This just in...

[yesthattom]

Harriett Miers has withdrawn her nomination for Supreme Court in an effort to distract people from today’s indictments against VIce President Dick Cheney, “Scooter” Libby, George Bush, and other administration officials.

In a related note, U.N. Ambassador Bolton has coordinated to have the trumped up charges of mismanagement of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program to be announced today, to aide the distraction effort on an international level.

Comments

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

*waits* *checks CNN* Damn! Still no indictments.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

"A spokesman for the prosecutor said there would be no public announcements before Friday, the day the grand jury's term expires." (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1255257)

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

At which point Karl Rove shouted out, "Damn you Fritz!!!"

[geeksdoitbetter.livejournal.com]

i've been wondering - is "Oil-for-Food" not really the name of the program *grin*

every time i hear about it, i think: well, looks like that country gave them food and received oil - just like the program title suggests, so what's the issue?

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

The economic embargo on Iraq meant that countries aren't allowed to sell anything to Iraq, or buy their oil. The idea was to starve them into stopping the bad things that they did.

The exception to this is that people could buy their oil if the profits were used exclusively to buy food and medical blah blah blah for people in the country.

The accusation is that a small fraction of the money didn't go to food or medical blah blah blah.

When Secretary-General Kofi Annan (he runs the U.N.) was pointing out that Bush's plan to attack Iraq was unwarrented, and illegal, we countered by attacking the Food For Oil program... which is run by Kofi's son.

Attacking Kofi's son reduced the credibility of Kofi himself, making it difficult for him to effectively stop Bush from his illegal war. It also sent a strong signal to other officials that if they spoke out, their families would be attacked publically too.

If we hadn't done this, it would have been much more difficult to go to war in Iraq. But that's what the Bush Crime Family does when it wants more money.

Oh, it also became a way to deflect anyone from questioning Haliburton's unethical practices. When $10 million dollars of our tax money was "misplaced by Haliburton executives, Republican pundits started howling about the Food For Oil program missing $1 million. By making sure that there were 30 people shouting about the U.N. for every 1 person mentioning Haliburton, they were able to control what made it to the front page.

Oh, and Clinton getting a hummer in the oval office was impeachable but none of this is.

No, I'm not resentful.

[geeksdoitbetter.livejournal.com]

excellent, thank you very much for the clarification

[selki.livejournal.com]

Could you point me to any source on the trumped-up-ness of the Oil for Food program? Not arguing, but would like to read more on this.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

I don't have any on hand, and I don't even know if it is trumped up. The point is that all international programs have some kind of graft built in because that's how most countries work. This program was no dirtier than any other. Worst of all, the maximum possible loss was less than 1% of what Haliburton stole from tax payers.

By the way... are you the Selki that I know from SF?

[selki.livejournal.com]

I've only been to SF a couple of times, never lived in California, so I doubt it.

I noticed you had friended me, and assumed you came across me from my comments in a mutual friends's journal (not sure which one).

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what happened. I don't recall who it was but that isn't important. Welcome to my LJ!

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

I wrote more here