Unaccountable bureaucracies
May 9 - You are probably already aware that a U.S. court granted a
temporary injunction blocking the release of documents to the U.S. Congress.
Henceforth, I shall refer to these documents (or should that be copies of documents) as the Annan Papers.
The NY Times covers the story but seems unaware that the revelations the Annan Papers might contain is information that, for the greater good, should be made public.
So exactly whose lives would be in danger if the only wrongdoing was poor oversight and Benon Sevan's conflict of interest?
One clue may lie in a link from Roger L. Simon to a document on the Pajamas Media Website which is said to be to Paul Volcker from Pierre Mouselli's attorney Adrian Gonzalez-Maltes which protests the treatment his client has received from the International Inquiry Committee.
The letter and accompanying documents (in .pdf) are available for download at the site and make for some verrry interesting reading.
Also, Ron over at Friends of Saddam draws some extremely alarming parallels between the Oil-for-Food Program, the Kyoto Accord, and "The Law of the Sea" and our old friend Maurice Strong appears yet again:
Mr. Volcker's March report on Kofi Annan and Kojo Annan failed to mention that the younger Annan had served on the board of directors of a now-defunct company, Air Harbour Technologies, first alongside the U.N. secretary-general's special adviser, Maurice Strong, and then alongside an adviser for U.N. oil-for-food contractor, Cotecna Inspections...
Maurice Strong's name keeps coming up in various articles. If you remember he is the person who promoted the Kyoto Protocols into existence ... Now a story has arisen about 17,000 scientists saying its based upon "bad" science and its a major Scam. It was signed into law in Canada and has already had cost overruns of $5 Billion Dollars just for starters. Its hard to think of a bigger Scam than "Oil for Food" but the Kyoto Protocols could surpass it easily and could ruin the industrial nations of the western world besides. The same type of scheme is before the Senate for ratification and its called, "Laws of the Sea" and it is a hot item for the Democrats.
The "Law of the Sea" is a UN thing and there are taxing provisions that could give the UN more money than any existing nation now in existence... Maybe we should look at what 17,000 thousand scientists are saying about "Kyoto" because "The Laws of the Sea" is from the same bunch of rascals.
Ron includes information that Bill
wrote last month: the
Friends of Science and their efforts to expose the bogus science of global warning. Their documentary cannot get air time in Canada; read Bill's analysis
here as to how the Canadian government uses regulations to stifle the production of anything that contradicts their policies.
He also has a link from which you can download the documentary.
Sheesh, I've rambled about 2 scandals and one in the making and haven't even mentioned Adscam. Since you're already at Strong World, interested Americans might like to read Bill's explanation of this evening's possible dissolution of Parliament, the procedural arguments, the possible intervention of the Governor-General -- and presents an intriguing option: Queen Elizabeth II may be asked to intervene using her reserve powers ["the final line of defense against tyranny in the Westminster system"] when she visits Canada May 17.
I'm off tonight, so I'll try to catch up on Adscam after some sleep.
May 11 - 04:00 - Sorry, I tossed and turned, then Mark got me up for the vote in Parliament after which I fell asleep and slept through most of the night. That seems to be an unwelcome, new pattern: getting 2-3 hours of sleep for a couple of days, then sleeping 9-11 hours straight on my half-weekends.
8:35 - One more thing: I tried to edit this yesterday when I realized that I had failed to note that Ron had also written about the activities of the Friends of Science but my access to my site was down - probably due to another spam attack. I've fixed that oversight now.
Posted by: Debbye at
01:45 PM
| Comments (5)
| Add Comment
Post contains 681 words, total size 5 kb.
1
Really, when I travel the world, I suffer more jokes because of our ties to the damn Queen.
Speaking of scandals, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-523-1592904-523,00.html
I'm not sure if this qualifies as a scandal on your side of the fence, but the degree of spin that these documents reveal is a bit worrying. Jack Straw said the case for war was "thin" and that "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran".
I expect the conservative response to this would be that apparent harboring of terrorists is enough to effect regime change?
Posted by: Darren at May 10, 2005 04:51 PM (9aklK)
2
Keep digging, not only are you doing Canada a service by bringing down Maurice Strong, but you are helping to save the entire world.
Posted by: Brian Walsh at May 10, 2005 05:06 PM (vAI+5)
3
Darren, I'm a free-born American, and thus don't have to follow any party line. The President had made it clear on numerous occasions what the end goal of OIF was and I supported offering democracy and consensual rule to Iraq and still do.
To respond to your post, regime change was always a goal! Then-PM Chretien himself spoke against it and even travelled to Mexico to enlist Pres. Fox's opposition (Mexico had a seat on the UNSC at the time.)
I can't explain why the British press is only now reporting facts that are over 2 years old over here.
The news article does at least establish that the Iraq War
was a factor in the British elections considering the timing of the article (May 1.)
Look, there were thorough discussions in the U.S. as to why President Bush went through the U.N. before the launch of OIF, and the explanation most settled on was that it was at the behest of Tony Blair, who wanted the U.N. to take leadership in world affairs (tangentially, Tony Blair also supports British approval of the EU Constitution.)
Those discussions took place again when the Kay and Duelfer teams failed to find evidence of WMD in Iraq, and many people renewed their criticisms of that strategy.
There were already alarming suspicions as to the extent to which the Oil-for-Food program had been corrupted - with possible U.N. complicity - even prior to OIF (the Clinton administration had expressed concerns.)
You're worried about media silence? Why hasn't the Volcker Inquiry and the involvement of Canadian Louise Frechette in blocking UNSC access to audits of OFF received more coverage up here? Why hasn't the resignations of two investigators and the legal battle over The Annan Papers been covered more thoroughly?
Lastly, have you even wondered why, if the Bush administration was so adept at lying, they didn't pin Sept. 11 directly on Saddam? Or plant WMD in Iraq?
Posted by: Debbye at May 11, 2005 07:27 AM (FMezS)
4
My concern would be, if I were American, that my government apparently had reason x for invading Iraq, but chose to cite reasons x and y (where the case for y was clearly pretty thing).
I'm guessing the English press is reporting the story because 88 members of Congress want to talk to the President about it. That seems like new news to me.
I didn't indicate in my comment that I'm worried about media silence, but carry on.
Why didn't the Bush administration pin Sept. 11 directly on Saddam? Effectively, they did. I think we can agree that there's been an ongoing strong association in the American media between Sept. 11 and Saddam. I went looking for some polling data on what the average American thinks, but couldn't find any. I'm guessing, if we looked, they'd think that a) Iraq was responsible for 9-11 and b) Saddam was ultimately behind it.
They didn't plant WMDs in Iraq because a) they're not stupid and b) I hope they're not that duplicitous.
Posted by: Darren at May 11, 2005 12:19 PM (9aklK)
5
Darren, Now there was only one reason to go to Iraq? We've had this argument before. Blame the French for the bad WMD intel, because most of our intel on Iraq came from them. I know our intelligence services are screwed up, but that too is old news.
I went looking for some polling data on what the average American thinks, but couldn't find any. I'm guessing, if we looked, they'd think that a) Iraq was responsible for 9-11 and b) Saddam was ultimately behind it.
I am an average American, Darren! and I don't believe Saddam was behind Sept. 11.
Look, we are never going to agree on Iraq, and I'm not going to try to change your views. But if you can't even take my words at their face value, there's no point in pursuing this.
Posted by: Debbye at May 11, 2005 08:45 PM (9AhNq)
Hide Comments
| Add Comment
21kb generated in CPU 0.0137, elapsed 0.095 seconds.
64 queries taking 0.0879 seconds, 147 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
