You must have missed Professor Garfield’s summary of the problem at the end:
“A good faith effort to meet basic needs in Iraq would create a better basis to negotiate an end to the Iraq conflict. Instead, every problem is blamed on Saddam. This politicization of the Oil for Food program only delays and weakens our ability to address the urgent humanitarian needs created by this most comprehensive embargo of the 20th century.”
[quote=“spook”]You must have missed Professor Garfield’s summary of the problem at the end:
“A good faith effort to meet basic needs in Iraq would create a better basis to negotiate an end to the Iraq conflict. Instead, every problem is blamed on Saddam. This politicization of the Oil for Food program only delays and weakens our ability to address the urgent humanitarian needs created by this most comprehensive embargo of the 20th century.”[/quote]
No, I saw that last paragraph. Apologies if my post was not clear: I saw it and I fully agree with it. I wish the UN had made a good faith effort to meet basic needs in Iraq, instead of selling out the children of Iraq so that they could go into business with Saddam embezzling the $20 billion (or however much it was that they took). I wish that the Oil for Food program hadn’t become politicized, that TotalFinaElf or whatever other oil companies were involved had not succeeded in applying political pressure on its national government to look the other way when it came to these kind of abuses.
Could any of this have eliminated the corruption completely? I doubt it. Any program responsible for that much money would have had some corruption. But there is no doubt in my mind that if the UN had adopted something closer to (as Garfield put it) “a good faith effort to meet basic needs in Iraq” they could have saved a lot of lives. They may not have that nice condo in Monaco today… but they could have saved a lot of lives.
Yeah, spook… Hobbes is absolutely correct, IMO.
The problem with the Oil-for-Food program was not any “politicization” of it. The problem was simple and outrageous corruption.
There obviously was money being made from the sale of oil under the program. That money, however, was supposed to be applied toward the purchase of food and medicines for the Iraqi people. That it was diverted instead to the bank accounts of certain UN agents and Euro politicians and applied to the construction of new palaces for Saddam is not the fault of the US in any way.
I really do not understand how you can see it any other way.
The other part of the problem besides the fact that the innocent people were callously used as pawns in the confrontation between the U.S. and Saddam Hussein is the true-believer syndrome:
“What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable. How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an imposture, that even after it’s exposed in the bright light of day he still clings to it–indeed, clings to it all the harder?”
–M. Lamar Keene
[color=blue]Led by the True Believer In Chief:[/color]
“And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn’t let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power . . . .”
President George W. Bush, July 2003
The first team of UN Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors arrived in Iraq November 25, with inspections scheduled to start November 27 (2002). . .
Baghdad accepted the new resolution in a November 13 letter to Annan from Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri despite an Iraqi parliament vote the day before to reject the new resolution."
[quote=“spook”] true-believer syndrome:
“What is it that compels a person, past all reason, to believe the unbelievable. How can an otherwise sane individual become so enamored of a fantasy, an imposture, that even after it’s exposed in the bright light of day he still clings to it–indeed, clings to it all the harder?”
–M. Lamar Keene[/quote]
Indeed.
[color=blue]For some perspective…[/color]
I was just reminded of this the other day as I was listening to “Democracy Now” during lunch (I listen to the left-wing radio shows to keep a sense of perspective on things, and also because their show is very convenient to download in the morning 
). Anyway, the host of the show is one of those people you described, spook. She is quite convinced that the US is at the heart of all that is evil in the world. Any facts which do not agree with this view, are quickly dismissed.
She was interviewing, at the time, some State Department official who is working on the Sudan/Darfur crisis. She asked him whether the US should stop selling weapons to Sudan. The State guy explained that (a) there are already enough weapons there to continue the massacres for another 10 years, (b) the US proposed a weapons embargo to the UN Security Council and had it rejected by China and Russia – and that a unilateral embargo would not do much, and © that, notwithstanding (a) and (b), the US actually had taken the unilateral step of establishing a US weapons embargo anyway – as a symbol if nothing else.
You could really hear the disappointment in the interviewer’s voice. 
Oh well… about five minutes later she asked the question again: “Well I know you said that a unilateral embargo wouldn’t work, but shouldn’t the US do it anyway?”
State Dept. guy: “Well Amy, as I mentioned, the US… you know … did that already.”
Interviewer: “Hmm… yes… Because I just think that the US should really take responsibility, if it continues to sell weapons to a country that is committing genocide on its people, don’t you?”
State Dept. guy: “Well yes, as I mentioned… we aren’t selling them weapons. The Chinese and Russians and others are.”
[color=blue]… so don’t be so hard on yourself, spook.[/color]
After many years of listing to people like Amy Goodman, and others I can tell you with confidence, spook, that you are being far too hard on yourself with your true believer quote.
It’s true that your comments generally seem to seek-out and accept the most negative possible motives for any US action. It’s true that many of your posts seem to see conspiracy lurking in every dark corner. But I would not say that you necessarily cling to these fantasies once the light of days is shed upon them – and that failure to change your opinion in the face of facts is really what would make a person a “true believer” (and which is why I say you are not one).
Just a couple pages ago in this thread, for example, you appeared to be trying to argue that the US somehow “forced” Saddam into starving his children by spending their food money on palaces and bribes. However, after reading a couple of additional sources, you had come around, and were posting quotes by Processor Garfield indicating that (a) the sanctions caused very little harm in areas where the UN-Hussein corruption racket did not hold sway, and (b) that is would have been nice if the UN had shown a “good faith effort” to help the Iraqis instead of helping themselves to the trough.
I’d say that a change of heart like that is an admirable example of pragmatic and reasonable thinking. If you think you’ve got true-believer syndrome, I think you need to cheer up a bit and have more faith in yourself. Here’s something that might help… go listen to an episode of Democracy Now (www.democracynow.org). It will show you what the true face of true believer syndrome looks like.
One of the most pernicious “true beliefs” of our time is that the United States is inherently evil and everything it says and does is tainted, despite the facts.
“Democracy Now” is a hotbed of such self-deluded, left-wing “true beliefs.”
The reality is that the United States, like any other society, isn’t as good or virtuous as it thinks it is nor anywhere near as bad as its worst serial critics try to paint it.
The key to navigating such hazardous moral and intellectual waters is to avoid listening to those false prophets who claim pristine, unsullied virtue for themselves and their cause – and blatantly ignore facts otherwise – while claiming absolute and pure evil of their opponents.
[quote=“spook”]One of the most pernicious “true beliefs” of our time is that the United States is inherently evil and everything it says and does is tainted, despite the facts.
“Democracy Now” is a hotbed of such self-deluded, left-wing “true beliefs.”
The reality is that the United States, like any other society, isn’t as good or virtuous as it thinks it is nor anywhere near as bad as its worst serial critics try to paint it.
The key to navigating such hazardous moral and intellectual waters is to avoid listening to those false prophets who claim pristine, unsullied virtue for themselves and their cause – and blatantly ignore facts otherwise – while claiming absolute and pure evil of their opponents.[/quote]
:bravo:
(And yes, I do realize that your comment applies equally well to anyone on the right who makes this claim. Proponents of either extreme who spin pure “good vs. evil” fairy tales are guilty of dangerous drivel. This is not, of course, to say that good or evil are necessarily equally present on both sides of any given debate, but only that the “Star Wars” vision of real-world politics is about as believable as a George Lucas love-scene script.)
Cheers,