If you aren't informed about this stuff, you will be made sick. If you are informed, you will be made mad, all over again.
Posted on 09/09/2005 5:17:39 AM PDT by OESY
...So it was that the largest fraud ever recorded in history came about. Press reports often cite the overall size of Oil for Food at $60 billion, but Mr. Volcker's report makes clear that the real figure was in excess of $100 billion. From this, Saddam was able to derive $10.2 billion from illicit transactions. But the important point is he was able to steer 10 times that sum toward his preferred clients in the service of his political aims.
...Volcker's report is replete with examples of incompetent UN oversight and tales of political wrangling among the permanent members of the Security Council. But... it was the Western powers, not Saddam, who wanted Oil for Food at virtually any cost, because it offered the appearance of a meaningful policy in the absence of a real one, namely regime change. And it was the political convenience of this chimera that led the US and the UK to tolerate, and the rest of the Security Council to feast on, the opportunities for corruption that were inscribed in the very nature of the program.
As for the U.N., it proved its worth to Saddam as the one hall of mirrors in which such shenanigans could take place. Yet even now we are told that "at least" Oil for Food fed the Iraqi people when they were on the edge of starvation, and this is accounted a U.N. success. That is false. Oil for Food offered a lifeline of cash and influence to a regime that was starving its people. The program did not corrupt the U.N. so much as exploit its essential nature. Now Mr. Annan wants to use this report as an endorsement of his "reform" proposals. Only at the U.N. could he dare to think he could get away with this.
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...
If you aren't informed about this stuff, you will be made sick. If you are informed, you will be made mad, all over again.
Thanks. I'm bookmarking this. I wish Dubya would get us the hell outta the UN - then kick the UN the hell outta America.
On second thought, though, I bet Louisiana and New Orleans politicos could give the UN a run for their money in the fraud, bribes, and corruption departments.
Rep Ron Paul (R-TX) has been sponsoring HR 1146 for years and it will get us OUT of the UN and them OUT of the USA but he can't get it through the House/Senate. Write, call, email your Reps/Sens and BADGER them into supporting and co-sponsoring this bill!
NOW is the time to STRIKE!
Meantime; we have the dems kicking (and screaming) up a dirt storm wherever they can and blowing it over President Bush. . .and the media is in total hurricane mind and not interested in the 'rest of the story' of life in our world.
So. . .Kofi can still have his coffee at his U.N. desk. . .this morning. . .and work days unfolding into weeks. . .months. . .and nothing will significantly change.
Or hopefully, I am too pessimistic here. . .
I like that Haiti idea. I could only wish.
The timing of the release of the Volcker report couldnt have come at a worse time. We already know it wouldnt get the MSM release it deserves, but with the Katrina disaster there is a bare mention of it and absolutely no one appears to be paying attention to it.
I agree. Why is The Tower Of Babel still standing?
Katrina certainly is smothering everything else, but I suspect the average American is not nearly as fond of the UN as the Chattering Classes are. We have a guy in town who has a huge "Get the US out of the UN" sign in the bed of his pickup truck, and has been driving around with it for at least four years.
cricket, I believe there is a cumulative effect from all the alternative news sources that the TOM ( tired old media ) either ignores, or is not aware of at all. They talk mostly to themselves, anyway, and that's one reason they regurgitate the same talking points and "gotchas!"
But I suspect the average person hears more- from talk radio, forums like this, and blogs- than TOM realizes. And it adds up.
I liked Fox's summary by-the-numbers this morning.
Volker report shows bulk of the last 10,000 contracts for Oil had kick-back clauses written into them.
Report also shows how Kofi and his staff knew that this was the case.
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