So Powell voices support for Obama in a corrupt circus run to prop up a facade of sovereignty for a state that has been sacked by neo-lib, free-trade rats. Ho hum. The Powell publicity is just another pole to the campaign's populist button-pushing, emphasizing again how distracting and dirty its manipulations around the fake issues of "race" and religion.

Powell backed a massive war crime by lying to the UN; he knows it and so do most of his former colleagues. Maybe he would have met some nasty fatal "accident" or even fit-up if he refused to back the Iraq War, but his action there was still criminal and cowardly. With supporters like that...of course Obama has talked up bigger pushes for the Afghanistan venture and its de facto supervision of opium production, as well as some vicious and hostile slime against Iran.

So, some Muslims have fought and died for imperialism - tell us something we don't know. May as well mention that even the Third Reich had some more-or-less loyal Sikhs, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and even Jews (not to forget Christians) on its payroll of armed trusties. Of course, such religious affiliations tell us next to nothing about the crimes committed or the overriding ideology that inspired such crimes.

It is grossly misleading to so simplistically equate the term "patriotism" with any participation in or support for the Iraq War (like that of imperialist World War I misadventures last century).

It wouldn't surprise me if the author got a Fullbright Fellowship or something for such irrelevant and ephemeral fluff.

Being a little bit harsh, there Mil-observer? Yes indeed an article such as this may seem completely reductionist to people of acumen.
However, there are, unarguably, some somewhat simpler and less sophisticated souls who do indeed equate the word Muslim with Terrorist - to which thousands of words on this very site stand testament.

Not often we agree Mil-Observer but I found Powell's endorsement laughable for Powell still supports the claims of WMD, that the Iraq war was the thing to do, and that the surge was appropriate and worked. How different is that to the man he's endorsing.

Powell is a Washington insider as well.

I really laughed out loud when I heard Obama's acceptance of Powell's endorsement. An honourable man would have rejected it ... and his supporters would have cheered instead of remaining silent.

Colin Powell came through the ranks of the military, "The Army thinks for you".
Sadly for him he forgot this when he entered politics as a new boy, and found himself a prostitue to neo conservative ideology. Sad!

But Kipp, there have been countless letters of protest, including resignations, from senior US Army and US Marine Corps officers against the neo-cons' flagrant abuses and insults against their sacrifices and commitment. Even the service newspapers have registered such dissent, though the mainstream media both in the US and overseas have avoided mentioning these extraordinary facts.

I think you apply a particularly unfair stereotype to the US military there: Powell seems more the type of ticket-punching political officer who would have his political network doing the thinking for him. Naturally such an officer ended up sliding into a high-level at the State Department: the same processes happen in Oz, all to the horror of more military officers.

The contrast of Powell with 'Nisei' general Shinseki could not be starker - Shinseki, of course, ran into a career dead end after maintaining his own professional commitment against Cheney's and Rumsfeld's mayhem strategies on Iraq.

There is one reason and one reason only why Powell is supporting Obama. It’s purely racist. Powell is black and so is Obama.

At Obama rallies there are heaps of white supporters in the audience, at McCain rallies there is not one black person.

It would seem the blacks are the more racist.