Here’s the latest from Reuters on the deepening scandal surrounding Kofi Annan, his son Kojo and the UN kleptocrats who used an allegedly humanitarian program to enrich Saddam and his Euro-criminal cohorts:
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said on Monday he was “disappointed” his son did not tell him the full story of his ties to a firm involved in the U.N. oil-for-food program, now under investigation.
Annan’s son, Kojo, received payments from the Geneva-based Cotecna firm until last February after the United Nations said he severed ties with the company in February 1999. Part of the payments involved an agreement not to compete with Cotecna in West Africa after he left the firm.
“Naturally I was very disappointed and surprised,” Annan told reporters, saying the discrepancy had not been brought to his attention.
I guess the Annans are a “distant” family.
For the rest of us two things are necessary. One, for Kofi Annan to resign. Two, for the UN to open its books 24/7 on the Internet. Every transaction. Every salary. That’s our money they’re stealing. Where is the MSM in this? If Annan were an American politician, they’d be all over him like the cheapest suit on the planet. This is their UN too, in case they don’t get it.
Roger, you need to qualified your last paragraph a bit. If Kofi Annan is a conservative Republican politician, the MSM will be on his case 24/7.
So Kofi was ‘disappointed and surprised’?
More like he was disappointed that his son didn’t grab more in bribes, and surprised that he was discovered so quickly.
Wow . . . isn’t that a shocker!!! I mean, Kofi was clueless as to which company his son was working for, yeah right.
So, Don Kofi winds up with a Fredo but no Michael or even Sonny. What a shame.
Perhaps the sanctimonious Canadians calling for Bush to be tried as a war criminal miught want to go after Kofi as well.
After he took the job as Secretary General he pulled peace keepers from Rhwanda and the result was 800,000 dead Africans. And if we are to believe the human rights groups in their estimates of hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqi children due to sanctions, I would think Kofi should get some of the blame for that considering the money was going for bribes and arms and palaces rather than food and medicine.
But I guess asking the self righteous people of the reactionary left to give a damn about the people of Iraq is over the top. It seeems the only time they care about Iraqis is if and when they can use them to advance their pet cause of anti Americanism.
What drives a story ?
What drives a political event ?
“Not the Internet,” shouts the MSM. Really ?
Item #1 – the Swift Boats and the attendant publicity.
Item #2 – Dan Rather and his flawed story about the president and his military service.
Item #3 – “KofiGate” – kudos to Bill Safire, Claudia Rosetti, the Wall Street Journal and the Internet.
Not bad for 6 months of effort.
If any of the Annans had been employed in ANY capacity by Haliburton–it’s Vice President Dick Cheney’s former company, in case you hadn’t read it 30,000 times already in the newspaper–the TV News Wing of the Democrat party would have already inflicted a thorough anal exam. Live on 60 Minutes.
I believe the last politician to use the word “disappointed” in such funny ways was Tom Daschle, who was regualrly “disappointed” (as were the citiznes of South Dakota).
MSM seems not to want to look into this because too many of them want to keep the issue (i.e., use UN as moral high horse at later point). MSM is acting very European about the UN, as the Eureopeans assure us that bribery is actually a sophisticated form of diplomacy.
OT: A Very Alarming Article From World Net Daily (Hat Tip LGF):
HOMELAND INSECURITY
Expert: Massive WMD attack ‘inevitable’
Yossef Bodansky says U.S. losing war on terrorism
The United States is losing the war on terrorism and faces an “inevitable” al-Qaida attack with weapons of mass destruction that will be worse than 9-11, according to a counter-terror expert.
“All of the warnings we have today indicate that a major strike ? something more horrible than anything we’ve seen before ? is all but inevitable,” said Yossef Bodansky, former director of the U.S. Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, in an interview yesterday with the Jerusalem Post.
Bodansky said “the primary option” for the next al-Qaida attack on American soil would be to employ weapons of mass destruction.
“I do not have a crystal ball, but this is what all the available evidence tells us; e will have a bang,” Bodansky told the Post, adding al-Qaida is “tying up the knots” for an attack.
Bodansky, author of “Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America,” and “The Secret History of the Iraq War,” said the jihadist movement is gaining strength as Osama bin Laden’s call to arms draws an increasing number of recruits throughout the Muslim world.
Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Bodansky said, the number of people trained and willing to die has more than doubled to an estimated 500,000 to 750,000. Intelligences estimates say another 10 million are willing toactively support them while another 50 million would provide financial support…
Roger:
Let the MSM continue to ignore this story. The blogs and the WSJ will get more traffic and eventually the facts will come out. Then the MSM will have to explain why they intentionally ignored the story that was screaming at them in their own backyard. Their reputation will continue to fall and eventually it will hit them in the pocketbook. More importantly the influence that these egomaniacs crave more then anything will continue to slip out of their fingers. When the Iraqi elections are finished the new Iraqi representitive to the UN should stand up and demand the 23 billion in bribes be repaid to the people in Iraq. Let Kofi and his band of corrupt thieves try to shut this down. It is one thing to ignore Claudia Rossett, quite another to try to shut up one of the victims of Kofi’s criminal oversights.
It sounds like we need a Spanish judge to issue a worlwide warrant for Kofi’s Kid.
Instapundit is gurgling away about getting Havel to take over the UN.
However, there is a basic question to answer: does the UN’s corruption derive from bad leadership, or is it inherent in its role in the world?
Obviously, I believe the latter: the UN floats around as a sort of feel good exercise of the great powers. When things like the Rwandan genocide – or the Darfur genocide – or the Bosnia genocide – occur, and no great-power country has a direct interest in dealing with the mess – then the UN rolls in: we can all go to the meeting and write position papers and express ‘concern.’
If that were all – endless meetings, great jobs for Third World Elites, colourful pamphlet, that would be relatively harmless. But that is not all, unfortunately: the UN maintains the huge welfare state in the Gaza strip, thus ensuring that the Palestinian/Israeli war continues to rage – through THREE GENERATIONS!!! Think!: the UN started its refugee camps AT THE SAME TIME (1948) AS HONG KONG TOOK IN JILLIONS OF REFUGEES FROM RED CHINA. Hongkong is smaller than the Gaza strip, and hillier.
The truly best thing for the world would be to throw the whole unholy UN mess into history’s dustbin. But we won’t: killing off a bureaucracy is completely impossible. So, we are stuck with the UN and its meetings and its hypocrisy – and its malice.
I spent a few hours at the UN’s web site trying to get financial information–simple stuff like who pays what. No dice. All I could locate was some information from 2003 and how much money was paid in by about two-thirds of the member nations.
The first thing we need is an open budget, especially since we contribute 26% of the the money (based on the incomplete numbers available at the UN site).
ìBut we won’t: killing off a bureaucracy is completely impossible. So, we are stuck with the UN and its meetings and its hypocrisy – and its malice.î
We do not need to kill off the UN bureaucracy, merely marginalize it—and that is already occurring. They are taking a back seat regarding recent world events. Never underestimate the importance of John Kerryís defeat. This destroyed the last chance for the continuing viability of the United Nations. It is now an empty shell where people pretend that they are doing something important.
As long as multiculturalism and moral relativism reign supreme at the UN, as long as a Robert Mugabe is deigned the equal of a George Bush or a Tony Blair or a John Howard, it won’t matter a whit who sits in the Secretariat’s chair.
There is a bill gathering steam in the House which would require the US to withhold 10% of its UN dues until such time as the details of the “Oil for Bribes and Kickbacks” scheme are fully disclosed. I’d call it a good start.
And, yes, Mr. Annan, with his soft spoken, tongue clicking, never ending “surprise and disappointment” (usually about something the US – read Bush administration – has done or hasn’t done or intends to do or not), long has reminded me of the soon-to-be-late, but unlamented Tom Daschle.
“It is scarcely the same thing to put a man on the moon as to put a bone in your nose.” William Henry III.
mister ghost:
obviously the un is no help in preventing another attack on america. it’s a monument to posing and bribing. so we should move it to, as someone suggested, a few quonset huts on an island and let the un continue their corporate culture undisturbed by reality.
i read the piece on bodansky–who knows anything about this guy? is he an admirer of ossama? an apocalyptic jeremiah? are his facts on the gwot credible? is this the latest chicken little story or are you suggesting that the un drama is simply scenery behind the real action?