“The hottest places in Hell”

by David Safier
A few days ago, a friend of mine granted faint praise to the recently deceased Robert McNamara, saying, at least he understood the Vietnam War wasn't winnable militarily, something others around him didn't grasp.

I disagreed with my friend. McNamara deserves great blame, not muted praise, for seeing the situation clearly yet keeping his silence, allowing the war to continue at great loss of life, treasure and U.S. standing in the world.

I feel the same way about Colin Powell. He knew we were wrong to go into Iraq, yet he gave the administration cover during his infamous speech to the UN. Anyone watching him squirm in his chair and listening to his voice quiver could see he wasn't comfortable with the message he was delivering. Yet he delivered it. And he allowed people to say, Look, even the honorable Colin Powell thinks we need to invade Iraq.

Would things have been different if, at that moment when Americans were uncertain whether we should invade, Powell quit the Bush administration and stated his concerns with the same earnestness and passion he used to endorse Obama before the 2008 election? We'll never know. He could have made the difference. And if not, at least he could be sleeping better at night, knowing he did the right thing.

Dick Cheney? He's half shark, half devil. You can't expect a shark to stop feeding or a devil to stop promoting evil. Colin Powell is a better man, equipped with a soul and a conscience, so his betrayal is the worse of the two.

In the video below by the ex-PR man for a health insurance company, he talks about the moments when he was trying to decide whether to stay in his cushy, high paying job or quit because of the injustices the industry was guilty of and he was promoting. At the time, he came across a quote from Robert Kennedy, where RFK spoke of his brother Jack's favorite saying:

That was when he made his decision; remaining neutral when he knows what is right is the worst kind of sinning. He quit his job and is now speaking out about the need for health care reform which includes a public option.

DR. WORD ADDS A SCHOLARLY FOOTNOTE: I found a comment about the Jack Kennedy quote at the JFK library website. Apparently, it's a reference to Dante's Inferno. A group of the most miserable among the dead are people neither Heaven nor Hell will accept within their gates. Their cowardice makes them "hateful to God and to His enemies."