El honor de Colin S. Powell y la Sra. Khan

Colin S. Powell no necesita presentación. Conservador, apoya a Obama.

Hace años, en el Museo del Ejército de los EE.UU. leí la carta que, como capitán de una compañía de infantería y con un par, Powell elevó para protestar por la inutilidad de los equipos de transmisión que le habían enviado. Luego, Powell ha sido todo en esta vida, pero sigue siendo un buen jefe para hombres y mujeres libres.

Gracias a los amigos del otro lado del charco, me he enterado de que The New York Times, en uno de sus blogs, explica hoy por qué, a la postre, Powell ha tomado su decisión en favor de Obama.

Sus banderas son las de los Bacevich, las del propio McCain y las tantas otras buenas personas. Son las banderas que servidor desearía saber defender.

En el texto hay referencia a una foto de la Sra. Elsheba Khan en la tumba de su hijo, cabo especialista Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, enterrado en el Cementerio Nacional de Arlington (Virginia), foto que reproduzco para general instrucción.

Transcribo el texto:

More on the Soldier Kareem R. Khan

By The New York Times

On “Meet the Press” today, Colin L. Powell concluded his endorsement of Sen. Barack Obama by referring to the death of a Muslim soldier, Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan of Manahawkin, N.J., who was killed in Iraq on Aug. 6, 2007, and whose remains were buried in Arlington.

Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan

He and three other soldiers, including a corporal from Washington Heights, were killed in Baquba after a bomb detonated while they were checking abandoned houses for explosives. They served in the Stryker Brigade combat team of the Army’s 2nd Infantry Division, based in Ft. Lewis, Washington.

Mr. Khan graduated from Southern Regional High School in Manahawkin in 2005, and enlisted in the Army a few months later, spurred by his memories of the 9/11 terror attacks. “His Muslim faith did not make him not want to go. It never stopped him,” his father, Feroze Khan, told the Gannett News Service in a story printed shortly after his death. “He looked at it that he’s American and he has a job to do.”

Mr. Powell mentioned Mr. Khan’s death to underscore why he was deeply troubled by Republican personal attacks on Mr. Obama, especially false intimations that he was Muslim.

Mr. Obama is a lifelong Christian, not a Muslim, he said. But, he added, “The really right answer is, what if he is?”

“Is there something wrong with being Muslim in this country? No, that’s not America,” he said.

Mr. Khan’s death came to his attention, Mr. Powell said, when he saw a photo essay in a magazine about the deaths of American soldiers in Iraq. One picture showed a mother pressing her head against the gravestone of her fallen son in Arlington cemetery. It was the grave of 20-year-old Mr. Khan, engraved with his name, his military awards, and the Muslim symbol of the crescent and star.

“He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he could go serve his country, and he gave his life,” Mr. Powell said. “Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourselves in this way.”

Mr. Powell said that he had heard senior members of the Republican Party “drop this suggestion that he [Obama] is a Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists.”

“Now, John McCain is as nondiscriminatory as anyone I know. But I’m troubled about the fact that within the party we have these kinds of expressions.”

Mr. Khan had served in Iraq for just over a year, arriving in July 2006. He had sent home pictures to his family of him playing soccer with Iraqi children and hugging a smiling young Iraqi boy in Baghdad, according to his obituary in the Newark Star-Ledger.

He loved rooting for the Dallas Cowboys with his father, and challenging his 12-year old stepsister, Aliya, to video games. He last saw his family during a two-week visit in September 2006.

P.S. Cuando vuelva al Cementerio Nacional de Arlington, (VA), cruzando a pie el puente de Lincoln sobre el Potomac, y subiendo la cuesta de la colina que está enfrente del Capitolio en D.C. ya tengo a otro de los míos que visitar. Dios es grande y misericordioso.