Remembering People For Who They Actually Were: Looking At The Responses To Colin Powell's Death And His Future Legacy
It is common for prominent political figures, in death, to receive public obituaries from the media, other politicians, and the public at large. This was certainly the case for former United States Secretary of State Colin Powell, who died last month of complications from Covid-19 while undergoing treatment for cancer. Powell’s death and its aftermath raises an important question as to how the public ought to remember recently deceased political figures.
Recent headlines from his funeral described him as “a leader, father, and friend” and articles from his obituary included statements referring to him as “easy to share a laugh with” and “a great public servant.” Such statements are deeply problematic, for they turn incredibly powerful and influential people into sympathetic figures when their public actions should not lend themselves to public sympathy.
Far too often are the controversial legacies of figures like Powell laundered in these public obituaries and statements in the name of presenting a sanitised and polite image of the recently deceased. Let Powell’s family and friends discuss their father and friend, his affable personality, and his hobbies in private, away from the public eye. But in public, his legacy should be judged on his public actions and the consequences of those actions, divorced from soaring rhetoric about his personality or character.
During the Vietnam War, Powell completed two tours in the country. By simply reading the obituaries from prominent media sources, it is easily believable that Powell’s service in Vietnam was that of dashing bravery. But Powell’s legacy with regard to the Vietnam War was hardly one of heroism. During his first tour, Powell advocated for the torching of villages, a method other US officers condemned as unnecessarily brutal. His ‘service’ in Vietnam was also tainted by his role in the coverup and whitewashing of the My Lai massacre, the mass murder and rape of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children, by American troops.
Powell was assigned to investigate a letter written by a soldier named Tom Glen accusing American troops of atrocities. Powell never spoke to Glen, nor did he assign anyone else to interview him. Powell blindly accepted the word of a commanding officer who told him that Glen was in no position to know exactly what he wrote of, an accusation Glen denied. Powell wrote to his superiors that relations between Vietnamese civilians and American officers were “excellent,” rejecting Glen’s allegations of wrongdoing by American troops. The world would come to know a year later that the atrocities did occur: Powell had lied.
Many prominent outlets failed to mention Powell’s role in the coverup. The New York Times’s nearly 3,500 word obituary failed to mention his role. Neither did CNN, the LA Times, or NBC, to name but a few of the many sources that did not reference Powell’s responsibility in the coverup. Even in obituaries that bothered to mention the event, such as the Wall Street Journal, more words were dedicated to praising his character and the glowing respect others had for him, a characterisation that the coverup of mass murder would ostensibly refute.
Powell’s controversial legacy does not stop at Vietnam. During his time in the Reagan administration, Powell was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. During the Iran-Iraq War, the Reagan administration illegally and covertly sold weapons to Iran, a known human rights violator. The funds from the sale were then transferred to the Contras, an anti-communist rebel group in Nicaragua. The Contras were accused of terrorism, rape, murder, and kidnapping, to name but a few of their many crimes. Powell was involved in the affair through transferring the control of American-made missiles from the army to the CIA, knowing that they would be sold to Iran. Powell neglected to inform Congress, the DOJ, or his military superiors of the transfer, something he was required to do by law. Powell later “obstructed justice by misleading federal investigators to protect himself and his superiors.” While Powell himself was officially cleared of wrongdoing, he lobbied the White House for a pardon of his superior, former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who was indicted on five felony charges for perjury and obstruction of investigations into the affair.
Once again, very little of his role in the affair was mentioned in public obituaries. The American ‘Paper of Record’ was not the only major news source that neglected to mention the scandal in Powell’s obituary. Even for those that did, such as the Washington Post, little, if any detail, described his role in the scandal or in Weinberger’s pardon. It is a disservice to the public that his role in events such as Iran-Contra or My Lai have been ignored or minimised in the public recollection of his life and legacy. To the public, do his mediocre academic records or his music preferences actually matter? Or is it his coverup of war crimes like My Lai, and therefore his role in obstructing justice for the victims, that should be prioritized in the public’s memory? It is of no consequence to the public that he grew up eating plantains and roasted goats but it matters deeply that he was involved in illegal schemes selling human rights violators dangerous weapons and funding death squads.
Somewhat refreshingly, one aspect of Powell’s legacy that was discussed quite frequently, and rightfully so, was his role in the buildup to the Iraq War; yet, coverage of Powell’s role and the impact of the war was woefully lacking. Many sources called Powell “a reluctant warrior” and mentioned how “he harbored deep misgivings” or that he “initially opposed the invasion.” They portray Powell as the wise statesman seeking to ameliorate the most hardline of Bush’s foreign policy. The sources depict him as the voice of moderation in Bush’s administration in comparison to people like Vice President Cheney or Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Characterisations, like the above, should be seen as poor attempts to sanitise Powell’s role in a war that has since been discredited.
In February 2003, Powell made a 76 minute speech to the United Nations supporting an American invasion of Iraq. The speech outlined the Bush administration’s supposed evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, his speculative connections to Al-Qaeda, and the imminent threat that Sadam Hussein posed to the world. Much of the evidence pointing to Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or Saddam Hussein’s terrorist connections was not only later disproven but was also based on intelligence that was known to be faulty at the time. In short, Powell either knew that his speech was erroneous or was naive enough to believe whatever the Bush administration had told him, despite numerous instances where Bush administration intelligence regarding the weapons program was proven, at the time, to be questionable at best and later indisputably wrong.
But the distinction between naivety and deliberately lying is relatively moot. Powell’s speech played a role in convincing the American public to back the war. And the consequences of that war have been devastating. Anywhere between 185,973 and 209,137 Iraqi civilians have died directly due to violence because of the war, a figure that notably excludes both indirect civilian deaths caused by resulting disease or malnutrition and the permanent injuries or disabilities subsequently suffered by civilians. The 209,137 figure claims are low in estimating the number of civilians that have likely died and suffered because of the war.
Tens of thousands of soldiers on both sides have also died in vain throughout the war. No weapons of mass destruction nor Al-Qaeda connections were found following the invasion: only gratuitous carnage could be seen in the aftermath. Thousands of American soldiers were killed, falsely believing that their deaths in that unjust war kept their homeland and loved ones safe, in part because of Powell’s speech to the UN. Tens of thousands of Iraqi soldiers died defending their home from a needless invasion, again as an effect of Powell’s speech.
It matters very little whether Powell regretted that speech or had reservations about the war. What matters is that he gave the speech and that the consequences have been devastating. Major media networks have neglected to mention the consequences of the war or his speech in their obituaries of Powell. Their omissions only sanitise his legacy and make him less culpable than he actually is in the eyes of the public for the destruction and carnage committed during the Iraq War.
Powell’s legacy is marked by numerous other mistakes and controversies than the aforementioned examples, such as his opposition to allowing gay individuals to openly serve in the US Armed Forces or his role in approving the torture of detainees and then subsequently lying about it. Little more than a fleeting mention, if they were mentioned at all, about those two transgressions was present within most of his public obituaries.
As a consequence of the manner in which he has been eulogised to the public, Powell will forever be remembered as the first African-American Secretary of State, an influential General, and a figure of respect and reverence. Powell instead should be forever remembered as the person who covered up war crimes and mass murder, obstructed justice, facilitated the armament of human rights violators and funding of death squads, impeded the civil rights of gay individuals, committed war crimes when approving the torture of detainees, and helped propagandise for an unjust war that resulted in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands and destruction of a country, among many transgressions. His future legacy as the former instead of the latter is the result of public institutions choosing to lionise his character and minimise his unforgettable mistakes instead of accurately reporting his actions and their consequences.
Let the public’s fading memories of Colin Powell’s misdeeds serve as a potent and painful reminder that even in death, there is no accountability for the powerful; public institutions have used his death to construct a laundered image of Powell where it never should have existed and will inevitably do so again with the next powerful person to die. The world is a poorer place because of it.
Image courtesy of The U.S. National Archives via Wikimedia, © 2001, some rights reserved.
