massacre in the Philippines, few western powers can rightfully claim innocence. And, perhaps most worrisome, their national myths mask or even convert most of the crimes, and what the myths don’t eliminate or alter poor education and memory lapses do….
As has been the case since humankind began to organize itself, Dick Cheney believes that wealth and power — his and his cronies wealth and power foremost — are still the relevant strategic objectives of empire. King Leopold of Belgium is not dead, simply reincarnated in a more modern form. Torturing people is dependent on a nation’s supposed needs, killing people on the expediency of policy, waging war on monetary and commercial gain, and lying to the people is a highly reputable tactic in pursuit of each. Leopold would love Dick Cheney.
Cheney even models Leopold: never in the dangerous fray himself (five draft deferments, e.g.), a master of bureaucratic manipulation and intrigue, in love to a fault with secrecy, willing to undertake any crime under the sun so long as it leads to profit, deeply relishing every moment of evil he is able to engineer, and a master of masking it all through adroit, politically-attuned public relations aimed at people too stupid to question him — all while paying absolutely no attention to what his past clearly demonstrates he has done…
This modern man, Cheney, however needs no kingship, no ornate palaces, no personally-owned colony like the Congo; Cheney’s writ is the world. It is all of humankind that Cheney would torture, enslave, murder, or plunder if it were required.
Of course, Wilkerson’s boss, the lifelong imperial factotum Powell, was deeply complicit in the launching and administering of the vast war crime in Iraq. Indeed, it was largely Powell who sealed the deal for war, with his outrageously mendacious performance at the UN, using doctored testimony and ridiculous visual aids to convince the world of Iraq’s non-existent WMD arsenal. Powell’s “testimony” helped sway many of the still-wavering “liberal” figures in Establishment politics and media that the war was necessary and just. Most of these sad and spineless specimens were already keen to go with the militarist flow, and the cover from the sainted figure of Powell — beloved icon of “bipartisan moderates” — gave them enough “moral certainty” to assuage their liberal consciences.
[For more on Powell’s remarkable history of imperial servitude, from the My Lai Massacre to Iran-Contra and beyond, see: “The Bagman Cometh: Obama Embraces War Criminal’s Endorsement.” For even more detail, see Robert Parry’s excellent piece, “The Truth About Colin Powell.“]
Still, whatever the source, it is good to see some of our imperial criminals openly called murderers and plunderers in the public press. Wilkerson has been speaking candidly about the realities of empire since he left the Bush Regime in 2005. But as we noted in a previous piece on his revelations, one question remains: “…while we applaud Colonel Wilkerson’s candor now, we also must ask: Where was he then? And why did he keep silent as his own boss helped facilitate the ultimate international crime of aggressive war?”
Well, better late than never and all that, I suppose. But wouldn’t it be great if one of our highly-placed courtiers grew a conscience when they were still in power, when a revelation or resignation would have some actual effect?