[Marxism] Oil for Food My Foot

["Calvin Broadbent" <calvinbroadbent@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

> From 'Another Day in Empire' blog:

<http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=90>

Oil for Food My Foot
Saturday October 29th 2005, 11:00 am

Few of us give a whit about the so-called Oil for Food scandal. It¡¯s little
more than a pet project for neocon Republicans, so-called ¡°conservatives¡±
in Washington, and like-minded folks at the United Nations and in the
British Commons.

The so-called Oil for Food scandal obfuscates the real issue¡ªthe sanctions
imposed against Iraq by a maidservant United Nations (and enforced by US and
British warplanes) were responsible for killing more than a million people,
half of them defenseless children. Denis Halliday, United Nations
Humanitarian Coordinator in Baghdad, resigned his post in 1997. ¡°I don¡¯t
want to administer a programme that satisfies the definition of genocide,¡±
said Halliday. Halliday¡¯s successor, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned. ¡°How
much longer can democratically elected governments hope to get away with
justifying policies that punish the Iraqi people for something they did not
do, through economic sanctions that target them in the hope that those who
survive will overthrow the regime? Is international law only applicable to
the losers? Does the UN security council only serve the powerful?¡± von
Sponeck and Halliday wrote for the Guardian in November, 2001.

In fact, the rubber stamp UN Security Council does ¡°only serve the
powerful,¡± as it demonstrates repeatedly. In regard to Iraq, the UN imposed
a flurry of resolutions¡ª660, 661, 678, 686, 687, 688, 707, 715, 986, 1284,
and finally 1441, this last demanding ¡°an accurate full, final, and
complete disclosure¡± of Iraq¡¯s illusory weapons of mass
destruction¡ªresolutions we may rightfully consider stepping stones to
Bush¡¯s illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq. Bush used UN Security Council
Resolution 1373 (an ¡°anti-terrorism measure¡±) to claim Iraq provided
¡°shelter and support terrorist organizations that direct violence against
Iran, Israel, and Western governments¡­. And al-Qaida terrorists escaped
from Afghanistan are known to be in Iraq,¡± all of this not only patently
false, but an engineered lie, as we now know, and some of us knew at the
time. Bush and the neocons used 1441 as a carte blanche excuse to invade
Iraq and kill over 100,000 innocent Iraqis. Of course, there was a whimper
of protest from the United Nations when Bush invaded, but this was less than
pathetic, and in fact was used by neocon cheerleaders to demonstrate how the
UN is rife with America haters and Saddam appeasers. Naturally, the
self-righteous squawk of the neocons, attacking the UN and ¡°Old Europe,¡±
dominated headlines and sound-bites across the subservient corporate media.
Obviously, the UN¡¯s rubber stamp is not large enough.

Instead of concentrating on the criminal nature of the sanctions, we are
subjected to neocon recrimination and the accusations of a former central
banker, Paul Volker, who heads an ¡°independent¡± commission tasked with
investigating the Oil for Food scandal. ¡°More than 2,000 firms that
participated in the UN¡¯s oil-for-food programme were involved in bribes and
kickbacks to Saddam Hussein¡¯s regime,¡± reports the Guardian. Of course,
this should not be surprising¡ªbribes and kickbacks are business as usual
for many corporations. Even so, former central banker Volker didn¡¯t come
down too hard on these corporations. ¡°The identification of a particular
company in the report does not necessarily mean that that company as opposed
to an agent ¡­ made unauthorised [payments] or even knew about illicit
payments,¡± said Volker. In other words, individuals will be ferreted out
and made to pay for the sins of their employers¡ªonce again, business as
usual.

Instead of taking down multinational corporations, select political
opponents are to be skewered¡ªfor instance British MP George Galloway. ¡°Mr
Galloway was not in the Commons to hear himself compared to Lord Haw-Haw,
the nickname given to the infamous Nazi propagandist and convicted traitor
William Joyce who was hanged in 1946,¡± reports the UK Telegraph, a Brit
neocon newspaper successfully sued by Galloway for fabricated lies against
him. In fact, so eager are Galloway¡¯s enemies to get him¡ªbecause his
sharp-tongued criticisms of the Iraq invasion and occupation are spot
on¡ªDenis MacShane, the former Foreign Office minister, called for a joint
committee of the Commons and the US Congress to grill Galloway and either
send him into the political wilderness or off to the hoosegow.

Meanwhile, understanding well how the United Nations is manipulated by the
United States, Russia has called for the ¡°Independent Inquiry Committee¡±
(so independent it is controlled by a former central banker) to disclose its
sources. Russia figures prominently in Volker¡¯s report¡ªin fact, the
country tops the list¡ªnot surprising since Russia was against the US-UN
sanctions, designed to kill as many Iraqis as possible. ¡°We were in touch
several times with the commission and in a number of cases the documents
they showed us were fake, in particular the signatures of Russian
officials,¡± claimed Russia¡¯s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Siphoning off a billion or so dollars from the Oil for Food program¡ªif
indeed the accusations are true (and at least some of the accusations appear
to be based on forged documents)¡ªpales in comparison to the crimes
committed under the sanctions imposed against Iraq. Bush Senior, Clinton,
and Bush Minor (and the Brit poodle Blair) are responsible for killing well
over a million Iraqis. Of course, this is a minor issue for established
sociopaths and war criminals, for instance Clinton¡¯s Secretary of State
Madeleine Albright, who said: ¡°I think this is a very hard choice [killing
500,000 Iraqi children] but the price¡ªwe think the price is worth it.¡± As
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting explains, this quote¡ªso instrumental in
revealing the mindset of the cold-blooded sociopathic neolib elite¡ªappeared
but once in the corporate press after nine eleven.

Meanwhile, the search criteria ¡°oil for food¡± used on the Google News
Search site produces ¡°about 17,500¡å results.



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