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Colin Powell: the ‘nice guy’ who helped destroy a country
The first casualty of war is truth. Nowhere has this been more evident than in the life of Colin Powell, former secretary of state and former top general of the US, says MARC VANDEPITTE

AT the age of 84, Colin Powell has died. He had the image of a dove, but war crimes were hidden behind it.
Powell was national security adviser to Ronald Reagan and the first black commander-in-chief of the US military. In 2001, he became the country’s first black secretary of state.
In personal dealings he was described as a “pleasant” and a “nice” man. To many blacks he was also a role model. That may all be true, but those things do not prevent him from having an extremely bloody track record, laced with war crimes.
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