Seven years late and $2 trillion short

Now is a good time to recall the emphatic browbeating administered by Colin Powell as he stood before the world and lied in our faces about Iraq, hammering home the series of false talking points cooked up for him by Dick Cheney’s neocon cabal.

He sounded a lot like John McCain does now—scowling nastily into the cameras about his vastly superior knowledge of world affairs and the use of military force.

Powell, like McCain, doesn’t give a flying whoop about non-Americans despite their membership in the ‘pro-life’ party. McCain sang a song about dropping bombs on Iranians and thought he was cute. Powell famously scoffed when asked whether he had second thoughts as he massacred retreating Iraqi soldiers along the Highway of Death after the first Gulf war was essentially over.

Neither one of them would have blinked an eye over the thousands they slaughtered had the latest war gone their way. Carnage doesn’t bother them—just defeat.

Powell, who might have slowed down the march to war by resigning or simply refusing to peddle us a load of crap, now sees Obama as key to restoring U.S. strength and influence squandered by his incompetent buddies. Doh.

I don’t think Obama needed any help from this washed-up element, but why shouldn’t Powell pile onto the bandwagon now that the race is over? It’s a free country.

But let’s not lose sight of his consistent position on the side of the powerful whoever they may be. Nor that when he really needed to make a statement, he took the fall for war criminals.