Colin Powell dies, trailblazing general stained by Iraq (apnews.com)
Colin Powell has a complicated history for me. For one, he was a historic figure due to being the first African American Secretary of State. When he was Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, his approach became known as the Powell Doctrine, which aimed to shorten and reduce American intervention abroad. This included limiting military engagements to national security risks, making sure the American military had a clear exit, making sure peaceful solutions have all been tried and making sure we have public and international support. This caused him to support the Gulf War and Operation Just Cause, while going against US intervention in the Bosnian War since according to him it didn't matter to US interests. However, his term as SOS had some very disastrous results. After 9/11, he was heavily involved in perpetuating and escalating the War on Terror. For example he was instrumental in building a case against Iraq, and used supposed info that Saddam had biological weapons to support the sanctioning and later invasion of the country. The claims of WMDs ended up being false, and American actions against Saddam ended in a disaster which caused over a million deaths, caused millions of refugees, destabilized the region and would later contribute to the rise of ISIS.
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