Was the U.N.’s Oil-for-Food program (OFF) rotten? It looks like it. The U.N. Security Council created the program in 1996 to mitigate the impact on the civilian population of the economic sanctions aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein. It allowed Hussein’s government to use the revenue from oil sales to purchase food, medicine and other humanitarian commodities. The program is over… return to article
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Reader Comments (6)Page 1 of 1 pagesAs usual, crusading Americans are looking for the evil-doers without their doors, while ignoring the evil-doers in the room…
This about says it all:
“In not a single instance did the United States choose to block any transaction due to suspected kickbacks.”
How about restoring confidence in the House of Representatives by calling for the resignation of these bozos?
Posted by boughtmysoul on Dec 21, 2004 at 8:26 AM This corruption has been going on for years and as long as military
munitions profits for arms deals is what fuels the corruption. Most governments are in the munitions business but, the USA and Israel are # 1 and # 2 sellers of arms and other military wares. Where do these corrupt leaders of Sudan and Rwands buy all their weapons to commit genocide on their own people? Who sold weapons and arms to those inhumane leaders in Yugoslavia, Congo,Indonesia, Cambodia etc? The others… England, Russia,
Germany,France and Italy all have dirty hands.
Good question to ask… could the billions of dollars spent for these ugly means (war) might have been spent to feed, teach, house
and help develop these impoverished people of the world?
And we have the audacity to ask for god’s blessing.The blatant accusations alleged against Kofi Annan are a ploy by this corrupt administration to create a diversion from the quagmire in Iraq and to destroy the United Nations. More of the
“ends justify the means” machin- ations. Karl Rove makes this work while the gutless wonders “the
wimp democrats of the DLC” with
boring Joe Lieberman leading the
way towards a massive retreat from
doing the RIGHT thing.
It took the ACLU to bring the torture memoranda into the mainstream media. NOT the reluctant wussy dems. The jackass is a great symbol for them it fits!!
Posted by Florence Murphy on Dec 22, 2004 at 1:27 PM This is the dumbest shit that I have ever read. Saying that America sits on the Security Council is like saying that Ralph Nader was on the ballot in 2004; the only power that we wield there is veto power. And does this author really wish that we had withdrawn U.S. aid to Jordan and Turkey, which are presently only moderately anti-American? Brilliant, that would have set off anti-U.S. shitstorms from here to Afghanistan. Foreign aid is rarely the black and white issue that this author disingenuously makes it out to be.
Posted by Aaron on Dec 24, 2004 at 2:10 AM Aaron, the point of the article isn’t to solely blame the US, but to point out the fact that we can’t solely blame Kofi Annan, like those chaps in the House of Representatives would like. These guys have completely absolved the US and other Security Council members of blame for the entire fiasco, and, as usual, name a scapegoat and believe that the whole thing will just go away if he’s axed. Fat chance. There were a lot of greedy people involved in this, and getting rid of Kofi won’t get rid of them. The real tragedy here is the suffering a lot of innocent Iraqis have undergone at the hands of their own government, and the world at large, because they were unlucky enough to be born there.
Posted by boughtmysoul on Dec 24, 2004 at 8:22 PM The murderous actions of the US military in reducing Fallujah to rubble with the help of napalm and cluster bombs, turning off water and electricity to civilians, stopping medical shipments and shooting anything that moves shows that President Bush and his necon henchmen are bona fide war criminals.
Now, the same scene will be played out again in Mosul, seeking redress and vengeance for the mess
tent bombing. Perhaps the explosive used was part of the 380+ tons stolen from a bunker that we
had deliberately chosen to ignore while at the same time, protecting Iraq’s Ministry of Oil.The American military machine’s murderous rampage in Fallujah was probably intended as a
warning to other Iraqi cities: Succumb to our unchecked might or become the next Fallujah.
Mosul, beware.I would like to humbly add one more example of military might gone mad: The Nazi invasion of
western Russia in 1941. At first, some of the locals warily greeted the German army, thinking a
different dictator would be better than Stalin. This train of thought was soon violently derailed as the Germans turned to torture, shooting of civilians en masse and the laying to waste of the countryside.That part of Russia, especially the Ukraine, was destined by Hitler for “Lebensraum” or room to live for an expanded Nazi empire.
Can it be that the American mercenary army is creating the 21st Century version of Lebensraum for an increasingly land hungry Israel?
Israel’s continuing actions in the West Bank, southern Lebanon and Gaza belie any of its peaceful pronouncements to the world and its continuing degrading and genocidal treatment of the Palestinians bears a resemblance to another Nazi term, “untermenschen.”
That was the Nazi hierarchy calling the Slavs in Ukraine sub-human so their soldiers could shoot
and kill civilians with impunity.Don’t count on the American public to awaken anytime soon and realize it’s government has gone
mad.
The vast majority of the American public’s mind has been dulled into submission by the most potent drug ever created: Television.
Before the USSR fell, American movies and television usually portrayed bad guys with Russian accents.
With the Russian bogeyman no longer a viable option, it wasn’t long before nefarious characters with Middle Eastern accents were dominating the movie screens.
After 10 years of conditioning the American public of Arabs as untermenschen, we can now repeat the actions of Nazi Germany in Iraq.Myself, i pray and hope Bush and his neocons are not embarking on another “Endlosung.”
Greg Bacon
RR 1 Box 3518
Ava, MO USA
Posted by Greg Bacon on Dec 24, 2004 at 11:58 PM “And does this author really wish that we had withdrawn U.S. aid to Jordan and Turkey, which are presently only moderately anti-American? Brilliant, that would have set off anti-U.S. shitstorms from here to Afghanistan.”
Yeah, I can envision the article written in the aftermath:
U.S. Aid Policy Sets Off Worldwide Shitstorm
Rioting and demonstrations were set off worldwide in response to the United States decision to cut off military aid to Jordan and Turkey. The decision, made in the wake of allegations that both countries had been aiding the insurgency against U.S. forces, met with surprisingly strong opposition throughout the world. In an interview today, demonstrator Dudley Doright from Toronto, Canada echoed sentiments throughout the world when he said, “I was a little upset when they lied to rest of the world about the WMD and used it as an excuse to launch a pre-emptive attack that killed at least tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq. But to cut off military aid, just because it might have been used against their own soldiers, well that’s just more than I could stomach.”
When the White House was asked for a response spokesman Scott McClellan responded in a rather roundabout way by simply stating that “the war in Iraq is going just great.” He then unleashed photographs which he said proved that Canada was developing a nuclear weapons program. He said that the photographs were of cylinders that were being used to centrifuge uranium for the purpose of creating weapons grade uranium. When informed that the Departments of Energy and Agriculture had both maintained that the tubes were actually from an Alberta meat-processing plant and were used to make Canadian Bacon, McClellan announced that effective immediately both department heads would be fired and both departments would be folded into the new Homeland Security/Defense Department under the Secretary of HS & D Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld, who was at the United Nations along with Condi Rice making the case for war against Canada, was said to be relishing the opportunity to add to his already sparkling resume.
Posted by Matt Harris on Dec 26, 2004 at 4:54 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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Also by Frida Berrigan
- The Fog of War Crimes
Who's to blame when 'just following orders' means murder? - What We Leave Behind
From Kosovo to Lebanon, cluster bomb casualties continue to mount - Lawyers Fight for Habeas Rights
The Military Commissions Act suspends Habeas corpus for foreign citizens accused of hostilities against the U.S. - Halliburton Hearts Congress
Do partisanship and cronyism trump congressional oversight and corporate accountability? - Walking to Guantnamo
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Did the Pentagon use chemical weapons indiscriminately in Fallujah?
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