I Don’t Like the Look of This

I do not share the almost childish enthusiasm of some people at seeing that Dr. Condoleezza Rice has been appointed Secretary of State to replace Colin Powell. That she is a woman and Black does not necessarily mean that these two minorities will feel proud of their representation. Two cases in point: Mireya Moscoso and Violeta de Chamorro. After Marie Curie, what need does any woman have to prove the capacity of her sex? Besides, Powell is Black too. Personally, I admire Dr. Rice for having managed to overcome the very real prejudices that persist in American society, reaching so high a position. However, she has not got there solely through her extraordinary ability: who denies that her submission to the President’s wishes was a very weighty factor in her selection?

The resulting picture is not very comforting. Like John Kerry, Colin Powell is a military man who knows firsthand what war is and, despite having fought, defends peace to a certain extent. Bush and Cheney, who avoided going to Vietnam by escaping through mouseholes, had no qualms about sending other people’s children to die in an illegal and illogical war, and as a reward they received 51% of the votes this past November 2. If Bush did in four years everything he did in Afghanistan, Guantánamo, and Iraq, with the tempering effect of Colin Powell at his side, what will he not do now that Powell and five others have resigned from (or been thrown out of) the cabinet? Replacing a quasi-pacifist with a yes-woman is like pouring gasoline on the fire. The government will now be able to gallop as it pleases, for it has torn off the bridle, its spirits recharged by the votes it received.

Colin Powell had wanted to retire for a long time: he did not do so because his obtuse soldier’s loyalty weighed more than his ethical convictions. Thus he lent his face to lie (willingly or unwillingly) at the United Nations, justifying an unjustifiable war, asserting the existence of nonexistent weapons, and denying the undeniable: that the best path was the diplomatic one and that there was still time for the UN inspectors to do their work in Iraq. Powell still has egg on his face from that time: many criticized him for having lent himself to the ruse. I, who professed a certain admiration for him because of his moderate position in the White House, lost all respect for him that day. With his resignation he has to some extent cleaned up his image, with the double advantage of having resigned from the Bush cabinet—which will surely get burned politically this time around—and of being able to say that he served in his post until the end of his commitment, like a loyal soldier.

However, many suspect that Powell was thrown out, to clear the way for the extremist policies of the renewed administration.

What kind of Secretary of State will Rice be? Here is a clue: on the eve of the Iraq war, Rice did her part by scaring Americans with Saddam Hussein’s nonexistent nuclear weapons. As the New York Times points out, staff under her command knew that the information about those nuclear weapons was weak, at best, and clearly false to anyone who had their eyes open. Rice could have defended the truth, but she preferred to follow Bush’s line. Now it is to be expected that Rice will go on saying everything Bush wants to hear, like a puppet. Missing will be the counterweight of reason, of prudence, of diplomacy, so necessary when Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld find themselves in the same room with the most powerful (but not necessarily the most intelligent, prudent, and honest) man in the world.