Tri-City Herald letter writers weigh in on Colin Powell, Critical Race Theory and COVID

Powell knew UN speech was ‘blot’

In her homage to Colin Powell ( Tri-CIty Herald, Oct. 21), columnist Kathleen Parker highlights Powell’s central role in selling an invasion of Iraq to the UN Security Council, based on a claim promoted by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction. But Powell was as deceived as the American public.

A smoking gun that revealed the hidden agenda of Bush and company — regime change in Iraq — was a secret document called the Downing Street memo. The memo summarizes a meeting in July 2002 of British Prime Minister Tony Blair with his top security advisers and reports on a visit to Washington DC by the head of Britain’s MI6 intelligence service. The visit took place while the Bush administration was declaring to the American public that no decision had been made to go to war, while all their actions focused on preparing for war. The memo states: “the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.”

A briefing paper for the July meeting revealed that Prime Minister Tony Blair himself had been colluding with Bush to topple Saddam Hussein. Regime change presented a problem because there were no legal grounds for war.

In a TV interview in September 2005, Colin Powell declared that his speech to the United Nations would be a permanent “blot” on his record.

Jim Stoffels, Richland

CRT fear ignited by Seattle activist

If you were surprised by the sudden rise of critical race theory as the latest object of outrage by the Republican Right, you weren’t alone. The CRT controversy seems to have sprouted like cheatgrass from our carefully groomed lawns. However, the controversy is anything but grassroots. It’s the brainchild of a spurned 2018 Seattle City Council candidate and conservative activist, Christopher Rufo.

Rufo is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank, and a former director at the Discovery Institute, which promotes “intelligent design,” and has called global warming, “a fraud.”

Rufo got wind of a kind of sensitivity training for city employees, did some digging, and tied it to a legal concept, “Critical Race Theory,” which he implied stemmed from Marxism, and called it an “existential threat” to America.

Rufo expounded his thesis on Tucker Carlson, Trump heard it, and Rufo soon found himself in Washington, D.C., helping to draft an executive order that limited how contractors providing federal diversity seminars could talk about race.

Things snowballed from there.

By the way, I know I risk being labeled a communist when I say this, but our carefully groomed lawns are bad for the environment.

Richard Badalamente, Kennewick

Don’t want your shots? Stay home

Hundreds of Hanford workers prefer to endanger the rest of us (many thousands). Even those of us who are vaccinated do not have 100% immunity. It would be thoughtful if you who prefer to avoid vaccination and/or masks take a regular day “off.” Go home and stay inside. Give the rest of us one day a week when we can feel confident in stores, restaurants, parks.

Actually, the minority should have to stay inside 6 days a week, until they get smart and vax up and mask up. Sounds fair to me!

Jerri Main, Pasco

Be a smarty

Don’t be stupid.

Be a smarty.

Get the vaccine.

Christmas party!

James Crosslin, Richland