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Colin Powell Dies Of Covid Complications

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  • Colin Powell Dies Of Covid Complications

    Fully vaxxed, but he had been fighting some serious cancer, and was 84 years old, both of which likely contributed to his death.

    Sadly despite his years of service the thing he'll likely be most remembered for is his UN speech that pulled us into the Iraq War based on false intelligence of "WMDs", condemning thousands of our servicemembers and tensof thousands of Iraqi civilians to their deaths in the following years.

    https://apnews.com/article/colin-pow...f2cbb461e4fad4

    Colin Powell dies, exemplary general stained by Iraq claims


    By ROBERT BURNS, ERIC TUCKER and EILEEN PUTMANan hour ago



    WASHIINGTON (AP) — Colin Powell, the boundary-breaking military leader and diplomat whose sterling reputation of service to Republican and Democratic presidents was stained by his faulty claims to justify the 2003 U.S. war in Iraq, died Monday of COVID-19 complications. He was 84.

    A veteran of the Vietnam War, Powell spent 35 years in the Army and rose to the rank of four-star general before becoming the first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. His oversight of the U.S. invasion of Kuwait to oust the Iraqi army in 1991 made him a household name, prompting speculation for nearly a decade that he might run for president, a course he ultimately decided against.

    President George W. Bush chose Powell to become secretary of state, the first Black person to represent the U.S. on the world stage. His tenure, however, was marred by his 2003 address to the U.N. Security Council in which he cited faulty information to claim that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons never materialized, and though Saddam was removed, the war devolved into years of military and humanitarian losses.

    In announcing Powell’s death, his family said he had been fully vaccinated against the coronavirus.

    Peggy Cifrino, Powell’s longtime aide, said he had also been treated over the past few years for multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that impairs the body’s ability to fight infection. Studies have shown that those cancer patients don’t get as much protection from the COVID-19 vaccines as healthier people.

    At the White House, President Joe Biden said Powell “embodied the highest ideals of both warrior and diplomat.”

    Noting Powell’s rise from a childhood in a fraying New York City neighborhood, Biden said, “He believed in the promise of America because he lived it. And he devoted much of his life to making that promise a reality for so many others.”

    The family’s announcement said, “We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father and grandfather and a great American,.”

    Flags were ordered lowered at the White House, State Department, Pentagon and other government buildings.

    After the 9/11 attacks in 2001, Powell was the first American official to publicly lay the blame on Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network. He made a lightning trip to Pakistan in October of that year to demand that then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf cooperate with the United States in going after the Afghanistan-based group, which also had a presence in Pakistan, where bin Laden was later killed.

    As George W. Bush’s first secretary of state, Powell led a State Department that was dubious of the military and intelligence communities’ conviction that Saddam possessed or was developing weapons of mass destruction. And yet, despite his reservations, he presented the administration’s case that Saddam indeed posed a major regional and global threat in a speech to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003. The following month, Bush gave the go-ahead for the invasion.

    The U.N. speech, replete with Powell’s display of a vial of what he said could have been a biological weapon, was seen as a low point in his career, although he had removed some elements from the remarks that he deemed to have been based on poor intelligence assessments.

    The U.S. overthrow of Saddam ended the rule of a brutal dictator. But the power vacuum and lawlessness that followed the invasion unleashed years of deadly sectarian fighting and chaos that killed countless Iraqi civilians, sparked a years-long insurgency, and unintentionally tilted the balance of power in the Middle East toward a U.S. rival, Iran. No Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were ever found.

    Still, Powell maintained in a 2012 interview with The Associated Press that on balance, the U.S. succeeded in Iraq.

    “I think we had a lot of successes,” he said. “Iraq’s terrible dictator is gone.”

    Saddam was captured by U.S. forces while hiding out in northern Iraq in December 2003 and later executed by the Iraqi government. But the war dragged on. President Barack Obama pulled U.S. troops out of Iraq in 2011, but he sent advisers back in 2014 after the Islamic State group swept into the country from Syria and captured large swaths of Iraqi territory.

    Bush said Monday that he and former first lady Laura Bush were “deeply saddened” by Powell’s death.

    “He was a great public servant” and “widely respected at home and abroad,” Bush said. “And most important, Colin was a family man and a friend. Laura and I send Alma and their children our sincere condolences as they remember the life of a great man.”

    Powell gained national prominence under Republican presidents and considered a presidential bid of his own, but ultimately moved away from the party. He endorsed Democrats in the past four presidential elections, starting with Obama. He emerged as a vocal Donald Trump critic in recent years, describing Trump as “a national disgrace” who should have been removed from office through impeachment. Following the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol, Powell said he no longer considered himself a Republican.

    No child of privilege, Powell rose through the military ranks and then became the nation’s chief diplomat. “Mine is the story of a black kid of no early promise from an immigrant family of limited means who was raised in the South Bronx,” he wrote in his 1995 autobiography “My American Journey.”

    At City College, Powell discovered the ROTC. When he put on his first uniform, “I liked what I saw,” he wrote.

    He joined the Army and in 1962 he was one of more than 16,000 military advisers sent to South Vietnam by President John F. Kennedy. A series of promotions led to the Pentagon and assignment as a military assistant to Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, who became his unofficial sponsor. He later became commander of the Army’s 5th Corps in Germany and later was national security assistant to President Ronald Reagan.

    During his term as Joint Chiefs chairman, his approach to war became known as the Powell Doctrine, which held that the United States should only commit forces in a conflict if it has clear and achievable objectives with public support, sufficient firepower and a strategy for ending the war.

    Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, a retired Army general and the first Black Pentagon chief, said the news of Powell’s death left “a hole in my heart.”

    "The world lost one of the greatest leaders that we have ever witnessed,” Austin said while traveling in Europe. “Alma lost a great husband and the family lost a tremendous father and I lost a tremendous personal friend and mentor. ”

    Condoleezza Rice, Powell’s successor at State and the department’s first black female secretary, praised him as “a trusted colleague and a dear friend through some very challenging times.”

    Powell’s appearances at the United Nations as secretary of state, including his Iraq speech, were often accompanied by fond reminiscing of his childhood in the city, where he grew up the child of Jamaican immigrants who got one of his first jobs at the Pepsi-Cola bottling plant directly across the East River from the U.N. headquarters.


  • #2
    Covid cult: "He was a republican, so he must have lied about getting the jab."

    Comment


    • #3
      I met him very briefly in my former life as a TV news photographer. A reporter and I were covering the Southern Governor's Conference sometime in the early-90s, and Colin Powell was the guest speaker. The media was given a "no interviews" directive, but come on, how could anybody from a small town TV station pass up the opportunity to talk to someone of Powell's stature? So we camped outside the door we knew he would be exiting from, rolled tape when we heard him coming, and the reporter asked him one question (I honestly don't remember what the question was -- this was nearly 30-years ago -- but the reporter thought about it a long time because he knew we would only get one). Powell quickly answered and then made his way to the waiting limo. I understand our competition was upset because they had followed the rules, and so we had a one-on-one soundbite from Colin Powell, and they didn't.
      Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
      But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
      Than a fool in the eyes of God


      From "Fools Gold" by Petra

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by seanD View Post
        Covid cult: "He was a republican, so he must have lied about getting the jab."
        Why would you say something like that? The vaccine reduces chances of death by a factor of 10. At his age that's still around a 1% mortality if he catches it, and he's got cancer weakening his system to boot.
        My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

        If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

        This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post

          Why would you say something like that? The vaccine reduces chances of death by a factor of 10. At his age that's still around a 1% mortality if he catches it, and he's got cancer weakening his system to boot.
          That would be too sensible for the covid cult.
          Last edited by seanD; 10-18-2021, 05:58 PM.

          Comment


          • #6
            I heard the news and was sadden by the passing of such a good man.

            Just to see how it was covered, I checked Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. Fox and MSNBC had nice coverage covering his life and achievements. CNN focused on his dying from Covid. Any wonder I call CNN Covid Network News.
            "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

            "Theology can be an intellectual entertainment." Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by Thoughtful Monk View Post
              I heard the news and was sadden by the passing of such a good man.

              Just to see how it was covered, I checked Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. Fox and MSNBC had nice coverage covering his life and achievements. CNN focused on his dying from Covid. Any wonder I call CNN Covid Network News.
              I would suggest you are seeing what you want to see. There were a good number of articles on Powell on CNN yesterday, covering a range of topics about the man. Unfortunately, some conservative media decided to call into question the usefulness of the vaccines because Powell was in fact fully vaccinated yet died of Covid-19, and so part of the story was indeed to cover that element as well, along with a response to it as misinformation. It is not hard to anticipate what the anti-science, anti-vax crowd will do with information like that, and any good news organization has a certain responsibility to provide accurate information when such disinformation is widespread.
              Last edited by oxmixmudd; 10-19-2021, 08:25 AM.
              My brethren, do not hold your faith in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ with an attitude of personal favoritism. James 2:1

              If anyone thinks himself to be religious, and yet does not  bridle his tongue but deceives his own heart, this man’s religion is worthless James 1:26

              This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger; James 1:19

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by oxmixmudd View Post

                I would suggest you are seeing what you want to see. There were a good number of articles on Powell on CNN yesterday, covering a range of topics about the man. Unfortunately, some conservative media decided to call into question the usefulness of the vaccines because Powell was in fact fully vaccinated yet died of Covid-19, and so part of the story was indeed to cover that element as well, along with a response to it as misinformation. It is not hard to anticipate what the anti-science, anti-vax crowd will do with information like that, and any good news organization has a certain responsibility to provide accurate information when such disinformation is widespread.
                You suggest wrongly. I was doing some channel surfing and all three networks were covering the issue at the same time. I think it was shortly after when the news came out. The only news site I regularly go to is a local tv station. To protect my mental health, I don't go very often (< 1/week) to a national news site.
                "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." Hosea 6:6

                "Theology can be an intellectual entertainment." Metropolitan Anthony Bloom

                Comment


                • #9
                  Read somewhere that some Democrat or other was blaming Powell's death on unvaccinated individuals, this despite the fact that Powell was fully vaccinated against the China flu..
                  Some may call me foolish, and some may call me odd
                  But I'd rather be a fool in the eyes of man
                  Than a fool in the eyes of God


                  From "Fools Gold" by Petra

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by Gondwanaland View Post
                    Fully vaxxed, but he had been fighting some serious cancer, and was 84 years old, both of which likely contributed to his death.
                    And yet many point out that he was fully vaxxed and sneer at it saying it didn't help. But as you note, "he had been fighting some serious cancer" namely multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells that suppresses the body's immune response, as well as Parkinson's. IOW, he was what they call "immunocompromised" in the extreme. Combined with his age he didn't stand much of a chance against Covid even fully vaxxed. He wouldn't likely have survived the flu.

                    I'm always still in trouble again

                    "You're by far the worst poster on TWeb" and "TWeb's biggest liar" --starlight (the guy who says Stalin was a right-winger)
                    "Overall I would rate the withdrawal from Afghanistan as by far the best thing Biden's done" --Starlight
                    "Of course, human life begins at fertilization that’s not the argument." --Tassman

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Colin Powell lied in an international forum in order to promote a war that killed hundreds of thousands of people.

                      He signed off on a torture program.

                      Period.
                      "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                      "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                      "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        Originally posted by Mountain Man View Post
                        Read somewhere that some Democrat or other was blaming Powell's death on unvaccinated individuals, this despite the fact that Powell was fully vaccinated against the China flu..
                        People who are immunocompromised in the extreme like Powell was are vulnerable individuals whose only protection against covid is other people being vaccinated to prevent them catching and passing covid to such immunocompromised individuals.

                        Those who refuse the vaccine are morally responsible for killing others around them when they predictably catch and pass on covid and it kills people.
                        "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                        "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                        "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                          People who are immunocompromised in the extreme like Powell was are vulnerable individuals whose only protection against covid is other people being vaccinated to prevent them catching and passing covid to such immunocompromised individuals.

                          Those who refuse the vaccine are morally responsible for killing others around them when they predictably catch and pass on covid and it kills people.
                          But vaccinated people can still get and pass on covid so that assertion falls flat.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by Gondwanaland View Post
                            But vaccinated people can still get and pass on covid so that assertion falls flat.
                            Wrong. The vaccine greatly reduces the chance of someone getting and passing on covid.

                            I know you struggle with statistical reasoning and like things to be extremes of either 100% one thing or another, but try to understand the concept of risk mitigation. The vaccine, like seatbelts, can be highly effective without being 100% perfect.
                            "I hate him passionately", he's "a demonic force" - Tucker Carlson, in private, on Donald Trump
                            "Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism" - George Orwell
                            "[Capitalism] as it exists today is, in my opinion, the real source of evils. I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy" - Albert Einstein

                            Comment


                            • #15
                              Originally posted by Starlight View Post
                              Wrong. The vaccine greatly reduces the chance of someone getting and passing on covid.
                              how the hell is that "wrong"? Breakthrough infections can and do happen and those individuals can and do pass on covid, you utter walnut. Are you now denying the existence of breakthrough infections, science denier?
                              I know you struggle with statistical reasoning and like things to be extremes of either 100% one thing or another, but try to understand the concept of risk mitigation. The vaccine, like seatbelts, can be highly effective without being 100% perfect.
                              I know you struggle with understanding simple English, but try to grasp what I wrote, instead of kneejerking like a dense twit.

                              Comment

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