Colin Powell, the enemy soldier of the war who lent his face to the hawks

WASHINGTON – “General Colin Powell is an American hero, an American symbol, a magnificent American history,” George Bush said introducing him. Four years later, the hero and the symbol still live on, but the story is over, with the resignation letter presented to the White House on Friday. Anyone who hoped that the old gentleman soldier would hold out for another four years in his Herculean effort as a rational counterweight to the apostles of war will be disappointed, but Powell’s fate in the secretariat of state was sealed.