Johanna McGeary - A Partial Fisking

Time has a laughable article about Kofi's travails - just a small example of the hilarious quotes (and my snarky comments):

...the metastasizing oil-for-food scandal...has grown from a fringe obsession among conservative ideologues to the subject of five separate
congressional investigations. All this has trained the hot lights on Annan, a second-term Secretary- General and Nobel Peace laureate...

Move on folks, nothing to see here, just those wacky conservative ideologues and their fringe obsessions...how dare they criticize a Nobel Peace laureate (putting Annan in the prestigious company of Yasser Arafat, failed former President Jimmy Carter, and this year's winner, conspiracy theorist Wangari Maathai)?

The only startling resignation at the U.N. last week was that of U.S. Ambassador John Danforth,who said he was quitting primarily to spend more time with his ailing wife.

True as far as is goes, but completely ignores Danforth's blistering comments about the utility of the UN the following day.

So far, there is no evidence that Annan's son did anything improper
or illegal, much less the Secretary-General himself.

Perhaps the legality of Kojo Annan's actions has yet to be determined, but can anyone seriously doubt their impropriety?

Sir Jeremy Greenstock, former British Ambassador to the U.N., spoke
for many outside Washington's conservative circles when he said, "Of course Annan should not resign. It would be hard to find anyone as good."

Again, I'll make the assertion that only a conservative would be troubled by these trifling matters. I couldn't find any current ambassadors to back up my point, so I'm quoting this guy you've never heard of. Besides, who else could match Annan's record of corrupt family members, staff unrest, blindness to genocide, unwillingness to back up resolutions with the appropriate force, and blind opposition to the foreign policy of the United States?

The case against Kofi centers on the murk of fraud and mismanagement
that occurred during the seven years of the U.N.'s oil-for-food program... The U.N. was in charge of overseeing both sides of the trade, but Saddam managed to skim off more than $20 billion from the $64 billion program to prop up his rule. Records found in Iraq allege that government officials and others, notably in France, Russia and China; oil companies, including American giants; and individuals, among them the senior U.N. official appointed to run the program, received preferential deals to buy Iraqi oil at below market price. Many have denied it, and there is no hint of personal impropriety by Annan. Much of Saddam's stolen revenues came from oil sales to Jordan, Turkey and Syria, which the U.S. government and the U.N. Security Council knew about. "Should members of Congress resign," asks Senator Carl Levin, "because they turned a blind eye to illegal sales Saddam made with their full knowledge?"

I agree that Saddam managed to divert $20 billion of funds to support his
dictatorship, but I'll cloud that agreement with the term "murk" (how appropriate!). Despite the fact that this corruption included the senior UN official appointed to oversee the program, how could anyone but a conservative ideologue blame the UN? After all, you wouldn't ask members of Congress who ignored corruption to resign, would you? As a matter of fact, I would - Mark.

...the scandal will, in the eyes of some, cast an indelible shadow over Annan's once glittering resume...Annan, born in Ghana in 1938, made his career as the quintessential insider. His tenure as head of U.N. peacekeeping in the 1990s was marred by the U.N.'s failure to stop the genocide in Rwanda and the massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica.

I TOLD you he had a glittering resume...impressive, huh?

Well, as always, you be the judge...