Saturday, May 21, 2005
Michelle Malkin: SAGGY SADDAM IN BRIEFS
Michelle Malkin: SAGGY SADDAM IN BRIEFS: "The terribly abused tyrant gets hair dye, example, 'to keep his mane youthful-looking.'
He gets three squares a day, a fluffy pillow, and full-air conditioning. Plus, 'He can exercise in a 4,300-square-foot back yard while razor wire keeps out would-be attackers. He tends a small garden in a nearby courtyard.'
Reports the Post's Gersh Kuntzman:
'It may look pretty basic from these [photos], but Saddam is pretty comfortable in there,' a soldier who has seen the photos told the newspaper. 'Hell, the man's got much more living space than most the GIs out here. You should see the tent I have to share with 30 other guys.'"
He gets three squares a day, a fluffy pillow, and full-air conditioning. Plus, 'He can exercise in a 4,300-square-foot back yard while razor wire keeps out would-be attackers. He tends a small garden in a nearby courtyard.'
Reports the Post's Gersh Kuntzman:
'It may look pretty basic from these [photos], but Saddam is pretty comfortable in there,' a soldier who has seen the photos told the newspaper. 'Hell, the man's got much more living space than most the GIs out here. You should see the tent I have to share with 30 other guys.'"
A Western HeartWell, he's probably not, but he might as well be. Readers of this blog would've already seen how the UN are overspending by at least US$700 billion on their rebuilding. Now that buys roughly 6 million kilograms of cocaine. Only after ingesting that much would I come up with such a stupid statement as this:
Secretary-General Kofi Annan believes congressional proposals to withhold U.S. dues to the United Nations unless certain reforms are enacted would be counter-productive and hinder his ability to bring about changes, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.
Republicans on the House International Relations Committee on Thursday circulated preliminary proposals for a measure that would cut funding for at least 17 programs, demand reductions in staff for others and seek new U.N. positions, such as a chief operating officer and an "ethics office."
If some of the proposals, like reform of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission, are not enacted, 50 percent of U.S. dues would be withheld.
In the real world, money is earnt, not handed on a plate. Unfortunately, the UN wants to continue to be a waste of finances, without being accountable or responsible. While we've come to expect this, generally speaking when money is on the line, people will actually attempt to keep to their word and/or do what it takes to get the money they want/need.
However the United Nations is a special case - and since they really don't answer to anyone, they can get away with virtually anything. As a result, the Human Rights Commission is able to do as it pleases, passing criticisms of countries that go nowhere, and withholding attacks on the worst human rights offenders because its an organisation littered by countries who don't uphold the very charter the UNHRC is based on.
Is there any doubt that given a tenth of its current budget, it would achieve the same amount? It's more likely to achieve more than less, simply because currently the UNHRC does absolutely nothing of any value. They criticise Cuba virtually every year, and still Cuba won't even let UNHRC inspectors into the country. Cuba laughs this off, as does every nation "censured" by the Human Rights Commission. And with good reason. When an unaccountable, corrupt organisation passes biased resolutions for purely political reasons that have no standing, and aren't taken seriously by the countries that are meant to change as a result of the resolution, you don't achieve anything.
The UN has had years to pass reforms on billions and billions of dollars worth of income. They've done virtually nothing other than ask for money. If reform will not start from within, then it must be done externally. The Republicans on the House International Relations Committee who are looking at kick-starting these reforms have already done as much as the UN in an effort to reform this twisted group of dictator-appeasing socialists, and thus the UN criticises them for it. They don't want their easy flow of free money threatened. It's as simple as that.
Same old UN, different day.
(Cross-posted to The House Of Wheels.)
Secretary-General Kofi Annan believes congressional proposals to withhold U.S. dues to the United Nations unless certain reforms are enacted would be counter-productive and hinder his ability to bring about changes, a U.N. spokesman said on Friday.
Republicans on the House International Relations Committee on Thursday circulated preliminary proposals for a measure that would cut funding for at least 17 programs, demand reductions in staff for others and seek new U.N. positions, such as a chief operating officer and an "ethics office."
If some of the proposals, like reform of the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission, are not enacted, 50 percent of U.S. dues would be withheld.
In the real world, money is earnt, not handed on a plate. Unfortunately, the UN wants to continue to be a waste of finances, without being accountable or responsible. While we've come to expect this, generally speaking when money is on the line, people will actually attempt to keep to their word and/or do what it takes to get the money they want/need.
However the United Nations is a special case - and since they really don't answer to anyone, they can get away with virtually anything. As a result, the Human Rights Commission is able to do as it pleases, passing criticisms of countries that go nowhere, and withholding attacks on the worst human rights offenders because its an organisation littered by countries who don't uphold the very charter the UNHRC is based on.
Is there any doubt that given a tenth of its current budget, it would achieve the same amount? It's more likely to achieve more than less, simply because currently the UNHRC does absolutely nothing of any value. They criticise Cuba virtually every year, and still Cuba won't even let UNHRC inspectors into the country. Cuba laughs this off, as does every nation "censured" by the Human Rights Commission. And with good reason. When an unaccountable, corrupt organisation passes biased resolutions for purely political reasons that have no standing, and aren't taken seriously by the countries that are meant to change as a result of the resolution, you don't achieve anything.
The UN has had years to pass reforms on billions and billions of dollars worth of income. They've done virtually nothing other than ask for money. If reform will not start from within, then it must be done externally. The Republicans on the House International Relations Committee who are looking at kick-starting these reforms have already done as much as the UN in an effort to reform this twisted group of dictator-appeasing socialists, and thus the UN criticises them for it. They don't want their easy flow of free money threatened. It's as simple as that.
Same old UN, different day.
(Cross-posted to The House Of Wheels.)
IF YOU WANTED TO DESTROY AMERICA... HERE'S HOW, IN EIGHT EASY STEPS
IF YOU WANTED TO DESTROY AMERICA... HERE'S HOW, IN EIGHT EASY STEPS: "The magic formula for doing away with this great nation isn't magic at all. In fact, this eight-step process is as easy as apple pie.
Take it from the former Governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm, who revealed the 'steps' at an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington D.C., attended by some of America's deepest thinkers.
Before Lamm, however, the first speaker, a brilliant professor named Victor Hansen Davis, gave his talk. He discussed his new book 'Mexifornia' which told how immigrants, both legal and illegal, were destroying the entire state of California. He said this wave of immigrants would eventually march across the country until it destroyed all aspects of The American Dream.
Then it was Gov. Lamm's turn. He stood up, walked quietly to the lectern and began to speak. What he said stunned the audience. They sat absolutely spellbound as the ex-governor casually said, 'If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy it. It is not hard to do. If you know how to go about it.'
Then, Lamm went on to reveal the procedure that he said was certain to do the trick. He spelled out the eight simple steps.
'First,' Lamm said, 'I would turn America into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures.
'Second, I would encourage immigrants to maintain their culture and make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal, and that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority.
'Third, I would celebrate diversity rather than unity. I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language. It is important that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America, reinforcing their differences, rather than emphasizing their similarities.
'Fourth, I would make the fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass. They would be unassimilated, uneducated, and antagonistic to our general population.
'Fifth, I would get big foundations and businesses to give these efforts lots of money. I would establish a cult of 'Victimology' by starting a grievance industry blaming all minority failures on the majority population.
'Sixth, to bring down America, I would produce dual citizenships and promote divided loyalties. Celebrate diversity over unity. Stress differences rather than likenesses. Greece had a common language and literature and all worshipped the same God, but Greece fell to the Persians. E. Pluribus Unum - from many, one. If I put emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'unum' I can balkanize America as surely as I'm standing here.
'Seventh, I would place all subject matter off limits---make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of diversity. I would make it impossible to enforce immigration laws. I would have a mantra, It would be this: because immigration has been good for America in the past, it must therefore always be good.
'Last, I would censor Professor Victor Davis's book, 'Mexifornia,' It exposes the dangerous plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book.'
When Gov. Lamm finished speaking he walked quietly back to his seat. There was no applause. There was no whispering or murmuring. The room was still, stunned, shocked. But it was evident that everybody in that room recognized that what Lamm had just said was quietly, darkly and progressively happening across the United States today.
More than 100 languages are tearing apart our education system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures practice strange pagan rituals. American jobs are vanishing. Corporations are creating a Third World America. We have ten million illegal aliens and growing. George Orwell's book '1984' is coming fast to this nation.
Lamm contends that if we don't get this immigration monster stopped soon it will surely destroy The American Dream.
* * * * * *
NOTE: Sincere thanks to Jim Nazzaro for sending me this speech by Gov. Dick Lamm. The full text is too long to use verbatim, but the highlights of his speech are here.
'Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.'"
Take it from the former Governor of Colorado, Dick Lamm, who revealed the 'steps' at an immigration-overpopulation conference in Washington D.C., attended by some of America's deepest thinkers.
Before Lamm, however, the first speaker, a brilliant professor named Victor Hansen Davis, gave his talk. He discussed his new book 'Mexifornia' which told how immigrants, both legal and illegal, were destroying the entire state of California. He said this wave of immigrants would eventually march across the country until it destroyed all aspects of The American Dream.
Then it was Gov. Lamm's turn. He stood up, walked quietly to the lectern and began to speak. What he said stunned the audience. They sat absolutely spellbound as the ex-governor casually said, 'If you believe that America is too smug, too self-satisfied, too rich, then let's destroy it. It is not hard to do. If you know how to go about it.'
Then, Lamm went on to reveal the procedure that he said was certain to do the trick. He spelled out the eight simple steps.
'First,' Lamm said, 'I would turn America into a multi-lingual and multi-cultural country. History shows that no nation can survive the tension, conflict, and antagonism of two or more competing languages and cultures.
'Second, I would encourage immigrants to maintain their culture and make it an article of belief that all cultures are equal, and that the Black and Hispanic dropout rates are due to prejudice and discrimination by the majority.
'Third, I would celebrate diversity rather than unity. I would encourage all immigrants to keep their own language. It is important that we have various cultural sub-groups living in America, reinforcing their differences, rather than emphasizing their similarities.
'Fourth, I would make the fastest growing demographic group the least educated. I would add a second underclass. They would be unassimilated, uneducated, and antagonistic to our general population.
'Fifth, I would get big foundations and businesses to give these efforts lots of money. I would establish a cult of 'Victimology' by starting a grievance industry blaming all minority failures on the majority population.
'Sixth, to bring down America, I would produce dual citizenships and promote divided loyalties. Celebrate diversity over unity. Stress differences rather than likenesses. Greece had a common language and literature and all worshipped the same God, but Greece fell to the Persians. E. Pluribus Unum - from many, one. If I put emphasis on the 'pluribus' instead of the 'unum' I can balkanize America as surely as I'm standing here.
'Seventh, I would place all subject matter off limits---make it taboo to talk about anything against the cult of diversity. I would make it impossible to enforce immigration laws. I would have a mantra, It would be this: because immigration has been good for America in the past, it must therefore always be good.
'Last, I would censor Professor Victor Davis's book, 'Mexifornia,' It exposes the dangerous plan to destroy America. If you feel America deserves to be destroyed, don't read that book.'
When Gov. Lamm finished speaking he walked quietly back to his seat. There was no applause. There was no whispering or murmuring. The room was still, stunned, shocked. But it was evident that everybody in that room recognized that what Lamm had just said was quietly, darkly and progressively happening across the United States today.
More than 100 languages are tearing apart our education system and national cohesiveness. Barbaric cultures practice strange pagan rituals. American jobs are vanishing. Corporations are creating a Third World America. We have ten million illegal aliens and growing. George Orwell's book '1984' is coming fast to this nation.
Lamm contends that if we don't get this immigration monster stopped soon it will surely destroy The American Dream.
* * * * * *
NOTE: Sincere thanks to Jim Nazzaro for sending me this speech by Gov. Dick Lamm. The full text is too long to use verbatim, but the highlights of his speech are here.
'Published originally at EtherZone.com : republication allowed with this notice and hyperlink intact.'"
Saddam's Business Partners
Saddam's Business Partners
WHEN UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan quipped several years ago that he could "do business" with Saddam Hussein, he meant it figuratively. In light of the substantive charges coming out of the ever-expanding Oil-for-Food scandal, the throwaway line seems revealing or at least ironic.
"I think we have to take him literally," says Republican senator Norm Coleman, who is leading one of eight investigations into the corruption and mismanagement of the U.N.'s largest-ever humanitarian relief effort.
The basic outline of the scandal is simple: Saddam Hussein used the Oil-for-Food program to circumvent U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf war and to enrich himself and his allies. He did this by bribing leading journalists and diplomats and demanding kickbacks from those who profited from selling Iraqi oil. That he was able to do so indicates at least that the U.N. badly mismanaged the program it set up in December 1996. None of this is particularly astonishing. No one is surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein cheats, that politicians take bribes, and that the competence level of the U.N. bureaucracy is, well, suboptimal.
Nevertheless, the details of the Oil-for-Food scandal--who participated, and what they apparently did--are jaw-dropping. Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, appears to have accepted millions of dollars in oil-soaked bribes from Saddam Hussein. The same appears to be true of the former interior minister of France, Charles Pasqua, a close friend of President Jacques Chirac. And the same appears to be true of three high-ranking U.N. executives including Benon Sevan, handpicked by Kofi Annan to administer the Oil-for-Food program. Oil-for-Food money even went to terrorist organizations supported by the Iraqi regime and, according to U.S. investigators, might be funding the insurgency today.
Through seven years' worth of deals that should never have been made, compromises that should never have been struck, and concessions that should never have been granted, Oil-for-Food strengthened Saddam Hussein. What we know about all of this now is a fraction of what will eventually be uncovered. But even this limited understanding should mean an end to Kofi Annan's term as secretary general. The sad history of U.N. incompetence on Iraq generally and in the Oil-for-Food program specifically is enough to make you wonder why George W. Bush settled for John Bolton rather than, say, John Rocker to push for reform at the world body.
AMONG THE MANY BIZARRE ASPECTS of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program is its premise: If we, the international community, allow Saddam Hussein to take in more money by selling oil, we can end the suffering of the Iraqi people even while maintaining U.N. sanctions.
Saddam Hussein argued that Iraqis were dying because the sanctions deprived him of the money to save them. And while there is little doubt that the sanctions left Iraqis much poorer than they were before the Gulf war--annual incomes dropped nearly to a third of what they had been in 1990--it was less clear that Saddam Hussein was similarly destitute.
"Saddam's family profits from covert sales of Iraqi oil and dominance of the black market, where many of the donated medicines and food end up," said then-CIA director John Deutch in public testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 25, 1996. "Iraqi government funds are used to maintain lavish lifestyles. Baghdad, for example, has begun working on 48 new palaces and VIP residences during the past five years, increasing the total number of estates available to Saddam Hussein to at least 78."
Iraqis were dying because Saddam Hussein was killing them. He was actively killing them, Deutch said, by executing his political opponents and by draining the marshes of central Iraq that provided sustenance to hundreds of thousands of Shiites. And he was passively killing them by refusing to cooperate with U.N. inspectors and stealing food and medicine intended to ease their suffering.
None of this mattered to France and Russia, Hussein's chief backers on the Security Council. From virtually the beginning, they wanted the sanctions to end so that they could resume their robust, pre-Gulf war business with the Iraqi government. But Hussein made their argument difficult. For the first five years after the 1991 cease-fire, he had continually violated its terms. He had failed to account for his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He had not cooperated fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. He had smuggled oil out of his country for sale on the black market. He had harbored a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush. He had amassed troops on the Kuwaiti border, threatening a new attack. And he had dispatched 40,000 Iraqi soldiers to attack the Kurds in northern Iraq.
The United States and Britain, Hussein's chief opponents on the Security Council, wanted to maintain the sanctions. But by the mid-1990s it had become clear that Hussein was winning the public relations battle. Much of the world blamed the Americans and the British for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Clinton administration wanted a compromise.
In April 1995, as U.N. inspectors traversed Iraq looking for proscribed weapons that Saddam was to have destroyed, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a proposal that would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months. The deal would be renewed after rigorous inspections by the Security Council to ensure that Hussein wasn't cheating. The money would go into an escrow account operated under U.N. scrutiny. Some of it would be used to compensate Kuwaiti victims of the Gulf war. Some of it would cover the cost of the U.N. weapons inspections. The bulk of the money, however, would go to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people under the U.N. sanctions. Of the $2 billion Iraq would earn from oil sales, approximately $1.3 billion would be spent on food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods. The money would be distributed from the escrow account to vendors across the globe, again with significant input from Saddam Hussein.
Iraq rejected the proposal as a violation of its sovereignty, as it had once before. The real reason was less high-minded: Hussein needed Iraqis to keep dying. He rightly interpreted as weakness the eagerness of the United States and others on the Security Council to ease the sanctions on his regime. Hussein "understood that if he exercised the option of exporting oil under the condition that only humanitarian aid could be delivered, then it would relieve the pressure on the [Security] Council to lift sanctions in their entirety," Charles Duelfer, a CIA special adviser on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, told a Senate panel last fall. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was the U.N. secretary general at the time, shrugged off Iraq's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors and promised Hussein that the new proposal would be a "first step toward the total lifting of the sanctions against Iraq."
When Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan on August 8, 1995, he effectively ended any hope for the total lifting of sanctions. Kamel, the nephew of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was a senior regime official with responsibility for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. He revealed the elaborate schemes Hussein had put in place to hide his programs from U.N. inspectors. The Iraqi regime, not knowing what Kamel had disclosed to U.N. officials, was forced to admit a far greater level of WMD production and sophistication than had been known. The French and Russians, who had offered praise for the regime's alleged cooperation, were silenced. The drive to end sanctions was finished, or rather stalled.
Five months later, in December 1995, a U.N. agency known as the Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study that estimated 567,000 children had died as a result of the sanctions. The authors noted the seeming contradiction between the determination of U.N. humanitarian agencies to alleviate suffering and the efforts of the U.N. Security Council to enforce sanctions. The embargo, they concluded, threatened to undermine "the moral, financial, and political standing of the international community."
Another study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that some 4,500 Iraqi children were dying each month from disease and starvation, and a third U.N. study, this one by the U.N. World Food Program, determined that approximately 180,000 Iraqi children under five were suffering from malnutrition. The pressure had returned.
The details of a U.N.-supervised program allowing Hussein to sell more oil in order to better provide for his people were debated for another year, with U.N. negotiators, encouraged by France and Russia, acceding to Hussein's many demands. One concession, little noticed at the time, was a provision that would allow Hussein to choose who bought and sold his oil, pending approval by the U.N. On December 10, 1996, the deal was struck.
"This is a victory for the poorest of the poor of Iraq, for the women, the children, the sick, and the disabled," said a very pleased Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.N. chief was not the only one who was happy. A triumphant Saddam Hussein traveled to oil-rich Kirkuk for a photo-op, where he smiled broadly as he opened a ceremonial spigot. Iraq held a nationwide celebration to mark the occasion.
Asked by a reporter about the likelihood that Hussein could circumvent or manipulate the restrictions, deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Edward Gnehm was dubious. "We designed our resolution for a cheater," he explained. "We know him. We know him well."
Looking at that formulation now--"we designed our resolution for a cheater"--Gnehm seems positively prophetic.
Whatever the intentions of its planners, the Oil-for-Food program actually worked like this: Iraq designated certain individuals or entities as potential purchasers of Iraqi oil. It gave them oil "allocations" or "vouchers" (not foreseen in the program as designed by the U.N.), which they could either use to purchase oil themselves or sell to third parties. Because the regime severely limited the number of recipients of these allocations, the recipients were able to resell the oil after attaching a surcharge--usually between 3 and 30 cents a barrel. Sales were usually a minimum of 1 million barrels, so the profits from the surcharges were significant.
Beginning in 1998, Hussein began to shift his allocations from oil companies to politicians, journalists, and terrorist groups. Mark Greenblatt, a lead investigator for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, described it this way. "His plan was simple. Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, he gave allocations to foreign officials, journalists, even hostile terrorist entities, who then flipped their oil allocations to traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission. In doing so, Saddam could give a foreign official or a journalist hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever paying a dime."
Officials at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime--including Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rashid--chose the recipients.
The U.N. did not see any of this until the traditional oil companies contracted with Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, known as SOMO. (One notable exception to this U.N. ignorance appears to have been Benon Sevan, the administrator of Oil-for-Food, who knew about the illegal allocations because he personally was receiving some. More on that later.) The Iraqis, however, kept scrupulous records of each step in their bribery scheme.
On September 1, 2000, at the direction of Saddam Hussein, SOMO began demanding a "surcharge" from each purchaser of Iraqi oil. According to the Coleman-Levin investigation, these surcharges ranged from 10 to 30 cents per barrel and were paid directly to the Iraqi regime, often through another party who, of course, took a cut. The scheme worked for two years until the United States and Britain insisted that it end. By that time, however, Hussein had made profits of nearly $230 million outside of the U.N. process, in one of several illegal mechanisms he devised to enrich himself.
Over roughly the same period, according to the Duelfer report, the Iraqi regime increased exponentially its spending on the country's Military Industrial Commission--from $7.8 million in 1998 to $500 million in 2003.
It is true that much of Iraq's illicit funding during the period of the Oil-for-Food program came from ordinary oil smuggling unrelated to the U.N. But the improvements to the oil production processes that allowed Iraq to produce and distribute oil legally also helped the illegal oil trade. The Duelfer Report estimates that Iraq's oil-smuggling profits from 1996-2003 were nearly triple those of the previous five years.
AT A SENATE HEARING LAST TUESDAY, the Coleman-Levin investigators highlighted the bribes the Iraqi regime paid to foreign officials from Britain, Russia, and France. The dramatic testimony of British member of parliament George Galloway, who unconvincingly denied knowledge of any Iraqi oil transactions, garnered most of the headlines. But Galloway is a well-known apologist for Saddam Hussein, and as a propagandist for the regime he was rather ineffective.
Two other men under investigation by the Coleman-Levin committee, however, were close advisers to the two chief opponents of the Iraq war--Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin.
One Coleman-Levin report concerns former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, who is described as a "long-time friend and political ally" of Chirac. The report says Pasqua "was a vocal supporter of restoring economic ties with the Hussein regime" as interior minister and charges him with receiving allocations for 11 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Pasqua has denied any involvement.
A second report focuses on oil allocations to the Russian Presidential Council. "Russia topped the list of nations from whom the Hussein regime wanted support at the Security Council. As a result, the Hussein regime granted allocations to Russian individuals, political parties, and others due to their good relationship with Iraq and their support for the lifting of sanctions. . . . The scale of the oil allocations given to Russian individuals and political parties was substantial, totaling approximately 30 percent of all the oil allocated during the course of the program."
Many of these allocations went to the Unity party, a predecessor of the Unified Russia party, which currently holds 37 percent of the seats in the Russian Duma. The report describes it as "a pro-Kremlin party associated with Russian president Vladimir Putin." In a prison interview last month with Senate investigators, Tariq Aziz said the Unity party was chosen for the allocations "because Russia was taking positions at the Security Council that were favorable to Iraq."
Alexander Voloshin was the head of the Russian Presidential Council and, until his resignation in 2003, the top adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He has been called the Russian Karl Rove for his close relationship to Putin, and, according to the Coleman-Levin report, "there is little debate over the magnitude of Mr. Voloshin's influence in Russian government during the Oil-for-Food Program." In all, the Russian Presidential Council is alleged to have received allocations for 90 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Another well-known but less influential Russian politician, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also received oil allocations under Oil-for-Food, good for more than 70 million barrels.
The Coleman-Levin reports base their conclusions on a wide variety of evidence including documents from the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the State Oil Marketing Organization that record the transactions in detail. Investigators also conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi officials, including Aziz and Ramadan, who supported and in many cases expanded upon the documentation.
In early June, the Coleman-Levin committee will make available a similar report on the Iraqi regime's funding of terrorist entities. They will lay out a case study of the allocations provided to the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a terrorist group Hussein funded to conduct operations against Iran. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, described some of the work the MEK did for Hussein in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Osama bin Laden "may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK)," Scheuer writes. "The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre were also then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda."
THAT THE U.N. WAS APPARENTLY CLUELESS as this scheme unfolded is bad enough. What's worse, though, is that several high-ranking U.N. officials appear to have been involved in the illegality. Court documents related to the prosecution of Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in the Oil-for-Food scandal, refer to Vincent's meetings with U.N. officials. Vincent was acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq when he "and other individuals, including United Nations officials, met in Manhattan in an effort to secure terms favorable to the Government of Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of Resolution 986"--the resolution that created the Oil-for-Food program. Vincent is now cooperating with prosecutors.
And last month, a criminal complaint against South Korean Tongsun Park, who also acted on Hussein's behalf, mentions "U.N. Official #1" and "U.N. Official #2" as recipients of bribes from the former Iraqi regime. The two officials remain unnamed. Many news articles have pointed out that Park is a longtime friend of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and a business associate of Maurice Strong, an adviser to Kofi Annan who currently serves as the U.N. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.
So has Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son. The younger Annan was consulting for the Swiss firm Cotecna while the firm was bidding to win a contract to monitor the Oil-for-Food program. Cotecna won the contract on December 31, 1998, the same day Kojo Annan's consultancy ended. Cotecna continued to pay Kojo some $2,500 per month as part of a "non-compete" clause. The payments continued until February 2004. Both Annans and Cotecna contend that Kojo's work had nothing to do with Oil-for-Food.
The same cannot be said for Benon Sevan, since he is the man Kofi Annan handpicked to run the Oil-for-Food program. According to an interim report from the Oil-for-Food investigation commissioned by the U.N. itself, Sevan "repeatedly solicited" oil allocations worth about $1 million for a company called African Middle East Petroleum. Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.N.-backed investigation, said, "The Iraqi government, in providing such allocations, certainly thought they were buying influence."
Volcker added: "Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict-of-interest situation that violated explicit U.N. rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant."
I visited Norm Coleman in his Senate office last Wednesday. He spoke in measured terms until I asked him about Benon Sevan. "The first Volcker report concludes with a summary that this is a conflict of interest. It wasn't a conflict of interest. Sevan lied to investigators. Sevan lies. He lied to us about money that he has publicly declared. He lied to investigators. He lied about his relationship with a person who ultimately got the contract for the oil. We then get documentation that in fact Sevan lobbied for this guy to get Iraqi oil for his company. That's probable cause that he has committed a crime. And yet it was characterized as a conflict of interest?"
Coleman races through his list of grievances until that last sentence, at which point he pauses between each word. Conflict . . . of . . . interest? He shakes his head in disbelief, and then he's off again.
"That's not a conflict of interest. Sevan should be available--he shouldn't have immunity. I'm kind of on a rant here, but Sevan--up until we raised the issue, the U.N. was paying his legal fees. With Oil-for-Food money! Here's a guy who has lied to investigators--probable cause to believe he has committed a crime--and Kofi was going to pay his legal fees until we raised the issue!"
In recent weeks, the Volcker committee itself has come under scrutiny after two of its top investigators, former FBI agent Robert Parton and his deputy, Miranda Duncan, quit the probe. The Volcker committee originally explained their departures by claiming simply that the pair had finished their work. Shortly thereafter, the committee cited "personal reasons." Eventually, the truth emerged. Both Parton and Duncan believed that the Volcker committee's report on Kofi and Kojo Annan was too forgiving of the U.N. secretary general. In the days since, Parton has accused the Volcker committee of violating the confidentiality agreement it had with a witness, and that witness himself has accused the Annans of witness tampering.
Is it any wonder that Coleman wants to investigate whether Kofi Annan was--quite literally--doing business with Saddam Hussein?
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
WHEN UNITED NATIONS SECRETARY GENERAL Kofi Annan quipped several years ago that he could "do business" with Saddam Hussein, he meant it figuratively. In light of the substantive charges coming out of the ever-expanding Oil-for-Food scandal, the throwaway line seems revealing or at least ironic.
"I think we have to take him literally," says Republican senator Norm Coleman, who is leading one of eight investigations into the corruption and mismanagement of the U.N.'s largest-ever humanitarian relief effort.
The basic outline of the scandal is simple: Saddam Hussein used the Oil-for-Food program to circumvent U.N. sanctions imposed after the Gulf war and to enrich himself and his allies. He did this by bribing leading journalists and diplomats and demanding kickbacks from those who profited from selling Iraqi oil. That he was able to do so indicates at least that the U.N. badly mismanaged the program it set up in December 1996. None of this is particularly astonishing. No one is surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein cheats, that politicians take bribes, and that the competence level of the U.N. bureaucracy is, well, suboptimal.
Nevertheless, the details of the Oil-for-Food scandal--who participated, and what they apparently did--are jaw-dropping. Vladimir Putin's chief of staff, Alexander Voloshin, appears to have accepted millions of dollars in oil-soaked bribes from Saddam Hussein. The same appears to be true of the former interior minister of France, Charles Pasqua, a close friend of President Jacques Chirac. And the same appears to be true of three high-ranking U.N. executives including Benon Sevan, handpicked by Kofi Annan to administer the Oil-for-Food program. Oil-for-Food money even went to terrorist organizations supported by the Iraqi regime and, according to U.S. investigators, might be funding the insurgency today.
Through seven years' worth of deals that should never have been made, compromises that should never have been struck, and concessions that should never have been granted, Oil-for-Food strengthened Saddam Hussein. What we know about all of this now is a fraction of what will eventually be uncovered. But even this limited understanding should mean an end to Kofi Annan's term as secretary general. The sad history of U.N. incompetence on Iraq generally and in the Oil-for-Food program specifically is enough to make you wonder why George W. Bush settled for John Bolton rather than, say, John Rocker to push for reform at the world body.
AMONG THE MANY BIZARRE ASPECTS of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program is its premise: If we, the international community, allow Saddam Hussein to take in more money by selling oil, we can end the suffering of the Iraqi people even while maintaining U.N. sanctions.
Saddam Hussein argued that Iraqis were dying because the sanctions deprived him of the money to save them. And while there is little doubt that the sanctions left Iraqis much poorer than they were before the Gulf war--annual incomes dropped nearly to a third of what they had been in 1990--it was less clear that Saddam Hussein was similarly destitute.
"Saddam's family profits from covert sales of Iraqi oil and dominance of the black market, where many of the donated medicines and food end up," said then-CIA director John Deutch in public testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on September 25, 1996. "Iraqi government funds are used to maintain lavish lifestyles. Baghdad, for example, has begun working on 48 new palaces and VIP residences during the past five years, increasing the total number of estates available to Saddam Hussein to at least 78."
Iraqis were dying because Saddam Hussein was killing them. He was actively killing them, Deutch said, by executing his political opponents and by draining the marshes of central Iraq that provided sustenance to hundreds of thousands of Shiites. And he was passively killing them by refusing to cooperate with U.N. inspectors and stealing food and medicine intended to ease their suffering.
None of this mattered to France and Russia, Hussein's chief backers on the Security Council. From virtually the beginning, they wanted the sanctions to end so that they could resume their robust, pre-Gulf war business with the Iraqi government. But Hussein made their argument difficult. For the first five years after the 1991 cease-fire, he had continually violated its terms. He had failed to account for his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. He had not cooperated fully with U.N. weapons inspectors. He had smuggled oil out of his country for sale on the black market. He had harbored a fugitive from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He had attempted to assassinate President George H.W. Bush. He had amassed troops on the Kuwaiti border, threatening a new attack. And he had dispatched 40,000 Iraqi soldiers to attack the Kurds in northern Iraq.
The United States and Britain, Hussein's chief opponents on the Security Council, wanted to maintain the sanctions. But by the mid-1990s it had become clear that Hussein was winning the public relations battle. Much of the world blamed the Americans and the British for the suffering of the Iraqi people. The Clinton administration wanted a compromise.
In April 1995, as U.N. inspectors traversed Iraq looking for proscribed weapons that Saddam was to have destroyed, the U.N. Security Council unanimously passed a proposal that would allow Iraq to sell $2 billion worth of oil every six months. The deal would be renewed after rigorous inspections by the Security Council to ensure that Hussein wasn't cheating. The money would go into an escrow account operated under U.N. scrutiny. Some of it would be used to compensate Kuwaiti victims of the Gulf war. Some of it would cover the cost of the U.N. weapons inspections. The bulk of the money, however, would go to alleviate the suffering of the Iraqi people under the U.N. sanctions. Of the $2 billion Iraq would earn from oil sales, approximately $1.3 billion would be spent on food, medicine, and other humanitarian goods. The money would be distributed from the escrow account to vendors across the globe, again with significant input from Saddam Hussein.
Iraq rejected the proposal as a violation of its sovereignty, as it had once before. The real reason was less high-minded: Hussein needed Iraqis to keep dying. He rightly interpreted as weakness the eagerness of the United States and others on the Security Council to ease the sanctions on his regime. Hussein "understood that if he exercised the option of exporting oil under the condition that only humanitarian aid could be delivered, then it would relieve the pressure on the [Security] Council to lift sanctions in their entirety," Charles Duelfer, a CIA special adviser on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, told a Senate panel last fall. Boutros Boutros-Ghali, who was the U.N. secretary general at the time, shrugged off Iraq's lack of cooperation with U.N. inspectors and promised Hussein that the new proposal would be a "first step toward the total lifting of the sanctions against Iraq."
When Saddam Hussein's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, defected to Jordan on August 8, 1995, he effectively ended any hope for the total lifting of sanctions. Kamel, the nephew of Ali Hassan al-Majid, better known as "Chemical Ali," was a senior regime official with responsibility for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs. He revealed the elaborate schemes Hussein had put in place to hide his programs from U.N. inspectors. The Iraqi regime, not knowing what Kamel had disclosed to U.N. officials, was forced to admit a far greater level of WMD production and sophistication than had been known. The French and Russians, who had offered praise for the regime's alleged cooperation, were silenced. The drive to end sanctions was finished, or rather stalled.
Five months later, in December 1995, a U.N. agency known as the Food and Agriculture Organization produced a study that estimated 567,000 children had died as a result of the sanctions. The authors noted the seeming contradiction between the determination of U.N. humanitarian agencies to alleviate suffering and the efforts of the U.N. Security Council to enforce sanctions. The embargo, they concluded, threatened to undermine "the moral, financial, and political standing of the international community."
Another study by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) found that some 4,500 Iraqi children were dying each month from disease and starvation, and a third U.N. study, this one by the U.N. World Food Program, determined that approximately 180,000 Iraqi children under five were suffering from malnutrition. The pressure had returned.
The details of a U.N.-supervised program allowing Hussein to sell more oil in order to better provide for his people were debated for another year, with U.N. negotiators, encouraged by France and Russia, acceding to Hussein's many demands. One concession, little noticed at the time, was a provision that would allow Hussein to choose who bought and sold his oil, pending approval by the U.N. On December 10, 1996, the deal was struck.
"This is a victory for the poorest of the poor of Iraq, for the women, the children, the sick, and the disabled," said a very pleased Boutros Boutros-Ghali. The U.N. chief was not the only one who was happy. A triumphant Saddam Hussein traveled to oil-rich Kirkuk for a photo-op, where he smiled broadly as he opened a ceremonial spigot. Iraq held a nationwide celebration to mark the occasion.
Asked by a reporter about the likelihood that Hussein could circumvent or manipulate the restrictions, deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Edward Gnehm was dubious. "We designed our resolution for a cheater," he explained. "We know him. We know him well."
Looking at that formulation now--"we designed our resolution for a cheater"--Gnehm seems positively prophetic.
Whatever the intentions of its planners, the Oil-for-Food program actually worked like this: Iraq designated certain individuals or entities as potential purchasers of Iraqi oil. It gave them oil "allocations" or "vouchers" (not foreseen in the program as designed by the U.N.), which they could either use to purchase oil themselves or sell to third parties. Because the regime severely limited the number of recipients of these allocations, the recipients were able to resell the oil after attaching a surcharge--usually between 3 and 30 cents a barrel. Sales were usually a minimum of 1 million barrels, so the profits from the surcharges were significant.
Beginning in 1998, Hussein began to shift his allocations from oil companies to politicians, journalists, and terrorist groups. Mark Greenblatt, a lead investigator for the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, described it this way. "His plan was simple. Rather than giving allocations to traditional oil purchasers, he gave allocations to foreign officials, journalists, even hostile terrorist entities, who then flipped their oil allocations to traditional oil companies in return for a sizable commission. In doing so, Saddam could give a foreign official or a journalist hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever paying a dime."
Officials at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime--including Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, and Oil Minister Amir Muhammad Rashid--chose the recipients.
The U.N. did not see any of this until the traditional oil companies contracted with Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organization, known as SOMO. (One notable exception to this U.N. ignorance appears to have been Benon Sevan, the administrator of Oil-for-Food, who knew about the illegal allocations because he personally was receiving some. More on that later.) The Iraqis, however, kept scrupulous records of each step in their bribery scheme.
On September 1, 2000, at the direction of Saddam Hussein, SOMO began demanding a "surcharge" from each purchaser of Iraqi oil. According to the Coleman-Levin investigation, these surcharges ranged from 10 to 30 cents per barrel and were paid directly to the Iraqi regime, often through another party who, of course, took a cut. The scheme worked for two years until the United States and Britain insisted that it end. By that time, however, Hussein had made profits of nearly $230 million outside of the U.N. process, in one of several illegal mechanisms he devised to enrich himself.
Over roughly the same period, according to the Duelfer report, the Iraqi regime increased exponentially its spending on the country's Military Industrial Commission--from $7.8 million in 1998 to $500 million in 2003.
It is true that much of Iraq's illicit funding during the period of the Oil-for-Food program came from ordinary oil smuggling unrelated to the U.N. But the improvements to the oil production processes that allowed Iraq to produce and distribute oil legally also helped the illegal oil trade. The Duelfer Report estimates that Iraq's oil-smuggling profits from 1996-2003 were nearly triple those of the previous five years.
AT A SENATE HEARING LAST TUESDAY, the Coleman-Levin investigators highlighted the bribes the Iraqi regime paid to foreign officials from Britain, Russia, and France. The dramatic testimony of British member of parliament George Galloway, who unconvincingly denied knowledge of any Iraqi oil transactions, garnered most of the headlines. But Galloway is a well-known apologist for Saddam Hussein, and as a propagandist for the regime he was rather ineffective.
Two other men under investigation by the Coleman-Levin committee, however, were close advisers to the two chief opponents of the Iraq war--Jacques Chirac and Vladimir Putin.
One Coleman-Levin report concerns former French interior minister Charles Pasqua, who is described as a "long-time friend and political ally" of Chirac. The report says Pasqua "was a vocal supporter of restoring economic ties with the Hussein regime" as interior minister and charges him with receiving allocations for 11 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Pasqua has denied any involvement.
A second report focuses on oil allocations to the Russian Presidential Council. "Russia topped the list of nations from whom the Hussein regime wanted support at the Security Council. As a result, the Hussein regime granted allocations to Russian individuals, political parties, and others due to their good relationship with Iraq and their support for the lifting of sanctions. . . . The scale of the oil allocations given to Russian individuals and political parties was substantial, totaling approximately 30 percent of all the oil allocated during the course of the program."
Many of these allocations went to the Unity party, a predecessor of the Unified Russia party, which currently holds 37 percent of the seats in the Russian Duma. The report describes it as "a pro-Kremlin party associated with Russian president Vladimir Putin." In a prison interview last month with Senate investigators, Tariq Aziz said the Unity party was chosen for the allocations "because Russia was taking positions at the Security Council that were favorable to Iraq."
Alexander Voloshin was the head of the Russian Presidential Council and, until his resignation in 2003, the top adviser to Russian president Vladimir Putin. He has been called the Russian Karl Rove for his close relationship to Putin, and, according to the Coleman-Levin report, "there is little debate over the magnitude of Mr. Voloshin's influence in Russian government during the Oil-for-Food Program." In all, the Russian Presidential Council is alleged to have received allocations for 90 million barrels of Iraqi oil. Another well-known but less influential Russian politician, the ultra-nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, also received oil allocations under Oil-for-Food, good for more than 70 million barrels.
The Coleman-Levin reports base their conclusions on a wide variety of evidence including documents from the Iraqi Oil Ministry and the State Oil Marketing Organization that record the transactions in detail. Investigators also conducted dozens of interviews with senior Iraqi officials, including Aziz and Ramadan, who supported and in many cases expanded upon the documentation.
In early June, the Coleman-Levin committee will make available a similar report on the Iraqi regime's funding of terrorist entities. They will lay out a case study of the allocations provided to the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK), a terrorist group Hussein funded to conduct operations against Iran. Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Osama bin Laden unit and author of Imperial Hubris, described some of the work the MEK did for Hussein in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies' Eyes. Osama bin Laden "may have trained some fighters in Iraq at camps run by Saddam's anti-Iran force, the Mujahedin e-Khalq (MEK)," Scheuer writes. "The first group of bin Laden's fighters is reported to have been sent to MEK camps in June 1998; MEK cadre were also then providing technical and military training for Taliban forces and running the Taliban's anti-Iran propaganda."
THAT THE U.N. WAS APPARENTLY CLUELESS as this scheme unfolded is bad enough. What's worse, though, is that several high-ranking U.N. officials appear to have been involved in the illegality. Court documents related to the prosecution of Samir Vincent, the first American to be charged in the Oil-for-Food scandal, refer to Vincent's meetings with U.N. officials. Vincent was acting as an unregistered agent of the government of Iraq when he "and other individuals, including United Nations officials, met in Manhattan in an effort to secure terms favorable to the Government of Iraq in connection with the adoption and implementation of Resolution 986"--the resolution that created the Oil-for-Food program. Vincent is now cooperating with prosecutors.
And last month, a criminal complaint against South Korean Tongsun Park, who also acted on Hussein's behalf, mentions "U.N. Official #1" and "U.N. Official #2" as recipients of bribes from the former Iraqi regime. The two officials remain unnamed. Many news articles have pointed out that Park is a longtime friend of former U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali and a business associate of Maurice Strong, an adviser to Kofi Annan who currently serves as the U.N. envoy to the six-party talks on North Korea. Both men have denied any wrongdoing.
So has Kojo Annan, Kofi Annan's son. The younger Annan was consulting for the Swiss firm Cotecna while the firm was bidding to win a contract to monitor the Oil-for-Food program. Cotecna won the contract on December 31, 1998, the same day Kojo Annan's consultancy ended. Cotecna continued to pay Kojo some $2,500 per month as part of a "non-compete" clause. The payments continued until February 2004. Both Annans and Cotecna contend that Kojo's work had nothing to do with Oil-for-Food.
The same cannot be said for Benon Sevan, since he is the man Kofi Annan handpicked to run the Oil-for-Food program. According to an interim report from the Oil-for-Food investigation commissioned by the U.N. itself, Sevan "repeatedly solicited" oil allocations worth about $1 million for a company called African Middle East Petroleum. Paul Volcker, chairman of the U.N.-backed investigation, said, "The Iraqi government, in providing such allocations, certainly thought they were buying influence."
Volcker added: "Mr. Sevan placed himself in a grave and continuing conflict-of-interest situation that violated explicit U.N. rules and violated the standards of integrity essential to a high-level international civil servant."
I visited Norm Coleman in his Senate office last Wednesday. He spoke in measured terms until I asked him about Benon Sevan. "The first Volcker report concludes with a summary that this is a conflict of interest. It wasn't a conflict of interest. Sevan lied to investigators. Sevan lies. He lied to us about money that he has publicly declared. He lied to investigators. He lied about his relationship with a person who ultimately got the contract for the oil. We then get documentation that in fact Sevan lobbied for this guy to get Iraqi oil for his company. That's probable cause that he has committed a crime. And yet it was characterized as a conflict of interest?"
Coleman races through his list of grievances until that last sentence, at which point he pauses between each word. Conflict . . . of . . . interest? He shakes his head in disbelief, and then he's off again.
"That's not a conflict of interest. Sevan should be available--he shouldn't have immunity. I'm kind of on a rant here, but Sevan--up until we raised the issue, the U.N. was paying his legal fees. With Oil-for-Food money! Here's a guy who has lied to investigators--probable cause to believe he has committed a crime--and Kofi was going to pay his legal fees until we raised the issue!"
In recent weeks, the Volcker committee itself has come under scrutiny after two of its top investigators, former FBI agent Robert Parton and his deputy, Miranda Duncan, quit the probe. The Volcker committee originally explained their departures by claiming simply that the pair had finished their work. Shortly thereafter, the committee cited "personal reasons." Eventually, the truth emerged. Both Parton and Duncan believed that the Volcker committee's report on Kofi and Kojo Annan was too forgiving of the U.N. secretary general. In the days since, Parton has accused the Volcker committee of violating the confidentiality agreement it had with a witness, and that witness himself has accused the Annans of witness tampering.
Is it any wonder that Coleman wants to investigate whether Kofi Annan was--quite literally--doing business with Saddam Hussein?
Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard.
© Copyright 2005, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
Saddam in his Underwear??
In order to balance the picture of Saddam in his underwerar, the following is presented:
FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Videotape Shows Saddam's Men Torturing Iraqis
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101689,00.html
Complete story here:
Another grisley narative on this Demonic Scum:
How short MSNBC and NewsWEAK's memories are.
FOXNews.com - U.S. & World - Videotape Shows Saddam's Men Torturing Iraqis
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,101689,00.html
Complete story here:
Another grisley narative on this Demonic Scum:
How short MSNBC and NewsWEAK's memories are.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Power Line: Cry Me A River
Power Line: Cry Me A River Saddam's chief lawyer, Ziad al-Khasawneh, said his legal team would sue The Sun because the photos represent "an insult to humanity, Arabs and the Iraqi people."
"It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison, which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures," he said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures."
He said the photos were part "of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations" that included the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and allegations by Newsweek, which were later retracted, about Quran desecration at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
So Saddam will sue the Sun and the Post? Can I volunteer to be on the jury?
Al Jazeera's reaction was puzzling, to say the least:
Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for the Al-Jazeera network, said his network did not show the pictures because it had ethical and professional concerns.
"The photo is demeaning to Iraqis," he said, adding that "from the professional side, it is not news."
It's nice to know that Al Jazeera has "ethical and professional concerns." I hadn't noticed that before, especially when they were showing videos of Westerners having their heads cut off, or photos of captured and dead American soldiers.
"It is clear that the pictures were taken inside the prison, which means that American soldiers have leaked the pictures," he said by telephone from Amman, Jordan. "We will sue the newspaper and everyone who helped in showing these pictures."
He said the photos were part "of a comprehensive war against the Islamic and Arab nations" that included the abuse at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and allegations by Newsweek, which were later retracted, about Quran desecration at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
So Saddam will sue the Sun and the Post? Can I volunteer to be on the jury?
Al Jazeera's reaction was puzzling, to say the least:
Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for the Al-Jazeera network, said his network did not show the pictures because it had ethical and professional concerns.
"The photo is demeaning to Iraqis," he said, adding that "from the professional side, it is not news."
It's nice to know that Al Jazeera has "ethical and professional concerns." I hadn't noticed that before, especially when they were showing videos of Westerners having their heads cut off, or photos of captured and dead American soldiers.
Chrenkoff: "'If this is how liberals support the troops, then could they please f*cking STOP already?'
An American serviceman serving overseas emails CHRENKOFF in the aftermath of the Korangate (or is it Toiletgate?) and the latest scoop by 'The New York Times' about the abuse at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan:
No wonder the rest of the world thinks we�'re the evil ones. We're the ones telling them we are, over and over again. How about a story where the Army Major carries a dying Iraqi kid in his arms, visibly distraught at the carnage those bastards lay on little kids every day? How about a power plant coming on line, or kids going to a new school, or a market with free people shopping, or the 30 attacks that DIDN�'T go off because of the other 99% of interrogations that went according to plan? Nope, it's just those evil, war-mongering, blood-for-oil soldiers, doing what 'everybody knows' they do when no one's looking. With the 'news' coming out of Iraq 100% bad, there's no reason to expect anyone who relies on the media for information to have any positive thoughts on the effort there, no matter what their political standing. Even my family back home is starting to think it's a Vietnam-style 'quagmire'. Al-Qaeda couldn't get better PR service if they paid for it, and the media are providing gladly and free-of-charge!
If this is how liberals support the troops, then could they please f*cking STOP already? Don't tell those of us in the military you 'support the troops', and then spend 110% of your time and print space breaking your necks to paint us all as bloodthirsty criminals because of the acts of a few � all as a thinly-disguised way to grind a political axe with a President with which 90% of the media has a deeply personal beef. It isn't fooling anybody � especially 'the troops'. We're perfectly aware that, to the media, we are expendable pawns in a political chess game, and we resent the hell out the very real damage they do to us every single day. And they wonder why the military votes overwhelmingly Republican as a block? Give me a break!"
Read the whole thing!!!
An American serviceman serving overseas emails CHRENKOFF in the aftermath of the Korangate (or is it Toiletgate?) and the latest scoop by 'The New York Times' about the abuse at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan:
No wonder the rest of the world thinks we�'re the evil ones. We're the ones telling them we are, over and over again. How about a story where the Army Major carries a dying Iraqi kid in his arms, visibly distraught at the carnage those bastards lay on little kids every day? How about a power plant coming on line, or kids going to a new school, or a market with free people shopping, or the 30 attacks that DIDN�'T go off because of the other 99% of interrogations that went according to plan? Nope, it's just those evil, war-mongering, blood-for-oil soldiers, doing what 'everybody knows' they do when no one's looking. With the 'news' coming out of Iraq 100% bad, there's no reason to expect anyone who relies on the media for information to have any positive thoughts on the effort there, no matter what their political standing. Even my family back home is starting to think it's a Vietnam-style 'quagmire'. Al-Qaeda couldn't get better PR service if they paid for it, and the media are providing gladly and free-of-charge!
If this is how liberals support the troops, then could they please f*cking STOP already? Don't tell those of us in the military you 'support the troops', and then spend 110% of your time and print space breaking your necks to paint us all as bloodthirsty criminals because of the acts of a few � all as a thinly-disguised way to grind a political axe with a President with which 90% of the media has a deeply personal beef. It isn't fooling anybody � especially 'the troops'. We're perfectly aware that, to the media, we are expendable pawns in a political chess game, and we resent the hell out the very real damage they do to us every single day. And they wonder why the military votes overwhelmingly Republican as a block? Give me a break!"
Read the whole thing!!!
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle: * * *
"The Islamists insist, 'We kill you for being soft.' Westerners in response feel, 'We are killed because we are not being soft enough.'
And so they riot and kill in Afghanistan over a stupid rumor, and we seek to apologize that it somehow spread.
How truly sad. * * *
Victor Davis Hanson is an amazingly adept writer. He is worthy of serious reading and contemplation.
"The Islamists insist, 'We kill you for being soft.' Westerners in response feel, 'We are killed because we are not being soft enough.'
And so they riot and kill in Afghanistan over a stupid rumor, and we seek to apologize that it somehow spread.
How truly sad. * * *
Victor Davis Hanson is an amazingly adept writer. He is worthy of serious reading and contemplation.
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle: "o we do not dare remind the world that we have nothing to apologize for, given that we have expended lives and treasure in Afghanistan to improve a country that once helped to butcher us. Most of those rioting and killing idolize bin Laden. The problem is not that they are confused, but that they express exactly what they feel — and that is a deep hatred for Western liberalism, manifested on their now sacred day of September 11. We don't say such rude things, not only because it would be stupid politics, but because we don't quite believe them ourselves anymore.
In that sense, we can be as warped as the Afghan rioter. Westerners have their own delusions. We seem to think that our neat gadgets also equate with an ability to refashion human nature or that a fascist abroad needs to know how much we care about his hurt.
There is a sort of arrogance in the liberal West — the handmaiden to our own guilt and self-loathing — that strangely believes we are both to blame for the ills abroad and alone can solve them through handing out money. Almost all of the pathetic rhetoric of al Qaeda — 'colonial exploitation,' 'American hegemony,' or 'blood for oil' — was as imported from the West as were the terrorists' bombs and communications."
In that sense, we can be as warped as the Afghan rioter. Westerners have their own delusions. We seem to think that our neat gadgets also equate with an ability to refashion human nature or that a fascist abroad needs to know how much we care about his hurt.
There is a sort of arrogance in the liberal West — the handmaiden to our own guilt and self-loathing — that strangely believes we are both to blame for the ills abroad and alone can solve them through handing out money. Almost all of the pathetic rhetoric of al Qaeda — 'colonial exploitation,' 'American hegemony,' or 'blood for oil' — was as imported from the West as were the terrorists' bombs and communications."
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle
VDH's Private Papers::Our Two-Front Struggle: "Note also after the riots how few Americans announced their immediate scorn for silly rumors about our own POW center in a time of war — especially when it is housing Afghan terrorists who helped kill 3,000 of our own innocents. Can one imagine fundamentalists in the Bible Belt rioting and shooting should they hear an unfounded rumor that an American prisoner in Riyadh, charged with complicity in killing thousands of Arabs, found his Old Testament trashed by a Saudi guard — or a Saudi official promising to apologize to the Western world should a miscreant guard be culpable?"
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Power Line: As I sit here drinking a Diet-Pepsi
Power Line: As I sit here drinking a Diet-Pepsi: "As I sit here drinking a Diet-Pepsi
I'm wondering, why should I drink something that tastes this bad after PepsiCo president Indra Nooyi's speech at Columbia. Americans are dying every day bringing freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan, and killing terrorists who target much of the world to which Nooyi thinks we are giving 'the finger.'
Does Diet Coke really taste that much worse than Diet Pepsi? If Donald Sensing, who actually likes the drink, is considering a boycott, so should I."
I'm wondering, why should I drink something that tastes this bad after PepsiCo president Indra Nooyi's speech at Columbia. Americans are dying every day bringing freedom to Iraq and Afghanistan, and killing terrorists who target much of the world to which Nooyi thinks we are giving 'the finger.'
Does Diet Coke really taste that much worse than Diet Pepsi? If Donald Sensing, who actually likes the drink, is considering a boycott, so should I."
Ann Coulter: Newsweek dissembled, Muslims dismembered!
Ann Coulter: Newsweek dissembled, Muslims dismembered!: "No matter how I look at it, I can't grasp the editorial judgment that kills Isikoff's stories about a sitting president molesting the help and obstructing justice, while running Isikoff's not particularly newsworthy (or well-sourced) story about Americans desecrating a Quran at Guantanamo.
Even if it were true, why not sit on it? There are a lot of reasons the media withhold even true facts from readers. These include:
* A drama queen nitwit exclaimed she'd kill herself. (Evan Thomas' reason for holding the Lewinsky story.)
* The need for 'more independent reporting.' (Newsweek President Richard Smith explaining why Newsweek sat on the Lewinsky story even though the magazine had Lewinsky on tape describing the affair.)
* 'We were in Havana.' (ABC president David Westin explaining why 'Nightline' held the Lewinsky story.)
* Unavailable for comment. (Michael Oreskes, New York Times Washington bureau chief, in response to why, the day The Washington Post ran the Lewinsky story, the Times ran a staged photo of Clinton meeting with the Israeli president on its front page.)
* Protecting the privacy of an alleged rape victim even when the accusation turns out to be false.
* Protecting an accused rapist even when the accusation turns out to be true if the perp is a Democratic president most journalists voted for.
* Protecting a reporter's source.
How about the media adding to the list of reasons not to run a news item: 'Protecting the national interest'? If journalists don't like the ring of that, how about this one: 'Protecting ourselves before the American people rise up and lynch us for our relentless anti-American stories.'"
Even if it were true, why not sit on it? There are a lot of reasons the media withhold even true facts from readers. These include:
* A drama queen nitwit exclaimed she'd kill herself. (Evan Thomas' reason for holding the Lewinsky story.)
* The need for 'more independent reporting.' (Newsweek President Richard Smith explaining why Newsweek sat on the Lewinsky story even though the magazine had Lewinsky on tape describing the affair.)
* 'We were in Havana.' (ABC president David Westin explaining why 'Nightline' held the Lewinsky story.)
* Unavailable for comment. (Michael Oreskes, New York Times Washington bureau chief, in response to why, the day The Washington Post ran the Lewinsky story, the Times ran a staged photo of Clinton meeting with the Israeli president on its front page.)
* Protecting the privacy of an alleged rape victim even when the accusation turns out to be false.
* Protecting an accused rapist even when the accusation turns out to be true if the perp is a Democratic president most journalists voted for.
* Protecting a reporter's source.
How about the media adding to the list of reasons not to run a news item: 'Protecting the national interest'? If journalists don't like the ring of that, how about this one: 'Protecting ourselves before the American people rise up and lynch us for our relentless anti-American stories.'"
Emmett Tyrrell: Galloway's comic relief
Emmett Tyrrell: Galloway's comic relief: " The reason Galloway is not credible is that Levin's committee has documents, mounds of documents, linking European officials to profits from the oil-for-food scam that now appears to be the largest case of political graft in history. Saddam used it to arm himself, buy political allies around the world and fund terrorists. Galloway admits that he met repeatedly with Saddam's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz and even with Saddam, twice -- as frequently as did Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Galloway admits puckishly and pointlessly. Galloway does not deny the import of documents showing him working with a Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat, in various deals in Baghdad. He simply denies that he received money from the 20 million barrels of oil documents say he and Zureikat got.
Galloway's buffoonery aside, the evidence now being displayed by our government explains why so many European politicians were so patient with Saddam's numerous breaches of UN resolutions. There was money in it for them personally. Up until the revelations of the oil-for-food scam, I had thought that the Europeans' refusal to attack Saddam was simply another example of European cowardice. There was in the months before the invasion of Iraq no great debate over weapons of mass destruction. There was only the Europeans' feigned claim that we had not exhausted every diplomatic approach to Saddam. He ignored UN resolutions. He rejected international inspections. He acted willfully and with impunity. Yet at the UN, officials refused to take action. Now we know why: There and in many foreign capitals officials were on the take."
Galloway's buffoonery aside, the evidence now being displayed by our government explains why so many European politicians were so patient with Saddam's numerous breaches of UN resolutions. There was money in it for them personally. Up until the revelations of the oil-for-food scam, I had thought that the Europeans' refusal to attack Saddam was simply another example of European cowardice. There was in the months before the invasion of Iraq no great debate over weapons of mass destruction. There was only the Europeans' feigned claim that we had not exhausted every diplomatic approach to Saddam. He ignored UN resolutions. He rejected international inspections. He acted willfully and with impunity. Yet at the UN, officials refused to take action. Now we know why: There and in many foreign capitals officials were on the take."
The New Republic Online: What God Owes Jefferson (1 of 2)
The New Republic Online: What God Owes Jefferson
What God Owes Jefferson
by Alan Wolfe
Excerpts from the book
* * * * * * *
The First Amendment's other clause--the one separating church and state--is another liberal idea without which conservative religion could not exist. Written just two decades after the publication of The Wealth of Nations, the First Amendment essentially created a free market in the salvation of souls. Left without the financial guarantees offered by state monopolies--especially, in the early American Protestant imagination, the decadent and reactionary Catholic Church--congregations would live or die by their own efforts in recruiting members, tithing their purses, and kindling their enthusiasm.
By the time Tocqueville arrived in the 1830s, the pattern had been set. The itinerant preacher, the bewildering variety of new denominations, the determination to evangelize: all took advantage of America's remarkable experiment in church-state separationism to organize on behalf of God. European religion--not only in its Catholic form, but also in its various Calvinist and Episcopal manifestations, burdened by the privileges secured by established churches--withered and, in the opinion of many, died. But American religion, banned from the state, infused the culture. The more it was kept out of politics, the deeper would be its reach into every other area of life.
///////////////////////////////////
eligions that draw too close to politics lose their capacity to innovate. If they receive government money, they become bureaucracies, which is one reason that at least some deeply conservative believers are skeptical of President Bush's talk about faith-based initiatives. If their objective is to get out the vote, they will want an obedient flock, not disputatious otherworldly saints. Their clergy will become more comfortable in the country club than on the street corner; worried about their standing, the status of their capital campaign, and their ties to local business, they will lose their ability to speak to the economically marginalized, from whom conservative religion has always drawn the bulk of its new recruits. (Whatever its commitment to real Darwinism, the Bush administration's unblinking support for social Darwinism ensures that untold numbers of potential conservative Christians will never live to adulthood.) Their churches may grow, to be sure; indeed, they will develop management objectives, best practices, and consumer surveys to ensure their growth. But the resources of the spirit are limited, and the more that goes into committee work, the less there is for God. Evangelicals did well in America not least because they had little or no political power.
What God Owes Jefferson
by Alan Wolfe
Excerpts from the book
* * * * * * *
The First Amendment's other clause--the one separating church and state--is another liberal idea without which conservative religion could not exist. Written just two decades after the publication of The Wealth of Nations, the First Amendment essentially created a free market in the salvation of souls. Left without the financial guarantees offered by state monopolies--especially, in the early American Protestant imagination, the decadent and reactionary Catholic Church--congregations would live or die by their own efforts in recruiting members, tithing their purses, and kindling their enthusiasm.
By the time Tocqueville arrived in the 1830s, the pattern had been set. The itinerant preacher, the bewildering variety of new denominations, the determination to evangelize: all took advantage of America's remarkable experiment in church-state separationism to organize on behalf of God. European religion--not only in its Catholic form, but also in its various Calvinist and Episcopal manifestations, burdened by the privileges secured by established churches--withered and, in the opinion of many, died. But American religion, banned from the state, infused the culture. The more it was kept out of politics, the deeper would be its reach into every other area of life.
///////////////////////////////////
eligions that draw too close to politics lose their capacity to innovate. If they receive government money, they become bureaucracies, which is one reason that at least some deeply conservative believers are skeptical of President Bush's talk about faith-based initiatives. If their objective is to get out the vote, they will want an obedient flock, not disputatious otherworldly saints. Their clergy will become more comfortable in the country club than on the street corner; worried about their standing, the status of their capital campaign, and their ties to local business, they will lose their ability to speak to the economically marginalized, from whom conservative religion has always drawn the bulk of its new recruits. (Whatever its commitment to real Darwinism, the Bush administration's unblinking support for social Darwinism ensures that untold numbers of potential conservative Christians will never live to adulthood.) Their churches may grow, to be sure; indeed, they will develop management objectives, best practices, and consumer surveys to ensure their growth. But the resources of the spirit are limited, and the more that goes into committee work, the less there is for God. Evangelicals did well in America not least because they had little or no political power.
Wednesday, May 18, 2005
iowahawk: Newsweek Lutefisk Story Sparks Fury Across Volatile Midwest
iowahawk: Newsweek Lutefisk Story Sparks Fury Across Volatile Midwest
Newsweek Lutefisk Story Sparks Fury Across Volatile Midwest
Decorah, IA - The debris-strewn streets of this remote Midwestern hamlet remain under a tense 24-hour curfew tonight, following weekend demonstrations by rock- and figurine-throwing Lutheran farm wives that left over 200 people injured and leveled the Whippy Dip dairy freeze. The rioting appeared to be prompted, in part, by a report in Newsweek magazine claiming military guards at Spirit Lake’s notorious Okoboji internment center had flushed lutefisk down prison toilets. Newsweek’s late announcement of a retraction seems to have done little to quell the inflamed passions of Lutheran insurgents in the region, as outbreaks of violent mailbox bashings and cow tippings have been reported from Bowbells, North Dakota to Pekin, Illinois.
Whether the violence was triggered by Newsweek’s report of lutefisk desecration or frustration over chronic shortages of Beanie Babies and Old Style, one thing seems certain – occupying U.S. troops face a steep road to reestablish trust in this tinderbox of ancient hatreds and delicious dairy products. Some analysts say the latest outbreak represents the most vexing challenge to US strategy since its invasion the region three years ago.
“It could be months before we get the area back under control,” said Brigadier Gen. Glen Hastings of the US Army’s Southern Minnesota Command. “We’re hoping the tractor pull and swap meet seasons will help calm down some of the violent elements.”
‘Campground of Evil’
Military efforts to stabilize the violent ethnic Protestantism of the region have had a mixed record of success. U.S. paratroopers first landed along the Iowa/Minnesota border in early 2002 to root out extremist Uff Da militants, followers of the charismatic Lutheran cleric Pastor Duane Gunderson. Despite fears of being bogged down in the harsh Mankato winter, troops encountered little resistance, save sporadic eggings from ill-equipped insurgents atop the grain elevators of local cornlords. U.S. forces achieved swift success, taking as many as 1,500 Lutheran rebels into custody and bringing a momentary measure of stability to what has long been considered a dangerous Scandinavian backwater.
The initial battlefield victories, however, have since proven to be only the beginning of the American struggle here. The subsequent occupation created a number of difficult challenges critics claim were overlooked by the White House’s top Midwest war planners. The tipping point seems to have been a 2004 incident at the now notorious Okoboji.
First constructed as a boredom punishment camp for Midwest dissident youth, the US Military Command converted the sprawling Arnold’s Park / Lake Okoboji area into an internment facility to house insurgent detainees. Almost immediately stories began to surface of prisoner mistreatment, including vivisections, anal probes by extraterrestrial strippers, and blackouts of Viking games.
American military spokesmen initially dismissed the stories, but several news organizations – led by Newsweek – obtained a series of shocking photos of a Texas Army Reservist, Tyffanie Cruddup, laughing as she humiliates a naked inmate by putting a Dallas Cowboys stocking hat on his head.
The photos sent the Lutheran street into riots as far as Rheinlander, Wisconsin, and sent shockwaves throughout the media world. The incident received heavy play on network and cable news, the New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, the Guardian, Packers Illustrated, and was the subject of over a dozen off-Broadway dramas during the 2004 season. For its part, Newsweek ran a record eight consecutive covers on Okoboji, along with a special commemorative November 3 collector’s issue with pull-out humiliation poster.
Luting and Looting
In the wake of the incident, American military spokespeople have taken pains to defend handling of prisoners at Okoboji. A series of new guidelines instruct guards to “respect the rituals and traditions of our valued Lutheran prison guests,” including “dietary needs, Wednesday Nite Bingo, and twice daily viewing of Wheel of Fortune.”
“It is important that we remember that Lutheranism is a religion of peace,” said Army spokesman Maj. Richard Lehrman. “And we need to remember to avoid insensitive behavior and remarks that will cause these peaceful Lutherans to go on another bloody killing rampage.”
Despite officials’ claims of intensified sensitivity, rumors have persisted of continued prisoner abuse at Okoboji, including lutefisk desecration – an especially heinous crime under Lutheran doctrine. Some analysts have viewed the rumors skeptically, pointing to the Uff Da insurgent training manual “How To Lie About Lutefisk Desecration By Infidels.” Still, dozens of news organizations continue to investigate the charges.
In its May 6 “Midwest Quagmire Wire” section, Newsweek appeared to have confirmed the lutefisk rumors. Bylined by Senior Correspondent Michael Isikoff, the magazine cited an unidentified source claiming that Okoboji guards had deliberately flushed an entire batch of the pungent cod-and-lye concoction that prisoners had been aging in a specially prepared commode. “The guard smelled it and thought it was prison burrito night,” the source was quoted as saying.
News of the desecration spread quickly from Iowa to the Dakotas to Minnesota and Wisconsin, fanned by radio soybean reports and Lutheran clerics in fiery pancake breakfast sermons. Soon, enraged farm wives, clad in their traditional sweater vests and Disney jackets, had taken to the streets and begun a wild spree of destruction, overturning hundreds of rusty Blazers and Pontiac Grand Ams and hurling flaming Lladro porcelain figurines. Decorah was particularly hard-hit, as a frenzied throng of ululating Iowa women were seen looting needlepoint geese and rabbit tchotchkes from a Victorian craft shop. In a chilling moment caught on Army night vision cameras, their plus-size leader urges the mob to attack the near-by Pamida.
“Ya, you betcha!” came the chant of her enraged coreligionist.
After battling back the women with volleys of teargas and Land’s End catalogs, a detachment of California reservists finally quelled the riot early Sunday morning, and attended to the injured.
Fake But Not Completely Implausible
As soldiers patrolled the streets of Decorah, Faribault and La Crosse Sunday, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker issued a surprising, terse clarification of the original story, saying that the magazine could “no longer vouch for every detail of the story, including the brand of lye used, the number of soldiers and prisoners present, or possibly whether any of it actually happened.”
Whitaker, however, declined to retract the story, saying that the magazine was “standing behind its essential plausibility.”
“Obviously, if it causes thousands of native gals go on a berserk looting rampage, there’s got to be something believable in there somewhere,” said Whitaker. “Obviously, it’s now up to the Administration and the DoD to disprove these charges, once they finish cleaning up the carnage.”
In a later and terser clarification, Whitaker said that the magazine’s anonymous source could no longer remember whether he had ever been to Iowa, was in the military, or knew how to pronounce ‘lutefisk.’ In a still-later, and yet-terser clarification, Whitaker finally retracted the story after revealing that its anonymous source was Kippy, Michael Isikoff’s imaginary childhood friend.
“This is a really unfortunate accident for everybody,” said Whitaker. “But let’s not forget the real victims here – Newsweek, Mike Isikoff, and especially Kippy.”
While retracting the Okoboji accusations, Whitaker said Newsweek stood by the original article’s final two sentences, “Boo-yah! In your FACE, Chimpy!”
Despite the Newsweek’s humiliating public retraction of the controversial lutefisk abuse charges, tensions remain high across the upper Midwest. Many here discount the retraction as being coerced by White House “crusaders,” and believe that other abuses are being covered up at Okoboji.
“Oh yahh, I tell ya what, dere’s a lotta bad stuff goin’ on in dat outfit over dere,” said a young Decorah cleric who identified himself only as ‘Pastor Doug.’ “I heard dem infidels are switchin’ da prisoner’s Leinies with Schlitz.”
Newsweek Lutefisk Story Sparks Fury Across Volatile Midwest
Decorah, IA - The debris-strewn streets of this remote Midwestern hamlet remain under a tense 24-hour curfew tonight, following weekend demonstrations by rock- and figurine-throwing Lutheran farm wives that left over 200 people injured and leveled the Whippy Dip dairy freeze. The rioting appeared to be prompted, in part, by a report in Newsweek magazine claiming military guards at Spirit Lake’s notorious Okoboji internment center had flushed lutefisk down prison toilets. Newsweek’s late announcement of a retraction seems to have done little to quell the inflamed passions of Lutheran insurgents in the region, as outbreaks of violent mailbox bashings and cow tippings have been reported from Bowbells, North Dakota to Pekin, Illinois.
Whether the violence was triggered by Newsweek’s report of lutefisk desecration or frustration over chronic shortages of Beanie Babies and Old Style, one thing seems certain – occupying U.S. troops face a steep road to reestablish trust in this tinderbox of ancient hatreds and delicious dairy products. Some analysts say the latest outbreak represents the most vexing challenge to US strategy since its invasion the region three years ago.
“It could be months before we get the area back under control,” said Brigadier Gen. Glen Hastings of the US Army’s Southern Minnesota Command. “We’re hoping the tractor pull and swap meet seasons will help calm down some of the violent elements.”
‘Campground of Evil’
Military efforts to stabilize the violent ethnic Protestantism of the region have had a mixed record of success. U.S. paratroopers first landed along the Iowa/Minnesota border in early 2002 to root out extremist Uff Da militants, followers of the charismatic Lutheran cleric Pastor Duane Gunderson. Despite fears of being bogged down in the harsh Mankato winter, troops encountered little resistance, save sporadic eggings from ill-equipped insurgents atop the grain elevators of local cornlords. U.S. forces achieved swift success, taking as many as 1,500 Lutheran rebels into custody and bringing a momentary measure of stability to what has long been considered a dangerous Scandinavian backwater.
The initial battlefield victories, however, have since proven to be only the beginning of the American struggle here. The subsequent occupation created a number of difficult challenges critics claim were overlooked by the White House’s top Midwest war planners. The tipping point seems to have been a 2004 incident at the now notorious Okoboji.
First constructed as a boredom punishment camp for Midwest dissident youth, the US Military Command converted the sprawling Arnold’s Park / Lake Okoboji area into an internment facility to house insurgent detainees. Almost immediately stories began to surface of prisoner mistreatment, including vivisections, anal probes by extraterrestrial strippers, and blackouts of Viking games.
American military spokesmen initially dismissed the stories, but several news organizations – led by Newsweek – obtained a series of shocking photos of a Texas Army Reservist, Tyffanie Cruddup, laughing as she humiliates a naked inmate by putting a Dallas Cowboys stocking hat on his head.
The photos sent the Lutheran street into riots as far as Rheinlander, Wisconsin, and sent shockwaves throughout the media world. The incident received heavy play on network and cable news, the New York Times, Washington Post, Le Monde, the Guardian, Packers Illustrated, and was the subject of over a dozen off-Broadway dramas during the 2004 season. For its part, Newsweek ran a record eight consecutive covers on Okoboji, along with a special commemorative November 3 collector’s issue with pull-out humiliation poster.
Luting and Looting
In the wake of the incident, American military spokespeople have taken pains to defend handling of prisoners at Okoboji. A series of new guidelines instruct guards to “respect the rituals and traditions of our valued Lutheran prison guests,” including “dietary needs, Wednesday Nite Bingo, and twice daily viewing of Wheel of Fortune.”
“It is important that we remember that Lutheranism is a religion of peace,” said Army spokesman Maj. Richard Lehrman. “And we need to remember to avoid insensitive behavior and remarks that will cause these peaceful Lutherans to go on another bloody killing rampage.”
Despite officials’ claims of intensified sensitivity, rumors have persisted of continued prisoner abuse at Okoboji, including lutefisk desecration – an especially heinous crime under Lutheran doctrine. Some analysts have viewed the rumors skeptically, pointing to the Uff Da insurgent training manual “How To Lie About Lutefisk Desecration By Infidels.” Still, dozens of news organizations continue to investigate the charges.
In its May 6 “Midwest Quagmire Wire” section, Newsweek appeared to have confirmed the lutefisk rumors. Bylined by Senior Correspondent Michael Isikoff, the magazine cited an unidentified source claiming that Okoboji guards had deliberately flushed an entire batch of the pungent cod-and-lye concoction that prisoners had been aging in a specially prepared commode. “The guard smelled it and thought it was prison burrito night,” the source was quoted as saying.
News of the desecration spread quickly from Iowa to the Dakotas to Minnesota and Wisconsin, fanned by radio soybean reports and Lutheran clerics in fiery pancake breakfast sermons. Soon, enraged farm wives, clad in their traditional sweater vests and Disney jackets, had taken to the streets and begun a wild spree of destruction, overturning hundreds of rusty Blazers and Pontiac Grand Ams and hurling flaming Lladro porcelain figurines. Decorah was particularly hard-hit, as a frenzied throng of ululating Iowa women were seen looting needlepoint geese and rabbit tchotchkes from a Victorian craft shop. In a chilling moment caught on Army night vision cameras, their plus-size leader urges the mob to attack the near-by Pamida.
“Ya, you betcha!” came the chant of her enraged coreligionist.
After battling back the women with volleys of teargas and Land’s End catalogs, a detachment of California reservists finally quelled the riot early Sunday morning, and attended to the injured.
Fake But Not Completely Implausible
As soldiers patrolled the streets of Decorah, Faribault and La Crosse Sunday, Newsweek Editor Mark Whitaker issued a surprising, terse clarification of the original story, saying that the magazine could “no longer vouch for every detail of the story, including the brand of lye used, the number of soldiers and prisoners present, or possibly whether any of it actually happened.”
Whitaker, however, declined to retract the story, saying that the magazine was “standing behind its essential plausibility.”
“Obviously, if it causes thousands of native gals go on a berserk looting rampage, there’s got to be something believable in there somewhere,” said Whitaker. “Obviously, it’s now up to the Administration and the DoD to disprove these charges, once they finish cleaning up the carnage.”
In a later and terser clarification, Whitaker said that the magazine’s anonymous source could no longer remember whether he had ever been to Iowa, was in the military, or knew how to pronounce ‘lutefisk.’ In a still-later, and yet-terser clarification, Whitaker finally retracted the story after revealing that its anonymous source was Kippy, Michael Isikoff’s imaginary childhood friend.
“This is a really unfortunate accident for everybody,” said Whitaker. “But let’s not forget the real victims here – Newsweek, Mike Isikoff, and especially Kippy.”
While retracting the Okoboji accusations, Whitaker said Newsweek stood by the original article’s final two sentences, “Boo-yah! In your FACE, Chimpy!”
Despite the Newsweek’s humiliating public retraction of the controversial lutefisk abuse charges, tensions remain high across the upper Midwest. Many here discount the retraction as being coerced by White House “crusaders,” and believe that other abuses are being covered up at Okoboji.
“Oh yahh, I tell ya what, dere’s a lotta bad stuff goin’ on in dat outfit over dere,” said a young Decorah cleric who identified himself only as ‘Pastor Doug.’ “I heard dem infidels are switchin’ da prisoner’s Leinies with Schlitz.”
ChronWatch Writers' Blog: "Tom Delay: You May Be Surprised!
'Ever since he was a young man, he and his wife have taken in foster kids. Not just little kids — older kids — sometimes what others call 'dangerous kids.' He gives them a good home and good opportunities and, for many, they go on to form a good life.
He did the same for harassed Jewish families during the height of the Soviet Union. Some he helped secret out.
He forced a Republican president to talk about them, save them and ultimately free them.
At one point, this born-again Christian even helped arrange a Passover Seder for a Jewish family that had never had the privilege.
He's helped minority-owned businesses cut through red tape and have a fighting chance and helped others get the government off their back so they could get on their feet.
He gives a lot to charity, but tells those charities not to say a word about who's the one giving.
He comes from a party that many say is all about the rich, but most of the time he devotes himself to helping the poorest of the poor.
He's given unwed mothers a chance and those from broken homes a hope. You might know him.
His name is Tom DeLay.'
(From the Common Sense segment of Your World With Neil Cavuto, May 16, 2005)"
'Ever since he was a young man, he and his wife have taken in foster kids. Not just little kids — older kids — sometimes what others call 'dangerous kids.' He gives them a good home and good opportunities and, for many, they go on to form a good life.
He did the same for harassed Jewish families during the height of the Soviet Union. Some he helped secret out.
He forced a Republican president to talk about them, save them and ultimately free them.
At one point, this born-again Christian even helped arrange a Passover Seder for a Jewish family that had never had the privilege.
He's helped minority-owned businesses cut through red tape and have a fighting chance and helped others get the government off their back so they could get on their feet.
He gives a lot to charity, but tells those charities not to say a word about who's the one giving.
He comes from a party that many say is all about the rich, but most of the time he devotes himself to helping the poorest of the poor.
He's given unwed mothers a chance and those from broken homes a hope. You might know him.
His name is Tom DeLay.'
(From the Common Sense segment of Your World With Neil Cavuto, May 16, 2005)"
Andrew C. McCarthy on Newsweek & Koran on National Review Online
Andrew C. McCarthy on Newsweek & Koran on National Review Online: "Someone alleges a Koran flushing and what do we do? We expect, accept, and silently tolerate militant Muslim savagery — lots of it. We become the hangin' judge for the imbeciles whose negligence 'triggered' the violence, but offer no judgment about the societal dysfunction that allows this grade of offense to trigger so cataclysmic a reaction. We hop on our high horses having culled from the Left's playbook the most politically correct palaver about the inviolable sanctity of Holy Islamic scripture (and never you mind those verses about annihilating the infidels — the ones being chanted by the killers). "
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