MEET YOUR NATIONAL LEADERS
Progressive Review © 2000 http://prorev.com/indexa.htm
[Back when Colin Powell was last in the news -- as a possible 1996
presidential candidate -- we proposed a few questions for him]
- Who won the Gulf War?
- If the answer is the US, then how come Saddam Hussein is still in power?
- Well then, if that's the case, when exactly did Hussein stop being the
"modern-day Hitler" as we were told at the time?
- How many people did your troops kill during the Gulf war?
- Why did we have to kill that many?
- How many dead Iraqi draftees did your troops bulldoze into mass graves?
- Wasn't the immolation of retreating Iraqi soldiers along the "Highway of
Death" a bit excessive?
- How many oil refineries were ignited by your own bombs?
- How much radioactive material did you leave in the Iraqi desert?
- How many civilians did our troops kill in Panama?
- How many were buried in mass graves?
- Is the sort of censorship, disinformation, and misinformation provided by
the military during the Gulf war and Panamanian invasion what we could expect
from a Powell presidency?
- What differences are there between American-style democracy and the
civilian operations carried out by the US military in places such as Panama,
Kuwait and Somalia?
- Which style of governance would your administration favor?
- Describe the nature of your professional experience with each style of
governance.
- Why did you help to cover up allegations of a massacre of 400 Vietnamese at
My Lai?
- While in Vietnam what steps, if any, did you take to stop war crimes such
as the shooting of unarmed civilians from US helicopters?
- Why did Iran-Contra prosecutor Lawrence Walsh find your testimony in his
investigation to be "at least misleading" although it "did not warrant
prosecution?"
- Describe your efforts to reduce the more than $30 billion in Pentagon
"problem disbursements" i.e. money that was spent but the military can't
figure who spent or authorized it to be spent.
- Does the fact that about half the front-line troops in the Gulf War were
from ethnic minorities reflect your concern for civil rights?
- Why do you think it is that a higher percentage of American veterans than
non-veterans are unemployed, homeless or imprisoned?
- You have shown considerable interest in the Buffalo Soldiers. Discuss their
role in the ethnic cleansing of native Americans by the US military.
- You urged military men to resign if they also opposed Clinton's policy on
gays in the military. Name one or more other issues in which you expressed
public opposition to your commander-in-chief?
- Are you at all concerned about the growing intrusion of the military into
democratic American life -- including law enforcement? Discuss.
- What can you tell us that would reassure that in voting for you we would
not only put a military man in office but the military as well. --
Progressive Review, November 1995
POWELL AND THE JROTC
PROGRESSIVE REVIEW, March 1996: Much of the military's intrusion [into
civilian affairs under Clinton] has been accomplished without public notice.
For example, the Pentagon has greatly expanded JROTC programs. Last year, the
American Friends Service Committee found retired military personnel teaching
approximately 310,000 students, ages 14 and up, in about 2200 high schools
(with another 700 on the docket). As the AFSC pointed out:
"Public schooling strives to promote respect for other cultures, critical
thinking and basic academic skills in a safe environment. In contrast,
JROTC introduces guns into the schools, promotes authoritarian values, uses
rote learning methods, and consigns much student time to learning drill,
military history and protocol, which have little relevance outside the
military. It pays off, though, for the Pentagon. Although the JROTC denies
it is engaged in recruiting, 45% of all cadets completing the program sign
up, mostly as enlisted personnel. AFSC also found that JROTC programs are
more often found in schools with a high proportion of non-white students --
now providing 54% of all cadets -- and in non-affluent schools."
And what are these cadets being taught? Says the report:
"A comparison of the JROTC curriculum and two widely used civilian high
school civics and history textbooks demonstrates that the JROTC curriculum
falls well below accepted pedagogical standards. Units on citizenship and
history are strikingly different from standard civil texts on these
subjects. For example . . . the JROTC text portrays citizenship as being
primarily achieved through military service, provides only a short
discussion of civil rights; and downplays the importance of civilian
control of the military. . . . In comparison to the civilian history text,
historical events in the JROTC curriculum are distorted . . History is
described as a linear series of accomplishments by soldiers, while the
progress engendered by regular citizens is marginalized. America's wars are
treated as having been inevitable.
While it claims to provide leadership training with broad relevance, in
fact the JROTC curriculum defines leadership as respect for constituted
authority and the chain of command, rather than as critical thinking and
democratic consensus-building . . . Finally, the text encourages the reader
to rely uncritically on the military as a source of self-esteem and
guidance."
Further, at a time that schools are trying desperately to discourage
violence, the JROTC is teaching students how to kill more effectively. It is
also teaching them -- in a text that addresses the "Indian menace" that
"Fortunately the government policy of pushing the Indians farther West, then
wiping them out, was carried out successfully. "
And just where did the idea come from for the expansion of military
indoctrination in our high schools? From none other than that very media
model of a major modern general -- Colin Powell.
Following the LA uprising in 1992, writes Steven Stycos in the Providence
Phoenix, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff "proposed a massive expansion
of the program. Powell urged the new units be targeted to inner-city youth as
an alternative to drug use and gang membership." In New England the number of
students involved nearly tripled.
Was Powell seeking citizen officers to balance the academy-trained military?
Absolutely not. The JROTC students are grunt-fodder. Besides, while referring
to ROTC as "vital to democracy," Powell closed 62 college-based ROTC units
during this same period. The inevitable result was that the proportion of
academy-trained officers rose and the role of the citizen-officer diminished.
You may recall that Powell was the man whom the media pushed for president,
depicting him as in the mold of Dwight Eisenhower. The media forgot to tell
us that while Eisenhower warned of a growing military-industrial complex,
Powell has been one of its biggest beneficiaries and boosters. While
Eisenhower fought to restore democracy, Powell fought to preserve sheikdoms.
While the Eisenhower-era military followed the wartime orders of strong
civilian leaders like Churchill and Roosevelt, the Powell-era military won't
even follow Bill Clinton's orders in peacetime. While Eisenhower was part of
a unique military demobilization after the Second World War, Powell was among
those who prevented demobilization after the Cold War. On top of which he
wants kids to know that the Indians were a menace.
