Save your praise of Colin Powell.

Because while he was endorsing Barack Obama, he was busy rewriting the history of the Iraq War and perpetuating blatant lies about his role and George Bush’s role in the lead-up.

At a press conference after his appearance on Meet the Press Sunday, Powell responded to a question about his involvement in the decisions around the Iraq War.
http://www.cnn.com (starts at about 2:48)

Here was his answer: “My role has been very, very straightforward,” he said. “I wanted to avoid a war. The President agreed with me. We tried to do that and couldn’t get it to the U.N.”

There are at least four falsehoods in that little passage.

First, Powell’s role wasn’t very straightforward. While he did initially oppose the war, his deceitful testimony at the U.N. on February 5, 2003, prepared the battlefield for war.

Second, Bush never agreed with Powell about the need to avoid the war but was always fast peddling toward war.

Third, Bush and Powell did not go to the U.N. to try to avoid war. They went there to get the Security Council to greenlight the war.

And finally, what they couldn’t get through the U.N. Security Council was not an effort to avoid the war. A majority on the Security Council was begging for more time for the weapons inspectors, who had found nothing, to continue to do their work.

It was the U.N. that wanted to avoid war. It was Bush and Powell who were in a hurry to start the war.

Powell may be getting heaps of praise from the liberal punditocracy for breaking with his party on Obama. But he has not broken with his party on the Iraq War. In fact, he’s still trying to cover up Bush’s and his own shameful acts that precipitated the war.