From his whitewash investigation of My Lai-related complaints as a young Army officer to his key role giving legitimacy to George W. Bush's presidency and the Iraq War, Powell almost always did what was best for his career, not for his country.
In the 1960s, during Powell's two tours in Vietnam, he never joined with other U.S. military officers who risked their careers to warn their superiors about the brutal and self-defeating strategies that, eventually, ended up costing the lives of 58,000 Americans and millions of Indochinese.
Indeed, in his memoir, My American Journey, Powell justifies many of the worst tactics, such as burning down Vietnamese villages and shooting unarmed peasants from helicopters, acts that objectively would constitute war crimes.
"We burned down the thatched huts, starting the blaze with Ronson and Zippo lighters," Powell recalled. "Why were we torching houses and destroying crops? Ho Chi Minh had said the people were like the sea in which his guerrillas swam. ...
"We tried to solve the problem by making the whole sea uninhabitable. In the hard logic of war, what difference did it make if you shot your enemy or starved him to death?"
On his second tour in 1968, as an executive officer for the Americal Division, Powell was asked to investigate allegations from a distraught U.S. soldier who was aware of brutality committed by other Americal Division soldiers against Vietnamese civilians and captives. This complaint was an early official warning about the My Lai massacre, which an Americal unit had committed several months earlier.
However, for Colin Powell, it was another chance to impress the brass. Without interviewing the soldier, Cpl. Tom Glen, Powell simply accepted a claim from Glen's superior officer that Glen was not close enough to the front lines to know what he was writing about.
After that cursory investigation, Powell drafted a response on Dec. 13, 1968, admitting no pattern of wrongdoing. "In direct refutation of this [Glen's] portrayal," Powell wrote, "is the fact that relations between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent."
Exposing My Lai
It would take another Americal Division veteran, an infantryman named Ron Ridenhour, to piece together the truth about the atrocity at My Lai. After returning to the United States, Ridenhour interviewed Americal comrades who had participated in the massacre.
On his own, Ridenhour compiled this shocking information into a report and forwarded it to the Army inspector general. The IG's office conducted an aggressive official investigation, in contrast to Powell's review. Courts martial were held against officers and enlisted men who were implicated in the murder of the My Lai civilians.
In his memoir, Powell did not mention his brush-off of Tom Glen's complaint, but did include another troubling recollection that belied a statement in his 1968 report, in which he had denied that U.S. soldiers "without provocation or justification shoot at the people themselves."
"I recall a phrase we used in the field, MAM, for military-age male," Powell wrote. "If a helo spotted a peasant in black pajamas who looked remotely suspicious, a possible MAM, the pilot would circle and fire in front of him. (Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
"If he moved, his movement was judged evidence of hostile intent, and the next burst was not in front, but at him. Brutal? Maybe so. But an able battalion commander with whom I had served at Gelnhausen [West Germany], Lt. Col. Walter Pritchard, was killed by enemy sniper fire while observing MAMs from a helicopter.
