Obi Egbuna Jr October 25, 2021

For Daughters and Sons of Africa at home and abroad, putting anyone’s life after death in proper historical context, is dictated not only where we fall on the ideological spectrum, but also the exact moment in time when the individual in question makes their exit from our physical space.

In the case of General Colin Powell who passed away on October 18^th, 2021, US born Africans and Africans who migrated to North America during either their formative or teenage years, were reminded that the two most decorated subcultures in our community are the church and military.

Whether or not we give our complete loyalty to either one of these institutions through direct involvement, which requires we fully embrace the values at their very core, both have had an undeniable influence on our lives and the choices we make.

Exactly 24 hours after General Powell’s death was the 38 anniversary of US Imperialism’s invasion of Grenada, which led to the assassination of that great son of Africa, their former Prime Minister Maurice Bishop. This unjustifiable crime against humanity, was carried out by General Powell while serving under Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger as his Senior Military Assistant. 

Based on the indifference and cold-blooded nature General Powell demonstrated when snatching the life of Africans born in the Caribbean just like the two people who brought him into this world, Secretary Weinberger realized disposing of Africans anywhere on this planet, would not phase General Powell in the least because the imperialist mythology behind the symbol of Uncle Sam truly possessed his heart and soul. 

Just to be sure three years later Mr. Weinberger called on General Powell to do his dirty work and plan the bombing on Libya that occurred on April 15^{th, 1986, that took the life of Colonel} Muammar Qadaffi’s two-year-old daughter.

The next high profile military adventure for General Powell was assisting Mr. Weinberger in illegally transferring US made TOW anti-tank missiles and Hawk anti-aircraft missiles from Zionist Israel to Iran, ironically Mr. Weinberger was indicted on five felony charges while General Powell walked away like a burglar who successfully completed a break and entry.

General Powell’s damage control on the stand, was in conjunction with the CIA funneling crack cocaine to South Central, Los Angeles aimed at committing genocide against his people, so regime efforts aimed at Nicaragua and Iran could continue without any significant interruption.  This revealed that to prevent the Sandinista Revolution from prevailing in Nicaragua, and anti-imperialist fervor from escalating in Iran, polluting a community of US born Africans inside North American borders, with kilos of crack cocaine was a means to an end.  

During this military and political circus, the prosecutors who allegedly were troubled by General Powell’s testimony, already knew that at the age of 31 he refuted any wrongdoing of US soldiers, when investigating the barbaric massacring of Vietnamese people by trigger happy and brainwashed US Soldiers.

Next on the list of predominantly African nations in the Americas for General Powell to slaughter and butcher was Panama, where he mockingly named this vicious and cowardly invasion Operation Just Cause, the nation that happened to be a dumping ground for remains of Agent Orange originally created to exterminate Vietnamese people.

When resisting US Imperialist Military Tradition like the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, Paul Robeson, Claudia Jones, Dr. King, and Kwame Ture, were alerting the masses to our people that the enemies of progress were in the laboratories working around the clock a develop a ruthless soldier like General Powell, who after life as a professional soldier would be a walking billboard and parade float whose main agenda is to promote genocidal warfare full time.

For General Powell this began after some US born African soldiers clashed with their Caucasian counterparts in South Korea, when he was sanctioned to crackdown on the soldiers who were deemed militant by US military standards, meaning based on their experience fighting for Uncle Sam they might come out and end up like Geronimo “Ji Jaga” Pratt, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Julian Mayfield who even though they wore Uncle Sam’s uniform ended up on the complete other side of African peoples ideological spectrum.

By the time General Powell was 11 years old, President Harry Truman known for breathing life into Zionist Israel, creating the CIA and dropping the atomic bomb on Japan, opportunistically desegregated the military. Of course, this was one of the primary demands of Bayard Rustin and A. Phillip Randolph, when calling for a March in Washington in 1941.

Like many of this generational space, General Powell was taught in the classroom to celebrate Crispus Attucks dying in the Boston Massacre and Peter Salem fighting at Bunker Hill, those very seeds apparently moved General Powell in the manner that gospel choirs and fiery preachers touch their congregations at every Sunday service.

 Culturally speaking this put a propaganda campaign by Hollywood in perpetual motion, which led to our children today aggressively celebrating the Tuskegee Airmen at the expense of making Booker T. Washington a mere footnote and afterthought in history. In the final analysis, we can argue for our enemies this is 2^nd Tuskegee Experiment, using the Tuskegee Airmen to create more hired killers the likes of General Powell, instead of history changing fighters like the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey who was intellectually shaped by Booker T. Washington autobiography.

Due to his blind devotion to US Imperialist military tradition and culture, General Powell used a platform made available to him after becoming the US Joint Chief of Staff, not only to establish pro military institutions but revive the ones on the verge of being non- existent.

Around the same time General Powell became a part of Howard University’s board of trustees, he along with former SNCC alum and DC City Councilman Frank Smith brought to life the African American Civil War Museum, which was a follow up to his effort to erect a statue to the Buffalo Soldiers in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1992. General Powell also used this opportunity to help ROTC regain footing on HBCUS nationwide, which in the eyes of his handlers had lost traction since the protests around the Vietnam War, spearheaded by SNCC, Dr. King and SCLC that provided the shield to protect Muhammad Ali and Kareem Abdul Jabbar who were also against the war. Ali’s relinquishing of the heavyweight championship of the world, overshadowed Jabbar’s decision to boycott the US Olympics.

On a Pan African scale, the bold and visionary decision by the Pan Africanist colossus Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Ghana’s first Prime Minister and President, was overthrown by the CIA and British Intelligence enroute to Vietnam to present a peace plan to end the horrific war General Powell enjoyed so much he had two tours.

What came as a shocker, was when the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan invited General Powell to address the Million Man March, primarily because his motives weren’t so clear. During an appearance on national television promoting the march, the Minister posed a rhetorical question “why can’t a general address his troops”. 

For the organizers of the National Youth Organizing Committee this was extremely troubling, primarily because based on his agenda at that moment in history the only message General Powell could possibly have had was to join the military to have some structure and discipline. This also would have given the impression that the Minister was openly making a departure from the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad’s position, who proudly served five years in prison instead of going to World War II.

We have no problem admitting that Mother Africa’s most ruthless enemies, did a masterful job of exploiting General Powell’s cultural makeup to reverse a trend that scared them to no end. 

Since General Powell’s parents were born in Jamaica, he represents a living example of a child of migrators who embraced the military tradition of rape, domination, and plunder, diametrically opposing the proud legacy of African freedom fighters with blood ties to the Caribbean who wreaked havoc on US Soil i.e., the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey, George Padmore, Claude McKay, J.A. Rogers, Malcolm X, Kwame Ture, Louis Farrakhan etc.

A truly mind-boggling note is that General Powell and Brother Kwame attended the same elementary school P.S. 39 in the Bronx, which confirms that it is exposure not your surroundings that shape us all, meaning freedom fighters and war criminals can grow up in the same exact neighborhood. 

By the time General Powell had ascended to become the first African Secretary of State after serving as US Joint Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor, even though he was not known for his intellectual acumen, his one-year stint at the National War College taught him the power and value of good propaganda.

When General Powell penned an op-ed that was published in the New York Times, entitled Fleeing a Nation from A Tyrant’s Grip, it was clear that the Bush administration chose him as the hatchet man to attempt to bring about a pro-imperialist regime change in Zimbabwe.

The decision to push the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act, which was a vindictive response to the heroic land reclamation program spearheaded by everyday Zimbabweans and hammered home by the African revolutionary giant former Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, put General Powell and the Congressional Black Caucus on a collision course with Africans who embraced our fighting spirit in every corner of the world.

This also revealed that the trip that General Powell and the CBC took to Madiba Nelson Mandela’s inauguration was at best a publicity grabbing field trip, and they were not the least bit interested in true self determination on our sacred and indigenous land. 

Based on the role of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region in Mother Africa’s broadest landscape, it comes as no surprise that General Powell and the CBC would break their neck to be at Madiba’s inauguration while working for President Mugabe and Zimbabwe’s utter demise. This pushed the narrative that loving Madiba unconditionally and hating President Mugabe pathologically was perfectly ok.

Lastly the manner that General Powell pursued his reinvention as a born again liberal, which in the scheme of the never-ending loving lover’s quarrel between Democrats and Republicans. General Powell’s endorsements of Barack Obama and Joe Biden are a bi-partisan alliance at the expense of dead Libyans and Zimbabweans, who incurred the wrath of these three gentlemen. This makeover included raising money for Dr. King’s memorial, a man who was assassinated for courageously condemning the war that changed General Powell’s political and economic fortunes.

During the last chapter of his life, General Powell masterfully used his endorsement of former US President Barack Obama, in the manner that some Christians describe how accepting Jesus Christ as your savior washes away your sins, which sent a message if you commit countless war crimes as a Republican just become a born again liberal. The only problem with that narrative is a man who bombed the same nation you did in the wee hours of the morning on one occasion, performed the same task for seven months in a row. Whenever former President Obama and General Powell broke bread, we wonder if dead Libyans and dead Zimbabwean’s courtesy of their bombs and sanctioning ruin their appetite. 

This question should be posed to the gatekeepers and guard dogs who use these two gentlemen to promote the concept of Black Excellence, for the purpose of crushing our African Fighting Spirit.

Obi Egbuna Jr is the US Correspondent to The Southern African Times and External Relations Officer to the Zimbabwe Cuba Friendship Association his email is [email protected] twitter @JrEgbuna