THE US, THE UN AND THE IRAQIS THEMSELVES, V. 7.0

Actually Galloway has good grounds for complaint. He was tried and convicted in absentia by an American kangaroo court who never even allowed him to testify.

Something's been bothering me here for a while, and to sooth my own mind, I'm gonna request a bit of a rewind. Way back Here,

Sofia wrote:

The Case Against the UN re Iraq

I don't think any of us can continue to act as though the UN was an honest player in the decision to back away from the Iraq War.

When those making the decisions have been paid off, it has to color their veracity ...

. which she followed up with This and This. Responding, in apparent intended rebuttal, though in mistaken apprehension of current events,

Steve (as 4100) wrote:

... Sofia, Galloway successfully sued the CSM and British newspapers that reprinted the story. He was stitched up by CIA and SIS dirty tricks department for political reasons. Being the litigous sort, be careful, he might sue you too.

while a Bit Further On, in apparent additional intended, but mistaken, refutation and rebuttal of Sofia's point,

CdK wrote:

What Sofia doesn't say is that the list she is posting has not been confirmed as authentic at all and that the US was a part of the sanctions committee that approved all contracts.

to which I Responded:

Quote:

... Galloway's 2003 Libel Suit, in which he ultimately was Victorious, predates and is wholly separate from the Oil For Food Scandal. A Wall Street Journal Article brought major US press attention to focus on The Oil For Food Scandal back in February, a couple months after the story first began making the rounds, having originated with an article published in the Arabic Language paper Al-Madi ( English Translation Here ) on January 25 of this year. The scandal involves not legitimate contracts, but kickbacks and under-the-table dealings designed to subvert the contract process. Galloway, among others equally and more notable, is very much on the hook for this current flap. Independent Investigations lend credence to the allegations raised by the Al Madi article.

The Financial Times wrote:

A three-month investigation by Il Sole 24 Ore and the Financial Times has established that Mr Giangrandi was one actor in an international charade that helped Mr Hussein's regime divert hundreds of millions of dollars from the United Nations oil-for-food programme to its own ends. Officially, all Iraq's oil revenues went through a UN escrow account, which was then used to pay for the import of goods to Iraq. But the price at which Baghdad sold its oil was below the price at which the purchaser could subsequently resell it. The margin created could be used to generate funds for the regime, or compensate friends, away from prying UN eyes.

.

Now, though perhaps its nitpicking, but as that pretty much is standard proceedure in this sort of discussion, I'd like to revist these points. It is my contention, congruent with that expressed Sofia, that, in light of the facts as currently reported:

1) The objectivity of the UN in its opposition to US intentions re Saddam's Iraq, given which nations were the key proponents of that opposition, is at the very least rendered suspect

2) Steve (as 4100)'s citations re Galloway, etc, did not address the matter at hand but rather concerned a previous issue not pertinent to the current scandal

3) CdK's dismissal-by-implication through mention of US participation in the contract approval process fails to take into account the very nature of the alledged misconduct, which was designed, and practiced, specifically in such manner as to criminally bypass established contract controls shielding the activities ... kickbacks, illegal undercharges, and outright bribery ... from legitimate oversight. Further, as evidenced by the Financial Times article I referrenced, as well as another mentioned in This Article, among a number of other recent exposés, independent investigations, based on independently obtained documentation and testimony, lend corroboration to the assertions put forth in the original Al-Mada article. I would add, contrary to CdK's assertion, that the veracity and provenance of the documents Al-Mada referrenced is subject to no credible challenge, not even from The UN Itself.

Apart from any debate concerning justification, motivation, or legality of US actions precipitating the recent and current Iraq Flap, I question the foundation, as exemplified by general UN and specific UN Security Council Member State conduct, of opposition to US activites. I will not discount that there well may have been some principled, honorable moral, ethical, and legal objection, but it is my contention that such idealistic, and perfectly legitimate, complaint was of far less practical and pragmatic concern and effect than was simple graft and corruption, and in substantial practice was used blatantly to cloak the reality of greed and self interest in a costume of good intention and noble sounding but thoroughly obfuscatory pronouncements.

Should the current Oil For Food corruption investigation disclose proven culpability on the part of senior UN and UN Member State officials, such finding would not, of course, vindicate US action. Such finding, however, certainly would invalidate much claim to legitimacy of intent posed by those who were in opposition to The US, and by extension, call to question the overall legitimacy of The UN, as a body, itself. In closing this rant, I'll echo Sofia's initial point,

Quote:

... I don't think any of us can continue to act as though the UN was an honest player in the decision to back away from the Iraq War.

and say it appears, at the very least, to have been a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Killing innocents is never a good defense.

Never is a long time!

Let's look at one very controversial example.

The US dropping two atomic bombs on mainland Japan in WWII, killed tens of thousands of Japanese innocents, and did thereby end the war with Japan.

Had the US not done that, but instead decided to let the war continue by continuing to attack Japan island by island in conventional sea invasions, how many Japanese innocents would have died before the war would have ended? Neither of us knows! However, based on our experience in Europe with Germany, where millions of German and other european innocents died for lack of the availability and use of atomic bombs to end that war sooner, the death of millions of innocents would have probably occurred in Japan without the dropping of those atomic bombs.

That holds true for all humans; whether in a village or the world community. The police cannot go killing people on the basis that they are trying to kill a criminal,

Policemen threatened with death by perpetrators have frequently saved their own lives, or sacrificed their own lives, and saved the lives of innocents by killing perpetrators and also those innocents who were too nearby the perpetrators.

and it also holds true that one country's army cannot go to another country to kill it's innocent citizens because they have a Saddam or Osama in their midst.

The innocents in that "another country" ran a great risk of being themselves killed in greater numbers if they failed themselves to kill their own tyrannical regimes perpetrating murder of the innocents in their and in other countries. Unfortunately, that risk did eventually materialize into a real happening.

Should that be true? No! Should young people die of cancer and other such deseases? No! But no one asked me to decide what reality ought to be. Reality just is! It cannot be ordered or legislated away or vetoed. People will generally do whatever they think they have to do to survive death or maiming by tyrants.

What's the best workable solution? Kill the tyrants as quickly as one can so as to miinimize the death of additional innocents. The risk of that is often one's own death. It takes courage to take that risk.

Now Mr Galloway is coming over and he's going to give the committee "both barrels" (as in shot gun).

I'm really looking forward to it. Makes me feel protective to those poor senators, they going to need it.

The good thing about this is that Galloway probably did take a cut, but the FAC will not be able to pin it down without disclosing CIA MI6 files which they won't release, so they (FAC) are going to look really stupid.

You are incorrect. The best defense is not an offense.

That's an empty platitude...

Cycloptichorn

Ican I think that rocket on your back has finally exploded.

ci said killing innocents is never a good defense

to which you responded "never is a long time!"

never has no length of time to it at all

It was a mere play on words when I previously posted it. Obviously a failed attempt at humor on my part.

However, since you thought it a serious point on my part, I shall attempt to make it such lest you lack sufficient material by which you may judge me. :wink:

One must wait a rather long time to confirm for certain that something never happens. I suggest that wait time is infinite. So one must consider that since verifying never takes a long time, then never is a long time.

but worse than that the implication of your response is that killing innocents is SOMETIME a good defense.

When presented with only three ways to end a horrible conflict, one ought to pick that way that ends with the fewest dead. In 1945 the US was faced with these three choices for ending the war with Japan:
(1) kill tens of thousands of innocent Japanese with two atomic bombs;
(2) kill millions of innocents on both sides by invading Japan by sea;
(3) do nothing and wait for the ultimate killing of millions by the Japanese.

It seems to me that the rational, and most humanitarian, and least worst choice with which we were presented was to kill tens of thousands of innocent Japanese. The war with Japan ended quickly as a result.

Do want to reconsider what you said or do you want to be judged by it?

Judge me (and President Truman) as you please.