Original Title: Halliburton’s “misdealings” chump change compared to this
[quote]WASHINGTON
Most people get orgasms by sex, but clearly Fred is truly celebrating some special moment.
Not that I’m challenging this, but what is the source? You’ve set up some dubious links in the past (I remember in particular some Israeli newspapers comments about Islam and terrorism…). Since your quest is to enlighten us on the benevolent quest of the Republican party it would be good to know who you’re quoting.
What dubious links in the past? Be sure and find and paste here any dubious links that I have ever supplied. You must be thinking of Rascal. He is the one with the propensity to post from crackpot sites.
Here is this one. Be sure and see if you can find any flaws. This is getting better by the moment. Soon, all the major leaders of the opposition to the Iraq mission may find themselves targeted for corruption and complicity. Then, oh then, what will our little friends harping on about international law have to say. I cherish the day. hahahaha Yes, I am in a good mood. This is getting very very good. The Clintons, Kofi Annan, the French, the Russians, Saddam, Galloway, et al. all taken down in one fell swoop. What can possibly have put me in such an orgasmic mood sbmoor? what indeed!
Outgoing presidents do this more than you think.
41 several questionable people.
And in fast-breaking news…
[quote]The already ugly United Nations Oil-for-Food scandal has now taken yet another distinctly despicable turn. As The Post’s Niles Lathem reports, local and federal prosecutors believe that Marc Rich
Elegua:
Fair points all if they are in fact as Joe Conason is painting them. I disagree with the pardon of Caspar Weinberger though. If they were going to prosecute someone, it should have been Reagan for setting up the policy not a loyal lieutenant for acting on it. I think Weinberger should have been pardoned but this is a gray area and I am not expecting everyone to agree with me but this THIS is of such mammoth and clearcut proportions that I dare anyone to try to defend this behavior. Look at how all these chips are falling. It is just as we said all along. The UN, the Democrats, the French and Russians were NOT acting with the world’s best interests in mind. What do chumps like Rascal have to say now that the true picture is emerging. And it is not one of Bush trying to mislead anyone. It is of a UN and France that are so corrupt that it rots all the way to the top. Still want to defend these international actors while discussing international law in the same breath. Don’t make me puke. This is of such mammoth proportions it will destroy the UN and I am convinced Chirac will have to be arrested and go to jail when he is out of office in 2007. Anything else is totally unacceptable.
Rereading your article and checking I see that it is not so clear cut. The heroin dealer released to Pakistan was perhaps done so through a deal with the CIA that could hardly be announced. There was evidence of such a deal at the time.
Second, this Bosch would have been killed had he returned to Cuba. He should never have been released but the choice was a commutation or the chance that another administration would release him to Cuba as part of a political deal. Very very gray area. Difficult one to call in this case. And we were NOT fighting terrorism as we have been since 911. Wrong of us but a totally different world. Very gray but I too disagree with this man’s release.
So I see a lot less to Conason’s original argument than originally. Also, Conasan could not possibly kneel for Clinton and suck you know what more than Monica Lewinsky. I challenge you to find one balanced article where Conason has not totally deepthroated Clinton in his writings. The man is embarrassing.
BUT nevermind. This is going to be fantastic. Keep investigating. It just gets better by the day. Oh happy day to see justice meted out to these f***ers. Happy Day!
Soon? May? 
This has been going on ever since the shrub realized that not everybody agreed with his Iraq war.
Where you been?
Nice try Flike:
Sorry but this is a real scandal of epic proportions and just because we all wondered about the corruption in the UN and believed it may account for some of the “opposition” in the UN Security Council provides you with no ammo to fire away now. This is a huge stain on the UN. If something like this had even come close to George Bush, people like you would be squealing like a truckfull of hogs on their way to the slaughter house. Give me a break. And given that we do know who is involved, let’s see what happens when all this evidence comes out. I am very confident that there will be a number of high-ranking world leaders whose concerns over “international law” may lead to a new and greater understanding of how those laws are used to prosecute individuals. Given that 1 million Iraqis may have died because of this corruption, then cannot we argue that those involved in this corruption should be tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, etc. etc. perhaps even genocide? The thought of all this certainly does bring a smile to my face since all these methods are traditionally used by the Left. For them to not use them now will only heap further discredit on a bankrupt philosophy and a group of politically-motivated poseurs.
So again I ask you, given that all the bashers came rushing out even though the allegations against Halliburton were unproved AND could not even be traced anywhere near the White House, what say they then to this case with its massive corruption with names that lead directly to the leadership of France, Russia, the UN and now even the Clintons themselves? Now, perhaps many on the Left will understand the repugnance with which many on the right dealt with the Clintons. Look at this kind of corruption and cronyism that they engaged in (and for which Bush is ironically accused all the time even though he let major donors like Enron, Worldcom and Arthur Andersen swing in the breeze). I would like to point out as well that all these cases also began under the Clinton NOT Bush administration.
Anyway, what do you think? A few more months? I am glad this is being investigated independently by Congress because I would not want the White House to cut some ill-advised deal to shut this investigation down just to get more UN and French and Russian cooperation over Iraq. There will be no sweeping this mess under the rug this time. 2007? Say hello to your new prison cell Mr. Jacques Chirac and take your little asswipe Dominique de Villepin with you as well. The wheels of justice grind slowly but inexorably to their final conclusion. Hurray!
I should only have chump change like they do.
Yeah, I agree.
Somewhere around here, though, I think I remember you going on and on about where’s the outrage, etc.
I’m just saying that, if you remember, all this evidence came about when the neocons let Ahmed Chalabi take out of US possession all the Baath party files to do with what he chose. (this was when shrub still liked Chalabi, but now they aren’t playing well together)
Then, remember, nobody would buy Bush’s reasons for waging war on Iraq, even though he presented twenty or thirty of them.
I don’t think that made George happy.
So now all this Baath stuff - which may very well be 100% true - is being used to discredit many of the very nations who (a) didn’t buy any of those reasons, and (b) we would now die to have helping us in Iraq. I note that you are on board with this stragety, which in some significant ways seems very similar to the well-known nose-spite-face stragety of certain American politicians of yore.
The thing about Bush is that the guy’s motives are always either (a) obviously mixed, like this UN scandal, or (b) really, really poorly explained and/or sold. Christ, Bush can’t sell Iraq any better’n he could sell shares in Harken Energy. His presidential efforts in this direction are just severely retarded, to the point that everybody on the big bad Left - plus a bunch of others, American and not - says yawn when you and the boyz want them to say paybackmofo.
By the way, I caught that pig squealin’ bit.
It is shocking that the commission responsible for overlooking the program failed so miserably; evidently they did a good job making sure the money was not used for WMD, but they didn’t see where else the money went and how much was made in kickbacks to Saddam. I, too, would appreciate an objective investigation without ravenous Republicans just looking for an excuse to bring down the UN. I’m not sure Kofi is directly responsible; he should have had better sense in making sure his brother wasn’t involved, but that’s been an issue with Clinton and Bush. Kofi hired some of those responsible, but that doesn’t mean he was aware of what went on. Was Rumsfeld responsible for Abu Ghraib? An independent report is supposed to come out in January (?) so we’ll see what’s what. Those implicated should definitely be charged since the money Saddam made is now probably being used against US and UK soldiers. A lot of the insurgency is simply poor people being paid to plant bombs or fire off an RPG. The UN will have to be investigated if its credibility is to be maintained. It shouldn’t be used as a partisan issue, however.
I think sbmoor makes a good point in reminding us that corruption can occur on someone
Interesting that some facts about the oil-for-food/medicines program are finally coming out.
Would be great to get some facts on the Halliburton dealings, but the Bush Administration seems to be dragging their heels on this … just as they did with efforts to look into the causes of 9-11. Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire – with the Bushies it’s usually an out-of-control forest fire by the time they allow anybody to take a look.
salon.com/opinion/blumenthal … index.html
[quote]For months the United Nations’ oil-for-food program for Iraq has been a target of conservative media. The U.N. itself has appointed a commission headed by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker to investigate past abuses. With the election over, the administration began its finger-pointing with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who had called the invasion of Iraq “illegal.” News was leaked that Annan’s son had been a consultant to a company involved with the oil-for-food program, though Annan said he knew nothing about it. The outgoing U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Danforth, was sent out to declare that Annan’s resignation was a live issue. The relevant facts about the program were pushed to the side.
James Dobbins, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, wrote in the Washington Post: "American outrage over the diversion of U.N. -supervised Iraqi oil-for-food money seems to miss three salient points.
First, no American funds were stolen.
Second, no U.N. funds were stolen.
Third, the oil-for-food program achieved its two objectives: providing food to the Iraqi people and preventing Saddam Hussein from rebuilding his military threat to the region – and in particular from reconstituting his programs for weapons of mass destruction." But these calm points were far removed from the administration’s objective.[/quote]
[quote="fred smith
In January 2001, in the final hours his presidency, Clinton bypassed law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to wipe the books clean for Rich after being subjected to intense lobbying from former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak and [b]Rich’s jet-setting ex-wife, Denise, who donated more than $1 million to Democratic campaigns
Nice red herring.
No US funds were stolen but 21 billion in Iraqi funds were and 500,000 to 1 million preventable deaths occurred. Therefore I will look with great satisfaction when the Iraqi government sues Banque Paribas for fraud and the French government for complicity in genocide. Ditto for the UN. After all the US was hardly involved to the same extent with Pinochet and his coup and his murder of 3,000 Chilean dissidents and we have whole University depts devoted to this. What about the deaths of 500,000 to 1 million iraqis and the theft of 21 billion dollars? Looks like the UN, France and Russia have a lot to answer for and I cannot wait to see movies and books on the subject by Noam Chomsky and Michael Moorel.
As to Halliburton, nice try but where is your proof that anything you said has occured? Keep watching the UN though and see where this leads. I am confident that this could lead to some very serious reprecussions but it would be nice to have those who claim to “care” like Rascal shouting from the rooftops about these much greater abuses but we know that will never occur because Rascal is a racist, one that obsessively hates america and americans as much as spook hates jews and israelis but that is okay because it is “enlightened” outrage and hatred. Surely Gunther Grass would approve. I think that I will write to him and ask him to survey Rascal’s remarks on these forums as subject matter for his new book. I am sure that he will find the same amused distress that I do.
[quote=“fred smith”]
As to Halliburton, nice try but where is your proof that anything you said has occured? [/quote]
oh oh. fred said the P-word. Now you’re toast. Mind you, fred is too cool to use proof. He don’t need it. He’s the man.
Ah my little friend JB:
What is it about your mental abilities since you returned to California. You argue like a Valley Girl these days. Like how gnarly is that?
First of all, we do have proof that the UN Oil for Food Program allowed Saddam to skim off US$21 billion and we have a list of people who are not in the oil business who got oil contracts from Saddam. We have the UN linked to any number of people that would be a direct conflict of interest. We do know that Marc Rich is at the center of this wheeling and dealing and we do know that Clinton pardoned him for no apparent reason and we do know that his ex wife gave 1.45 million to the Clinton’s. By the way, what is the proof that you have that Halliburton cheated anyone out of anything? We are looking at US$18 million and we have a quote from the US embassy in Kuwait in which it is apparent that the pressure was on Hallliburton to sign onto a deal that the US embassy approved of even though it would enrich a certain Kuwaiti middleman. So stick that in your pipe and smoke it. In the meantime, get ready to see Halliburton and its vindication buried as usual on page 11 of the NY Times but the unfortunate mess involving the UN, the French and Russian leaderships and even the Clintons becoming more and more a part of your dailly reading even in that shit paper the San Francisco Chronicle. Do try to read something else while you are there lest your brain go soft. haha
We will see what we will see but at the end of the day my liittle liberal, it will be me who is laughing long after this UN scandal continues to mushroom and like a whirlpool drags down some very important figures along with it. Wanna bet?
I think it would be useful to see more about what Halliburton has been doing. Now, because I trust that true conservatives understand that a precedent for independent investigations has already been set during the Nixon, Reagan and Clinton administrations, it is about time that we had a full examination of the full Halliburton story. That’s the best way to ensure that Halliburton gets fair treatment and to ensure that politicking doesn’t interfere with questions to which Americans deserve answers.
The smoke has been coming out about Halliburton for a long time now, and so it’s about time we looked to see what sort of “fire” is going on.
The smoke is from “allegations” that the media has beem making for some time. Now, that the election is over, strangely, the interest in Halliburton and these “allegations” is dissipating? Coincidence? Sure. Must be. Strange, too, that all the refutations of these “allegations” end up on page 11 not the front page. Coincidence? Why I’ll be it just must be.
Strange too that despite the overall size of the corruption involved and considering all the high-level world leaders involved, that this is only getting to be frontpage news now? Strange that this did not come out more BEFORE the election no? Coincidence? Sure must be. Whatever. It will come out and I think that the ones doing the worrying will not be the executives at Halliburton.