Throughout the history of this nation there is probably only one example of a general who truly hated to fight. A leader of men who reached the pinnacle of military position and power only to struggle too never lead his troops into battle. The greatest generals in American history are heralded for their aggression, willingness to fight, and eagerness to win the nations battles. The names of Grant and Sherman, McCarthur and Patton, Eisenhower and Schwarzkopf come to mind. Fighting generals and tacticians that fought for the American cause with zeal, determination and unabashed confidence in ultimate victory over their enemies. Such cannot be said about General Powell who has shown himself to be a pacifist political general who fights to prevent the force of American arms from being leveled on our enemies. Its time to throw a little light on Colin Powell's questionable historic and present actions.

In 1983 hundreds of American servicemen and diplomats were killed in twin bombings of the American embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon. The radical Shiite Iranian-trained and supplied terrorist group, Hezbollah (Party of God) was responsible for the attacks. An American fleet was just minutes away ready and eager to unleash a punishing firestorm of retribution on the terrorist training camps and complexes in the Bekka valley, but then the senior military assistant to the Secretary of Defense Major General Powell fervently lobbied then President Ronald Reagan to not retaliate. To this day Hezbollah has not been punished for the American marines killed on that bloody day or for the many Americans that were subsequently kidnapped, held hostage and occasionally executed throughout the eighties.

The Powell Doctrine, as I like to call it, continued before and during the Gulf war. As American forces prepared to protect the Saudi oilfields, liberate Kuwait, and teach Saddam Hussein a lesson, one shrill voice cried out against military action and lobbied for "economic sanctions to have a chance to work". Thats right, you guessed it, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell. A decade of sanctions later we can see the folly of such words.

General "Stormin Normin" Schwarzkopf, the hero of Desert Storm, in his autobiography describes Powell as a political general. Good at being the diplomat and playing the political games of Washington but whose military strategy was questionable at best. It was also General Powell (having the ear of George Bush the elder) who restrained the hand of General Schwarzkopf from completely destroying the Iraqi army as it retreated from Kuwait. Complete victory certainly is not in Powells vocabulary. "Unconditional Surrender" Grant would have made short work of such a band of looters, rapists and killers. Within just a few weeks Saddam set these same soldiers, allowed to escape by Powell, loose in an orgy of slaughter on Kurdish and Shiite rebels. With the road to Baghdad open, Powell missed the opportunity and let the Butcher of Baghdad live to fight another day.

Unfortunately, a decade later the United States is preparing to begin round two of the Gulf war. It has fallen to George Bush the younger to complete what his father and Powell failed to finish. Iraq is, depending on whom you listen too, between 1-3 years from developing a nuclear weapon. Imagine such a weapon in the hands of a man who has spent his life executing opponents, lobbing missiles at Israel, using biological weapons against both internal and external enemies, invading his neighbors, funding Palestinian suicide bombers, spending billions on palaces while his people starved, and generally making a nuisance of himself. The thought of this member of the "Axis of Evil" possessing such a weapon of massive destruction is simply not tolerable. A good many American boys, not to mention a lot of Iraqis, are going to die finishing something that Powell argued against ten years ago.

Just a short time ago this lone dove in an administration full of hawks was sent to the Middle East to try to find a solution to the Palestinian-Israeli "problem". Now Secretary of State Powell, the man with a mission, toured a series of Arab countries before visiting Israel. The media was full of stories of leaders of these two-bit countries lecturing Colin Powell. The Lebanese Prime Minister was described as "dressing down" the Secretary of State of the United States of America. And Powell took this? President Roosevelt passed on the rather wise advice to "speak softly and carry a big stick". Apparently Powell just did a little soft speaking and a lot of listening. In a region still stricken with tribal traditions, power, force and victory are the only things that matter and are understood. He should have been telling the Lebanese and their Syrian backers to watch themselves and squash the militants of Hezbollah or we would do it for them. One has to be willing to use the stick once in a while.Once Powell actually arrived to play the role of shuttle diplomat between the old war horse Sharon and the old master terrorist Arafat he had little to say except to, rather hypocritically, pressure Israel to halt its own war on terror and bolster Chairman Arafats flagging image.

Missing from his muddled moral clarity was a distinct lack of condemnation of the Palestinian culture of death. Now he wants to send hundreds of millions of your tax dollars to the man who teaches four and five year olds the benefits of martyrdom and calls for the total destruction of Israel as a nation. The dove has returned home to roost and hopefully to be caged so that the rest of us can actually fight the War on Terror without any interference of the pacifist Powell. Hes done enough already.