...No, he's a scapegoat (Oliphant Alert)

NOW THAT virtually all of official conservatism and the Republican legislative juggernaut have opened up on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, with President Bush's winking acquiescence, it's time to explore a simple question: Just what is it that the guy has done? The answer is nada. It turns out there is no evidence that he did anything while the notorious and corrupted oil-for-food humanitarian program was operating in Iraq during the 1990s and beyond.

This lack of even a charge comes in the face of Annan's unequivocal denial that he ever had a single thing to do with, or any specific knowledge about, any of the deals made while the mess of a program was operating.

The latest headlines were generated last week by a freshman Republican senator, Norm Coleman from Minnesota, who chairs the principal subcommittee that has been investigating the program for months. Coleman called on Annan to resign.

Oil-for-food was a mess, and Annan made a world-class goof in appointing an apparently corrupt official to run it. Instead of easing the impact of UN sanctions on Iraqi civilians, the program was an opportunity for profiteering both by businesses and by Saddam Hussein.

The problem, as Senator Levin points out, is that the US government as well as the entire Security Council had complicit knowledge of just how dirty the program was. Members worked hard to make sure Iraq did not use earnings for weapons of mass destruction.

However, as Levin also points out, Presidents Clinton and Bush decided against cracking down on allies like Jordan and Turkey that were buying oil illegally from Iraq in violation of the sanctions regime, which makes current attempts to put the mess on Annan's shoulders borderline ludicrous.

This is essentially, the beginning of the propaganda war and the attempt to generate a story the public will buy. I'm amazed it's taken this long. The breadth of this scandal shows the absolute bottom line problem with the future world government they want to subject us all to. It will be accountable to no one - just as the UN is. It will be corrupt to the core - just as the UN is. And it will screw people under it's cloak of unaccountability in a worse fashion than what the UN does now because there will be no independant government bodies with oversight to stand against the rest of the world at this point. Our system is the best in the world and it's corrupt to the core and sold out to Corporations as we speak. And we can't get the rats out of the sewer that is Washington after years of trying everything short of an Armed revolt. In this instant - rats means sellouts, not democrats. There are plenty of them on both sides of the isle and their interests ain't anything to do with what we think till they're threatened.. and then they largely just pay lipservice.

It's time to get out of the UN, kill Nafta, tell the WTO to go fetch and concern ourselves with cleaning house here. And that is a group of issues that cuts across party lines. We've all had it.

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