Canadian Cynic

"Hypocrisy" doesn't begin to describe this ...

For some eye-rolling, knee-slapping humor, you have just got to read this online CNN article, in which Secretary of State (and, sad to say, house niggah) Colin Powell gets his panties in a bunch about how the Arab world should be showing far more outrage over the videotaped beheading of American Nick Berg.

According to Powell, "I would like to have seen a much higher level of outrage throughout the world, but especially in the Arab world, to this murder", and "What we saw with this horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible murder should be deplored throughout the Arab world."

Uh ... yeah, right, Colin -- this from an emissary of a country that, let's see here, invaded Iraq on totally trumped-up pretenses, killed over 10,000 civilians already and, most recently, has been caught imposing a clearly official policy of abuse, humiliation and torture against Iraqi prisoners, the majority of which even the U.S. military admits were arrested by mistake. And let's not even get into what the "Arab world" (a deliciously racist and condescending description) thinks of the whole-hearted U.S. support for Israel, as that country systematically wipes out the Palestinians, little by little.

One would think that even Powell, the gutless weasel that he is, might have twigged to the fact that he doesn't really have the moral high ground here.

And, in the wake of the seemingly endless evidence of torture of prisoners both in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and Cuba's Guantanamo Bay, try, just try to believe that Powell could say,

"Arab leaders need to look at what's happening in their own societies," he added. "They need to reform their own societies. Torture is torture is torture. It is unacceptable. It is not the way you treat human beings."