Colin Powell: All-American Traitor

Add Colin Powell to the regretably short list of terrorist coddling turncoats like Republican Senators McCain, Warner and Graham who oppose President Bush's latest effort to contravene Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, which covers the treatment of prisoners of war.

Says the former secretary of state:

"The world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. To redefine Common Article 3 would add to those doubts. Furthermore, it would put our own troops at risk."

All four men have something in common that the chickenhawk president does not: Real-world military experience, Powell as a Vietnam veteran and former Joint Chiefs of Staff head, McCain as a Viet vet and POW, Warner as a Korean War vet and secretary of the Navy, and Graham as an Army lawyer.

It is encouraging that Powell finally spoke out and that Warner's Senate Armed Services Committee defied President Bush, with he, McCain, Graham and Susan Collins joining Democrats in approving a terrorist trial and interrogation plan that The Decider had rejected as unacceptable,

But there is a palpable feeling of all of this being too little too late.

Furthermore, it is regretable that Powell didn't speak out five years ago when he realized he had been suckered by the White House in declaring before the U.N. Security Council that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and then Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld used him as a door mat on their way to starting a war that had nothing to do with terrorism.