A reader sent the information that follows my analysis regarding 2 UN officials that stepped-down from the UN Oil-For-Food program in 98 and 2000.
I believe that this information should be viewed in light of the Partisan's comments:
: While I have no doubt that graft exists in any or all UN
: programs and that the Elite’s evil socialist agenda has
: long been foisted by the UN, care should be taken before
: heading off the cliff to blast it to smithereens.
Perhaps the stepping down of the long-time UN officials indicates that they recognized the Oil-For-Food program was not in accordance with the UN Socialist agenda, rather than just because of the usual graft issues! Perhaps the 'stepping down' was not so much ALTRUISTIC as POLITICAL. If these officials began to see "the writing on the wall" (regarding potential F2 use of the funds in question), then by stepping down, these officials could be used in a later psyop/ Hegelian dialectic/ Divide&Conquer/ Problem-Reaction-Solution context that the Partisan has gently laid before our eyes for consideration. Indeed, it is not hard to see F1 having the foresight to try and recover from such a loss of face (and funds).
: In this sense, perhaps the Food for Oil issue is the Elites’
: last hope to actually keep the UN alive. Providing the
: problem and solution to “cleanse” the UN would preempt any
: planned announcement by Bush to abandon the UN all together
: in favor of a new multipolar League...
: From this view, I think the answer is to merely change the UN
: from inside out. And I think this has been happening in
: earnest for at least the past 3-4 months. Thus, this call
: to abandon the UN at this point would strike at those
: behind the scenes changes in the UN that favor a mulipolar
: alliance of sovereign nations..
If we are to see a change from the inside out, then we should anticipate that the end result would not be Socialistic (even if for public consumption the original intention of the UN appeared to be well-meaning socialism for the sake of the hurting in Iraq). I don't believe F1 would have been any better at getting the funds to the people of Iraq, had they retained the control, because that was not their intention either. If we see a change from the inside out, I believe that the funds were just diverted from their original actual F1 intent (which was never to help the Iraq people).
Here is a bit of a synopsis that I've edited from the Aussie reader's email [emphasis mine]:
I [am] letting you know that the whole story [is] twisted beyond belief. My story [is] really anti US policy, which created the despicable UN policy for Iraq (and many, many other countries).
...I notice economica... has [again] talked of UN corruption. The US's involvement in this NEEDS to be told.
Two honest people resigning from the UN who were actually heading the Baghdad "food for oil" sanctions should be worth listening to. Remember, it WAS the US, in the person of Albright, who said the sanctions, which had killed 500,000 children, were "worth it".
We need to get our facts right, even if they ARE anti-US.
Pass the info on to Rayelan if you think she'll post it. I don't think she will. She believes, I think, that the Iraq war had to be fought.
... I'm upset, because I don't know where to turn. I still turn to RMN first thing, but I'm becoming a little disillusioned about America's self importance, even at the expense of innocents in other countries.
I'm glad our readers turn to RMN for analysis and I hope that the following will not alienate anyone, rather provide the context that may make some sense of all this (as hard as it may be to swallow).
Noting the US involvement, of course, doesn't indicate which faction is involved. And it may be hard for us to see the end intended even if we recognize F2's hand in all this, for it seems to be unthinkable that we should consider the potential good that could come from such an action. This is not to say that I am attempting to identify any members of F2 by the comments in the articles below... I am just attempting to provide a context for the bigger picture that the Partisan of Pozsony has suggested we look for while examining the issues.
It is my contention that the funds would have been siphoned off by F1 had the socialistic Faction been in power at the UN. Indeed, the change from within may well have happened after the program started, providing a potential explanation of why the 2 UN Officials would have 'stepped down' well after the program's inception.
The 2 officials stepped down in 1998 and 2000
Background:
"Iraq rejected the oil-for- food program from 1991 to 1996.The first deliveries under oil-for-food began in 1997"
http://usinfo.state.gov/regional/nea/iraq/iraq99b.htm
What I believe has happened is that F2 has co-opted the UN program in question (to help bring about the demise of the Elite/ F1/ Fed Res, etc.) and we are now entering the psyop world of the F1 media who spin the story as if the funds would have gone to the Iraqi people and thereby 'exposing' the F2 operatives that just beat them at their own game.
In the past, we have seen that F2 has siphoned off real value from the marketplace in order to bankrupt the Federal Reserve. Perhaps this present scandal under discussion was another mechanism that has been used to this same end... and just like the S & L scandal, it has it's victims. In the long run, however, those victimized (that have survived) may be better off in a multipolar world. The S & L victims, too, may recover much if there is anything to what VKD has asserted - that all mortgages were to be folded into the debt payment she authored).
The Partisan has commented similarly:
: Then one might imagine that the UNITED STATES FACTION 2 is
: presently setting up a situation where FACTION 2 will then
: be able to “buy back” our deeds and mortgages from FACTION
: 1 for a song.
I believe we are experiencing a divide and conquer strategy of F1... We are seeing that on almost every subject under discussion. We would be wise to observe the playing field without committing too strongly to any 'side.' For, as Rayelan has indicated on many occasions, we don't know who's doing what for which side - we are 'without a program' to determine the big picture.
RMN has laid out the idea of the 2 Factions that are fighting by rules (or lack thereof) that most of us would never have considered in our own lives or experiences. F1, knowing our tendency to common decency, has ruled the day for centuries/ millenia. Perhaps we don't fully understand what it takes for F2 proponents to have taken up the cause against the Elite (globalists), but we should be careful not to stand in their way when they are fighting for our good!!
When we watch the events of the day - see where the 'conventional media' comes out... who are they against and why... then we may interpret scandals with a bit more understanding of the Factions. For they will undoubtedly move in the direction of the ELITES.
: For significant events, the outrage will rise to the
: conventional media. Thus, the long sought for goals of the
: Elite can be attained, and the concrete successes of the
: new multipolar alliance rolled back with mere strokes from
: the digital shadows. Digital voting is child’s play
: compared to the potential to control emotions and public
: policy with such digital Hegelian dialectic.
: This current “UN scandal” and its sought for “resolution”
: appear to be an attack on the multipolar alliance of
: sovereign nations and their new world balance free of the
: Elites and their usurious financial system.
They are attempting to divide us in a war waged against ourselves using their Hegelian dialectic. Let us not be so easily divided. Let us recognize the true enemy and stand together for the greater goal of freedom from the ELITE slave masters!
Blessings,
Mammonator
Please read all of the information regarding this scandal in light of the above analyses... and try not to become angered by the seeming heartlessness of it all... My hope is that a greater good will ensue. Let us not become polarized on these issues, rather try to remember that is the intent of the DIVIDE-AND-CONQUER gang...
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Re: MORE on UN OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL
Mammonator, Dennis Halliday, who ran the UN Baghdad office "food for oil" program, resigned in disgust at what the UN was doing. He believed that Hussein was acting quite fairly when distributing the money, but that the UN was imposing an inhumane program. He lectures around the world, and was most definitely against the Iraq war.
Also, we must remember that it was the US who vetoed many requests to lift some of the more inhumane sanctions, and that it was Madeleine Albright who said, when questioned about the half a million dead children due to the sanctions, that "the price is worth it".
Let's get our "baddies" worked out correctly. The US vetoed many, many requests for fairer sanctions.
Dennis Halliday was replaced by another man, Hans von Spanek I think, who also left in disgust.
I'm quite sure Hussein would have been "on the take" if possible, but I'm also quite sure that was of no concern for the US decision makers.
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Re: MORE on UN OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL
Mammonator, Here's an article by Dennis Halliday given to the ABC, and here's the link:
http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/s225605.htm
I googled for this. There are many others.
Dennis Halliday - UN Iraq sanctions
Broadcast: 28/3/2000 Reporter: Jennifer Byrne
In 1998 Dennis Halliday left his job as Humanitarian Co-ordinator with the United Nations in Iraq, citing major problems in U.N. administration. Less than two years later his successor Hans Von Sponeck also announced his resignation. Ms. Byrne spoke to Dennis Halliday about the reasons for their dissatisfaction.
Synopsis: Byrne: Thanks for joining us, Dennis Halliday. Now, when you took this job as humanitarian co-ordinator, you obviously believed in what you were doing yet you quit, talking about U.N.-sanctioned genocide - what changed your mind? Was it one event, or many?
Halliday: Well, there's nothing quite like being on the spot and living in Baghdad, working in the country, it took only about six weeks for me to realise that this programme was a failure, it was not designed to succeed, it was not going to succeed...
Byrne: You're saying that the U.N. never ever thought it was going to work?
Halliday: Well, the definition of the resolution that put this together - Resolution 986 - said that the programme was designed to prevent further deterioration, and that means sustaining the level of deterioration at the level that it was at the time. Well that deterioration level was very high, and it's that level of child mortality - perhaps five, six, seven thousand children dying per month, and adults on top of that, together with malnutrition widespread amongst children and adults - that's what the programme was designed to sustain. That's why I say that it was designed to fail - it was not designed to recover the standard of living which the Iraqis enjoyed back in 1990 when Iraq was living at a level comparable to southern Europe.
Byrne: Is it really the U.N. which is responsible for what you're calling a genocide? Is it not Saddam Hussein?
Halliday: Oh, of course Saddam Hussein made a gross error by invading Kuwait, but the fact is we are now punishing not him... we are punishing the people of Iraq, and they were not involved in that decision, they were the victims of that decision themselves. And you know, this is a typical security council double standard issue. We have Israel attacking Lebanon, we have Turkey attacking Kurdish Iraq, with no resolutions and no consequences. Why are destroying Iraq, why are we killing the Iraqi people? That is the question.
Byrne: The Americans would say "because it's the only way we can think, to stop Saddam rebuilding his arsenal... it's the only alternative that we have."
Halliday: Well, the fact is that these two things need to be de-linked. We can lift economic sanctions, we can allow Iraq to be restored to its level of well-being and prosperity... at the same time, however, the United Nations, with the United States and others can sustain a hard, tough regime of military sanctions, control of sales... and the control of manufacture of arms and weapons of mass destruction outside Iraq and outside that region. We have to sanction ourselves - and that will begin to make a difference.
Byrne: Is Saddam Hussein winning the propaganda war? And in fact, are you sure you're not part of the weapon?
Halliday: Well, I have never met President Saddam Hussein - my view is purely linked to the humanitarian crisis. The politics of this thing are very complicated and much more complex than the invasion of Kuwait which i believe is not the issue. The issue is the American need to control oil and oil supplies worldwide. And the fact is that there's no justification for what we're doing - what the U.N. is doing in Iraq - we've got to deal with Saddam Hussein differently... we need a dialogue... and we have to remember that he was a close ally of the United States. He was provided with Intelligence, with chemical weapons, biological weapons.. by the United States. He is a friend of Europe and the United States. Let's talk to the man, let's change our policy, let's stop destroying the people... killing the people of Iraq. There's no basis for that.
Byrne: Has it become in a sense a blame game - which is a question almost of who blinks first?
Halliday: I think you're probably quite right. This has become a matter of face, and of fear in Washington that if they back down and they sustain military sanctions but give up on economic sanctions, the first person to claim victory will be Saddam Hussein. Of course Clinton doesn't want to face that - neither does Tony Blair. But the price of this ego problem - this face problem - is the fact that children are dying in large numbers. We Western types think we have this high level of morality, this Christian whatever... why aren't we blinking first then... why don't we take the initiative, why don't we take the risk if that's the way we foresee it? Why do we expect President Saddam Hussein, who is a totalitarian dictator... why should his standards of behaviour be higher than ours.
Byrne: Your successor, Hans von Sponeck, who leaves tomorrow, said this week... he spoke of an embargo generation - a generation of the refrigerator - a lost generation. Do you agree with that - and what are the implications?
Halliday: I think what he means... they're on hold, they're frozen, pending the lifting of economic sanctions And that is absolutely correct. There's a real danger of young, angry men and women - members of the Ba'ath party - who are tired of Saddam Hussein, who think he's too moderate. They want violence, they want overthrow, they're alienated, they're isolated, they're going to be very difficult to deal with in the years ahead. The sanctions generation is a generation in addition, of young children who are malnourished - chronically so - and will have mental and physical damage for the rest of their lives. We have a social situation which is catastrophic, professional women have lost out on their careers and their opportunities, young people have no hope, no jobs, no employment. There's a whole area I would say of sort of national depression, which is going to be very hard to repair.
Byrne: You've resigned, your successor's resigned, the head of the World Food Programme has resigned... this sanction's policy - whether or not it is an actual failure - it's collapsing, isn't it?
Halliday: It is collapsing, and the Secretary-General I think hinted at that quite clearly in the Security Council. And I think we're seeing in the Security Council - and I sat in on a session last Friday - the majority of countries on the Security Council are not in favour of economic sanctions, it's quite clear.
Byrne: Dennis Halliday, thank you very much for joining us tonight. It's been good to hear from you.
Halliday: You're most welcome.
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Re: MORE on UN OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL
And one more... Sorry, but this one is close to my heart.
This time it's from Common Dreams. Link:
http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/headlines03/0824-04.ht m
As you will see, from everything I've read, including several books, it was the US (behind the UN) which was the real culprit. And I'm not saying either the UN or Hussein were innocent. Just not as bad.
Regards
Published on Sunday, August 24, 2003 by The Sunday Herald (Scotland) Former UN Chief: Bomb was Payback for Collusion with US by Neil MacKay
THE reason the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad were bombed is because the UN has been taken over by the US and turned into a "dark joke" and a "malignant force", according to one of the UN's most internationally respected former leaders.
Denis Halliday
Denis Halliday, the former UN Assistant Secretary-General and UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Iraq, attacked the UN as an aggressive arm of US foreign policy in the immediate aftermath of the truckbomb attack on the UN mission in Baghdad which killed at least 23 people - many of whom were Halliday's former friends and colleagues.
"The West sees the UN as a benign organization, but the sad reality in much of the world is that the UN is not seen as benign," said Halliday, who was nominated for the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. "The UN Security Council has been taken over and corrupted by the US and UK, particularly with regard to Iraq, Palestine and Israel.
"In Iraq, the UN imposed sustained sanctions that probably killed up to one million people. Children were dying of malnutrition and water-borne diseases. The US and UK bombed the infrastructure in 1991, destroying power, water and sewage systems against the Geneva Convention. It was a great crime against Iraq.
"Thirteen years of sanctions made it impossible for Iraq to repair the damage. That is why we have such tremendous resentment and anger against the UN in Iraq. There is a sense that the UN humiliated the Iraqi people and society. I would use the term genocide to define the use of sanctions against Iraq. Several million Iraqis are suffering cancers because of the use of depleted uranium shells. That's an atrocity. Can you imagine the bitterness from all of this?
He warned that "further collaboration" between the UN and the US and Britain "would be a disaster for the United Nations as it would be sucked into supporting the illegal occupation of Iraq".
"The UN has been drawn into being an arm of the US - a division of the state department. Kofi Annan was appointed and supported by the US and that has corrupted the independence of the UN. The UN must move quickly to reform itself and improve the security council - it must make clear that the UN and the US are not one and the same."
Halliday said the US should withdraw from Iraqi within six months and allow free elections to be held. The UN could then start the work of helping the Iraqis rebuild their nation. "Bush has blown $75 billion on this war, so he should spend $75 billion on reconstruction - and the money shouldn't just go to Halliburton [an oil firm now operating in Iraqi which was once run by vice- president Dick Cheney] and the boys either. Once the US goes from Iraq, the terrorist will go as well.
"Bush and Blair have misled their countries into war. By invading Iraq and placing the US inside the Islamic world, America is inviting terrorists to come on the attack."
Halliday, who resigned from the UN in 1998, knows his comments will upset London, Washington and Kofi Annan, but he claims many senior UN figures feel the same anger.
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Re: MORE on UN OIL-FOR-FOOD SCANDAL
Mammonator, I'm sorry, but just had to give you this last piece, again from Common Dreams.
I have backed this up with half a dozen books, and read so much about Iraq in my search for the truth, and it simply is not pretty. Also, as the US regularly creates "monsters" when it wants to go in and destroy and take over a country, I honestly don't believe all the propaganda about Hussein, Milosevic and others the US people had to "hate".
Anyway, here's the article.
If you've waded through all this, many thanks.
Radicalized By US Disregard For Iraqi People by Robert Jensen
DENIS HALLIDAY spent 34 years in the bureaucracy of the United Nations, rising to assistant secretary general as he ran development programs around the world and managed the human resources office.
Halliday's work gave him a behind-the-scenes look at the realities of world politics and the hidden agendas of the world powers. It's the kind of work that usually produces insiders -- not radicals. But seeing U.S. policy up close in Iraq changed that for Halliday.
In September 1997, he took over as humanitarian coordinator in Iraq, where he saw first-hand the results of a policy he now calls genocidal. The economic embargo, which is technically imposed by the United Nations but remains in place because the United States demands it, has killed at least 1 million innocent Iraqis, at least half younger than 5, according to U.N. studies.
Halliday's resignation-in-protest in October 1998 pushed him into public view, where for two years he has talked in increasingly more radical terms, going so far as to say that the past two U.S. presidents are guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Iraq.
I met Halliday a few months after he resigned, when he landed in Austin, Texas, on a national speaking tour. He wasn't hard to spot as he got off the plane; he looked, well, so diplomatic -- dressed similar to the businessmen getting off with him.
Halliday's message on that trip was clear -- lifting the sanctions to stop the death of innocents was a moral imperative --- but his rhetoric was cool, not inflammatory. His criticisms of U.S. policy were sharp, but expressed in measured, even polite, terms.
For two years, I have kept an eye on Halliday's activities, reading numerous interviews and speeches he has given while traveling the world to speak out against the sanctions. As time passed -- as more and more Iraqi children died from malnutrition and disease -- I noticed Halliday's criticism becoming sharper-edged.
Had this diplomat and bureaucrat turned into a radical?
Noting that the Financial Times had labeled him a "Quaker militant," Halliday said he had no problem being called a nonviolent radical.
"Yes, I am a radical on this genocidal embargo," he told me. "I have been radicalized by the policies of the USA."
Although Halliday is one of the most public people in the anti-sanctions movement, his experience mirrors that of many I've talked to. Americans who want to believe that their government takes seriously the ideals of peace and justice have had to face a painful reality: U.S. officials are willing to kill children and other innocent people, especially nonwhites in the Third World, to protect and extend U.S. power. That fact has turned many mainstream folks into radicals.
Last Sunday marked the 10th anniversary of the sanctions, which were imposed after the illegal Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. At the time, many in the peace movement supported temporary sanctions to force Iraq to withdraw, hoping to avoid the bloody war that eventually did take place at the behest of President George Bush.
Now, an international movement is working to lift the embargo so that Iraq can begin rebuilding a society devastated by the destruction of the Persian Gulf war, the strangulation of the sanctions, and the ongoing (and quite illegal) U.S./British bombing campaign in the so-called "no-fly zones."
U.S. officials say the sanctions are necessary to keep Iraq from rebuilding weapons of mass destruction, though they also talk of using the sanctions to force the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
From the beginning of his activism, Halliday has made it clear that even if the sanctions had the effect of blocking Iraqi weapons plans, it is unacceptable to knowingly let innocents die to accomplish that.
He also has always pointed out that instead of helping the Iraqi people bring about a democratic government, the sanctions have strengthened Hussein's control over the country and left the Iraqi people isolated and alienated.
His assessment of the policies and the leaders of the United States and Britain has grown more blunt over time. In an interview last month with an Egyptian newspaper, Halliday said genocide was the appropriate term for "an intentional program to destroy a culture, a people, a country."
"The United States and the United Kingdom in particular have continued the economic embargo despite their knowledge of the death rate of Iraqi children," he said. "That is genocide."
In the interview, Halliday criticized what he called the U.S. corruption of the U.N. Security Council, suggesting that U.S. leaders are imposing neocolonialism "to dominate the Arab world in order to control the supply of oil, and destroy and suppress perhaps the strongest country within the Arab world, which in 1990 dared to challenge the West."
Halliday is no supporter of Hussein, nor does he apologize for Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. But he said Hussein's "grave mistake" provided an opening to crush the Iraqi people, which Bush seized.
In the course of the gulf war, the U.S. officials "broke international law and the Geneva Conventions. They deliberately targeted the civilian infrastructure -- committing crimes against humanity," Halliday said.
Desert Fox, the December 1998 bombing of Iraq that President Clinton ordered without U.N. Security Council approval, was also a crime, according to Halliday. So, should Clinton face a trial?
Absolutely, Halliday said. "There was no justification for this, no U.N. resolution. It is a breach of international law. It is outrageous, and it is, of course, a crime against humanity."
Halliday also has been blunt in analyzing U.S. motivations: "To control the financial and oil resources of the Arab world in order to provide opportunities to sell American weapons and the American Army."
"The Americans have got what they wanted," he said. "Who cares about 6,000 to 7,000 people dying every month?"
Halliday cares, which is why he resigned rather than stage-manage a humanitarian program that was by design inadequate to meet the needs of Iraqis.
After he realized how Washington was playing the game, he concluded that it was futile to continue working for the United Nations. He left the job, and his U.N. career, to be free to speak out. "There was no way I was going to be associated with this program and manage this ghastly thing in Iraq," he said.
In the past year Halliday's successor, Hans von Sponeck, also resigned in protest, as did the director of the World Food Program in Iraq, Jutta Burghardt. Slowly, the anti-sanctions movement has gained strength. Last Sunday, about 1,000 activists protested in Washington, marking the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima 55 years ago and 10 years of sanctions against Iraq.
The anti-sanctions movement is made up of a wide variety of people, from religious pacifists to left/progressive activists. While Halliday does not have the stereotypical appearance of a radical, he's not afraid to be called one. A friend in the movement describes him as "our guy with banker's shoes."
Robert Jensen is a professor in the Department of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. He can be reached at rjensen @uts.cc.utexas.edu.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/081300-101.htm
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