Apr 21st, 2004, 12:23 AM
This is interesting. Not the article, mind you, but rather Brandon's motivation for posting it. The corruption behind oil-for-food, although not believed to be this bad, has always been understood by many. In fact, this argument used to be used by the Leftist "ZMag" types for lifting the sanctions on Iraq. The argument went that sanctions with small stipulations allows Saddam to get what he needs, while at the same time giving him an excuse to deny his people needed medical and food supplies. As it went, if you lift sanctions, products could potentially flow in, and Saddam loses his excuse.
So, this is less an indictment of Saddam Hussein on Brandon's part, and probably more so an indictment of the United Nations. Brandon of course isn't the only person to exploit this already apparent "scandal." Go read the neo-con mag, weekly standard, and you'll probably see them all over it as well. The reason is simple-- demonize the UN, make them look bad, thus you have an excuse for not internationalizing the occupation (or not being capable of doing so, to be more precise).
So what we're supposed to take away from this is:
1. The UN is innately corrupt, can't be trusted, and rathr than turning to them, we must increase our own presence in Iraq (not popular, but hey, swing for the fences).
2. The reason the UN opposed the Iraq war was because they were all benefiting from Saddam's regime (sounds sort of like the same "no blood for oil" argument that I'm sure Brandon detests, but I digress).
3. The UN can't be trusted to run an interim government in Iraq, or monitor their elections, because they clearly can't run things with a clean conscience (so maybe John Negroponte should do it).
I dunno, maybe Brandon just wanted to make good conversation....? :/
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