Reading Niles Lathem’s article on the latest Oil-for-Food hijinks in this morning’s NYPost, I thought what a great replacement series for “The Sopranos” the whole UNSCUM scandal would make. Right away I saw Eddie Murphy as Kofi Annan. (Don’t laugh – comics can always play straight. It’s the other way around you get into trouble.) The other characters are up to you. But what about a series title? It shouldn’t be too on the nose.
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“Roll out the Barrels”
“Other People’s Money”
“Let Them Eat Yellow Cake”
“Grease”
Black Gold Mine
The United Nations is increasingly being marginalized. The severe criticisms of Senator Carl Levin and other Democrats are the backbreaker. I donít see a new organization in the immediate future, or the meaningful reform of the present entity. The United States just has to learn to work around these fools. Regrettably, we will also have to keep sending them money. Try cynically imagining the proverbial drunken uncle who still receives his share of the inheritance. He cannot legally be excluded—but if he remains ripped all of the time—at least he will stay out of the way.
No, no, no… Roscoe Lee Browne for Kofi. Remember The Hot Rock?
And let’s see… oil… bribes… kickbacks… I’ve got it!
Grease
Little Shop of Horrors
The Diplomats
The theme song: “Sympathy for the Devil”
Spiegel Online provides another perspective. (Diabetics should use caution in reading this.)
They do provide an unintentionally hilarious (and horrific) paragraph that sums up both Don Kofi and the UN.
In the early 1990s, Annan was in charge of the UN’s peacekeeping operations and he ignored calls for help from his commander in Rwanda, where 800,000 Tutsi as well as Hutu were dying. Either he did not or was not able to do anything to stop the murder of 8,000 Muslim Bosnians who were murdered in Srebrenica. “We all made mistakes,” Annan says, “the world community failed.”
I love Rick Ballard’s “The Diplomats.” Most classy. Also, Roscoe Lee Browne would be a GREAT Kofi, but unfortunately he’s pushing 80. Maybe a little long in the tooth.
“Turtle Bay”. It sounds just sinister enough.
(h/t to Jed Babbin at NRO, who has referred to the “Turtle Bay crime family” and the “Turtle Bay mafia”)
C’mon guys! it can only be “The UNReality Show”
CRUDE OIL CAPERS: THE KOFI ANNAN STORY….
Write it and produce it and we will come.
Oil and Diplomacy
Work in a Joe Wilson episode near the end and you can title the episode “Tea and Sympathy.”
It’s a cautionary tale really. Nation-states and their leaders respond to the prejudices of their peoples and find they can’t win for trying. Not that the money couldn’t have been better spent somewhere where men weren’t spending it.
“Years from now when you talk about this – and you will – be kind.”
Like that ever happens.
The Turtle Bay Hillbillies.
“Its Black Gold Kofi !! Middle Eastern T !”
I suppose “Confederacy of Dunces” is taken…
How about “No Honor (killings) among thieves?”
Love “Let them eat yellow cake!”
No, no, no the theme song has to be Warren Zevon’s The Envoy.
Unfortunately, though, military solutions have changed things enough that the youg’uns might get confused:
Or maybe that’s a feature.
How about “You N Me”, a fish-out-of-water comedy about an on-the-make witchdoctor (Butros-Kofi Golly) and his sidekick Benan Sevan in The Big Apple. Believed by some to have magical insight and mysterious powers, BKG finds no lack of people willing to fall for his dunderheaded prescriptions – prescriptions that are always intended to enrich himself, and which always go horribly wrong – with hilarious results!
“Pig’s Breakfast”
“Fancypants”
“Swiped Trousers”
I like the title “Turtle Bay” but I’m thinking more along the lines of a Sopranos/Dallas crossover (we would need to find a sex angle of course – shouldn’t be too difficult). Picture Sidney Poitier in the Annan role and Omar Shariff (still alive?) as his trusty sidekick Benon Sevan. Yves Montand, Rowan Atkinson, Chow Yun Fat and Mikhail Baryshnikov on tap for the permanent members of the Security Council (with Klaus Maria Brandauer as the sinister German ambassador plotting to get in). Who for the role of the cerebral yet hunky American ambassador (think along the lines of Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan)? What a shame Peter Sellers is no longer with us – he could have played all the parts.
Following a successful run on HBO, “Turtle Bay The Musical”. Too bad Fred Ebb recently passed away because Kandor & Ebb would have been perfect for the project.
“Turtle Bay 10017″
Garrett Morris as Kofi. Danny DeVito as Sevan. Jim Carrey as ChIrak. Ben Stiller as Putin.
George Hamilton as Villepin. Martin Short as Jack Straw.
Chevy Chase as Marc Rich. Donald Sutherland as George Galloway.
“Silence of the Lambs Part 3″
Morgan Freeman as Kofi
Laurence Fishburn as the dutiful but wayward son
Janet Jackson as Kofi’s scheming sister
J-Lo as the temptress who lead ths son astray
Gene hackman as the greedy “White guy” who uses the dutiful son to gain control of the oil fields which rightly belong to the oppressed Saud family
and Denzel as the hero who solves the whole puzzle with assistance from Joe Pesci and D. DiVito
with cameos by S. Penn V. Kilmer and Mr
Ben A in a bid to come back…
Roger:
“Vultures and the Dead”
How about . . .
“Uday and Oday Make Out Like Bandits”
Terrible, eh? But that’s what they did …
How about the guy who plays Kevin Hill for the role of Kofi’s son? Saw a picture of the son for the first time in WaPo, I think, and was struck by how young he looks, with a bald head.
“The Ghanaian Candidate”- Harry Belafonte plays Kofi, a sleeper saboteur of sovereign state rights, international security and American interests in the cause of transnational utopianism. Also starring, Chris Rock as Kojo and Meryl Streep as herself.
Yeah well we all know what’s wrong with the U.N… It won’t quietly toe the American line . The U.S. stood in front the entire world and spewed out lie after lie about the state of Iraq’s weapons programs. The U.N. inspectors, of course, had it right, and that is unforgivable! America can never be wrong!
Here’s an editorial from the Financial Times, that cesspool of anti-American agitprop:
The truth is that many around the world are truly disgusted with what is happening in America, and the dishonest attacks against the U.N. are viewed as just another example of how America has gone off the deep end and is wallowing in a cesspool of nationalistic paranoia and self-indulgence which rejects any pretense at fact-based rationality.
For a good study of the appalling phenomenon of American nationalism and its distortions and xenophobic tendencies, and its ultimately destructive effects, I recommend Anatol Lieven’s America Right or Wrong:
Now the question is whether you will come back to logic and reason or whether you will continue to wallow in resentment and prejudice.
I, for one, choose to logically and reasonably wallow in resentment and prejudice against the greed and hypocrisy of the UN. So how about:
“Robbin’ Hood”- gangstas steal Oil for Food stamps from the poor in a money-laundering scheme to get more bling, pay off the police and secure their top dawg standing in the hood. Gang leaders Kofi and Kojo played by Danny Glover and Cuba Gooding, Jr. for conviction and intensity; Dirty cops Chirac and Schroeder played by Adam Sandler and Owen Wilson for comic relief; and, Hugh Jackman in whatever role simply because he’s so cute.
“Eminence Front” with the matching theme song.
“America has gone off the deep end and is wallowing in a cesspool of nationalistic paranoia and self-indulgence which rejects any pretense at fact-based rationality”
A bit wordy for a title.
Mr. Dorner,
I am quite willing to assign a fair portion of the blame to Security Council members for insufficient oversight of known incompetents. I would reserve a double portion for those members whose governments engaged in coverups of businesses deeply involved in the kickback portion of the scandal.
Annan did appoint the most obviously corrupt of the UN bureacrats, Mr. Sevan, and Kojo Annan did participate in the scheme to an extent that might be acceptable as the son of a potentate in a Third World backwater but is completely unacceptable with regard to the UN. Unless, of course, you consider the UN to have the same stature as a Third World backwater. If that is your contention then I would have to say you have a point.
Finally, Mr. Dorner, most of the American electorate is more than quite disgusted with much of the rest of the worlds ability to wallow in a pigsty of corruption while shaking a bony finger of accusation at one of the few countries willing to bring corrupt practices into the disinfecting light of day. Wait and watch, Mr. Dorner, we’ve only just begun.
Cordially,
etc..
“The Last Secular Pope”
I second Rick Ballard’s comments.
I can only imagine the tint of the glasses Dorner is wearing to view America in such a negative light and somehow miss the cesspool which the UN clearly is. The Oil for Food scandal makes the Enron boys look like 12 year olds shoplifting candybars from 7-11 by comparison.
If you want to criticize the US for its ‘warmongering’ and less than positive attitude towards many of the nations who are clearly complicit in the Oil for Food scandal, fine. I’ll accept that. However, if you choose to make your argument (which clearly you are doing) by comparing the UN’s standards and practices to the US’s standards and practices, you will be laughed at by any intelligent person who doesn’t live in France.
The importance of the Oil for Food scandal is quite simple- many many nations were profiting HUGELY from Sadaam Hussein remaining in power. These same nations took unprecedented steps to keep the US from removing Hussein, solely because they wanted to continue to profit. So much money was thrown around, is it inconceivable that the inspectors were paid to present false or understated reports about the conditions of Hussein’s weapon programs. No, I believe its quite conceivable- in fact, I believe its quite likely.
In the legal field, there’s something called the Clean Hand doctrine. Essentially, you cannot accuse the opposing party of violating the law if you yourself are guilty for violating the same law. The UN has the dirtiest, grubbiest, filthiest, stickiest hands, bar none, in the entire world and thus, maintains no standing to criticize the US on any level regarding the invasion in Iraq.
Mr. Dorner:
The facts of the oil for food scandal shows that despite their resolutions and pious claims to be the beacon of the downtrodden they were in fact conspiring to keep Saddam in power and were complicent in the upkeep of that foul regime. Not only did they set up a system whose purpose was to feed the poor and hungry but in fact stole 21 billion dollars from a desperatly tortured populace they also fed at the trough and key members in charge of the program took money from that despot and tried to prevent the US from removing this scourge to the human race. Your attempt to ignore the facts and to blame the US for this scandal is a retreat from reason. Instead of removing Saddam they were scheming to keep him in power and stealing from the Iraqi’s at the same time. Did Saddam use funds from this program that was suppossed to be for food and medicine for his own uses? Did Saddam bribe security council members to keep this fraud going? Did these very same member states dump faulty and substandard material which the Iraqi people paid full price for? Did the man in charge not receive oil credit kickbacks from Saddam to allow this crime to be continued? Did the UN give Volker supeona power and unlimited acces to all UN records? Without those powers can anyone properly investigate a criminal operation? Is the UN transparent in its finanacial operations or not? These are the questions you must answer for your original post to have any relation to reality and IMHO it does not.
Yes, the Bush stood before the UN and demanded that they toe the American line when he said they either backed their resolutions or the US would consider the UN irrelevant. That much you got right, however the rest of you analysis is far too America-centric to be of much value.
One needs to ask why, considering the very blunt language employed by the US, and the fact that American withdrawing from serious participation in the UN, France and Germany would risk the veto. In short, was it an American miscalculation or a Franco/German miscalculation? Was it American strategic interests, or Franco/German strategic maneuvering that led to the present situation? I donít believe France and Germany opposed the US led Iraqi War in an attempt to conceal their involvement in UNscam. I think it was a political and military miscalculation of the first order that led them to risk the future of the UN.
Going into the war it was apparent that the US was going to have to conduct urban warfare in several densely populate cities, principally Baghdad. Those urban battles were going to take place at the end of a thin supply line stretching through Shiite dominated areas. The French and Germans looked at two events in recent history to judge the probability of US success; Groznyy and the Iran/Iraq war. The Russianís reduced Groznyy by surrounding it with artillery pieces, shelling it to rubble, and taking massive casualties in a protracted street to street battle. Iran, when they eventually pushed into Iraqi territory expected their coreligionists to join them, but the Shiites in Iraq responded to Nationalistic emotions and largely stayed loyal to Baghdad.
I believe the French and Germans decided that the blunt warning about the UN sinking into irrelevancy the US issued could be ignored because they thought the US would fail in Iraq. They anticipated the US bogged down in a bloody street fight in Baghdad (and imagine the outcry artillery shelling would have caused) while our supply lines would be cut by patriotic Shiites. Once that happened, a humbled U.S. and Britain would have had to appeal to a Franco/German dominated EU through the UN. Their prestige would have soared, while the USís sunk.
Best laid plans of men and mice. They gambled, against very clear diplomatic language given by the US, the prestige of the UN to gain in international standing. Their gamble failed. What do you suppose the value of a Security Council veto is these days?
By the way, you said ìThe truth is that many around the world are truly disgusted with what is happening in America.î Donít mistake rhetoric from hostile regimes and opinion pages to carry as much weight as you credit them as carrying. Also, consider this little commented upon fact from the Iraq War. Twice, in the early stages of it the Arab League tried to take it to the General Assembly for a non-binding censure vote? Remember the outcome of those votes? No, thatís because they never occurred. They couldnít gather enough votes to be anything other than a laugher, so they dropped both efforts.
Are we rubbing the Worldís face in the UN Oil for Food scandal. You bet we are. What part of irrelavent donít you understand?
Bleh, I mangled the proof reading of that so bad I cleaned it up (well, as best as my copy editor skills ever allow) and will repost it…
Yes, the Bush stood before the UN and demanded that they toe the American line when he said they either backed their own resolutions or the US would consider the UN irrelevant. That much you got right, however the rest of you analysis is far too America-centric to be of much value.
One needs to ask why, considering the very blunt language employed by the US and the obvious fact that American withdrawing support from the UN would cripple it, France and Germany decided to risk the veto.
In short, was it an American miscalculation or a Franco-German miscalculation? Was it American strategic miscalculation, or Franco-German strategic maneuvering that led to the present situation? I donít believe France and Germany opposed the US led Iraqi War in an attempt to conceal their involvement in UNscam. Rather, I think it was a political and military miscalculation of the first order on their part that led them to risk the future of the UN.
Going into the war it seemed apparent that the US was going to have to conduct urban warfare in several densely populated cities, principally Baghdad. Those urban battles were going to take place at the end of a thin supply line stretching through Shiite dominated areas. The French and Germans looked at two events in recent history to judge the probability of US success; Groznyy and the Iran/Iraq war. The Russians reduced Groznyy by surrounding it with artillery pieces, shelling it to rubble, and taking massive casualties in a protracted street to street battle. Iran, when they eventually pushed into Iraqi territory, expected their coreligionists to join them. However, the Shiites in Iraq responded to Nationalistic emotions and largely stayed loyal to Baghdad.
I believe the French and Germans decided that the blunt U.S. warning about the UN sinking into irrelevancy could be ignored because they thought the US would fail in Iraq. They anticipated the US getting bogged down in a bloody street fight in Baghdad (and considering the marineís single shot, imagine the outcry artillery shelling would have caused), while our supply lines would be cut by patriotic Shiites. Once that happened, a humbled U.S. and Britain would have had to appeal to a Franco/German dominated EU through the UN to get out of Iraq. Their prestige would have soared, while the USís sunk.
Ah, the best laid plans of men and mice and all. They gambled, against very clear diplomatic language given by the US, the prestige of the UN in an attempt to gain international standing. Their gamble failed. What do you suppose the value of a Security Council veto is these days?
By the way, you said ìThe truth is that many around the world are truly disgusted with what is happening in America.î Donít mistake rhetoric from hostile regimes and opinion pages to carry as much weight as you credit them as carrying. For example, consider this little commented upon fact from the Iraq War. Twice, in the early stages of it the Arab League tried to take it to the General Assembly for a non-binding censure vote. Do you remember the outcome of those votes? No, thatís because they never occurred. They couldnít gather enough votes to be anything other than a laugher, so they dropped both efforts. As always, actions speak louder than words.
Are we rubbing the Worldís face in the UN Oil for Food scandal. You bet we are. What part of irrelavent donít you understand?
Modest suggestions:-
A Family Affair.
No Regrets.
Scruples.
Reminds me of the song.(With apolgies)
“My brother sells snow to the snowbirds,
My mother sells barber shop gin,
My sister sells love on ths sidewalk,
Oh Lord how the money rolls in”
“Rolls in,rolls in,oh Lord how the money rolls in”
Dorner:
I will make this short and sweet: what the world is afraid of is that the US will not continue to pick up the tab.
And as far as the UN getting it right, what are you talking about? It was the UN that said Saddam had those weapons. It was Hans Blix that said Britain’s dossier was not overstated. It was the Security Council that passed over a dozen mandatory resolutions against Saddam and it was the UN that looked the other way while Saddam turned the sanctions into a shell game.
They could have ended this in the 90′s and refused to. After the inspectors were forced out of Iraq Clinton said they would try to drop sanctions if Saddam would just let the inspectors back in so that the issue could be resoved. Saddam said no.
Saddam could have down was Qaddafi did and refused to. The UN could have policed its program and did not. The United States is not responsible for either of those things.
The truth is as far as a lot of Americans are concerned the UN could pack up and leave and if they are so superior to us maybe they should do just that.
How about the French Connection Redux ad nauseum
Bank Paribas was the UN’s preferred clearing house for the scam which Koffi et fils refuses to let talk to the Volker Committee. Story lines could be fantastic and Roger could spend lots of time in old Europe listening to the Euromoonbats and their particular form of logic.
Bill
Scammers
Goodfornothingfellas
Shakedown Street
Rickís ìThe Diplomatsî is best by far. It has this elegant yet sinister ring to it. I imagine the main character as a handsome James Bond type, except that he is totally corrupt, unscrupulous and amoral. At the same time our hero always rationalizes his own worst deeds, always manages to present himself as a pious savior of humanity, and always blames his crimes on somebody else. I think that Roger would have lots of fun writing this one up, as I am sure we would have watching it.
I might even get a cable to be able to see itÖ then again, there are DVDs and Neftlix.
I agree with “Al from CHGO”. there has to be a physical resemblance. Morgan Freeman.
And Tommy Lee Jones as Paul Volcker. He doesn’t resemble Volker but he makes a good investigator type character.
And a name something along the lines of “Wag the Dog”?
How about ‘All the Money in the World’? Who doesn’t like to see rich people doing bad things?
Diplomatic Impunity