Henri Reynard Speaks Out

Colin Powell?

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So who is this man, our Secretary of State, formerly a general and clearly a compelling leader and a decent honest man of firm opinions? But who is he in regard to some of the great problems of our time? Watching him in an interview on PBS yesterday I had a compelling insight into his personality and I very much liked what I saw. He is a far better spokesperson for what the people are buying when they support the Bush Administration than Donald Rumsfield. Yet we see Rumsfield every day and only rarely get to listen to Powell. In my lifetime I have watched as a thousand men of Mr. Powell's mettle were ground up into the grist of history and blown away on the winds of time. He is clearly a true believer in our democracy and at the same time was willing to try and work through the UN on the Iraqi issue. I wonder when he has doubts what he does to assuage them, this extraordinary man of honor, integrity and faith in the good of our system of government.

To be a general is one of the hard jobs in the world, the sitting up exercises, the competition for the job eliminates all but a handful of candidates. Then you have the long years of working toward a goal of command and in a sudden blink of time your command is over and you are a part of history. Few generals manage to reinvent themselves after retiring from the military. They have a lot invested in the personality type required to be a general. Changing at the time of life when retirement is possible is hard, harder still, when your life has been lived in one of the oldest bureaucracies in our nation. But Colin Powell has done it, reinvented himself as a man of peace who wields war as a tool of peace. I find it hard to believe that everyone in this administration sees war in the same way, but Powell has convinced me that he is sincere. He clearly harbors no Imperial ambitions for our nation. He simply wants a world founded in peace even if we have to use war to get it.

Set aside the incongruence of such a position for a time and look at the sincerity of the person explaining them in that interview and it is easy to buy the position of this administration. Around three fourths of the public has bought into the position of this administration, it is hard not to agree with them. Sincere decent men like Powell make it harder not to simply say they are right and stop disagreeing with them. Why push this particular rock uphill any more? They have all of the guns on their side and they are at the top of the mountain pushing back with all of the weight of the press and the government behind them. So why keep saying that peace is best served by peaceful means when they have just proved that you can use war to create peace? They have proved that haven't they?

Well, maybe not quite yet, maybe they haven't quite proved the validity of war as a weapon in the arsenal of peace. I will solemnly swear that if Iraq winds up with a clean peaceful Democratic form of government, as Mr. Powell clearly believes it will, I will wear a shirt with the statement, "I was wrong about Iraq", to the next peace march I attend. Oh yes there will be another war, and there will always be a need for a peace movement to remind us that war is not the answer to every conflict, only those that immediately threaten your existence. History has shown that to be the only way to prevent strong nations from gobbling up weaker nations. To have a law among nations that refuses to allow the strong to gobble up the weak and plunder their resources is to encourage peace in the world. Would Mr. Powell allow plunder in any force that he commands? Not ever! Would our present military leaders allow a mob to sack a town of great historical content? Well look at Baghdad during the last week and draw your own conclusions. Maybe they couldn't stop that crowd of looters, but if you break the peace don't you need to be prepared for the consequences?

Chaos follows war like a camp follower; she is as certain a presence as death and pestilence in the aftermath of war. If you win a war you need to be ready for the presence of all three and prepared to knock them back on their heels. Else they begin to become the dominant forces in the aftermath of war. Can we turn the chaos of Baghdad into a democratic government? I sincerely hope so, because a lot of good men like Mr. Powell have staked their honor and reputations on it. If I am wrong I have to wear a shirt for a day and suffer the gibes of my fellow peace marchers. Hell, if it would make things in Iraq better I would knit the damn shirt myself out of camel hair and wear it until it fell off my back. If they are wrong we have to suffer another failed attempt at nation building and all that it entails. I pray that I am wrong, I hope that I am wrong, I dream fondly of being wrong about Iraq. But it will be written into the history of this time that a lot of good men like Mr. Powell believed that a short victorious war could solve the problems of Iraq. What conclusions our grandchildren will draw about who was right and who was wrong are blowing in on the same winds that will blow our dust away into history. Mine will mingle with that of Powell and Bush and on the last day God will have to sort us all out again so we can resume the eternal arguments we are engaged in today. God bless and keep you, our troops, Mr. Powell and our protestor's safe, now and always.