Americans are righteously indignant that UN officials, French and Russian politicians, and
uppity Scotsmen aided and abetted the dastardly designs of
the Adolf Hitler of our time. The United States is a beacon of integrity in an otherwise shameless, corrupt world. The USA is a bastion of decency, where moral revulsion at brutal, terrorism-sponsoring dictators and outraged opposition to invaders of sovereign nations is a way of life.
Thus, no self-respecting American would
ever illegally succour the icon of savage tyranny that is Saddam Hussein by engaging in dubious oil shipments and paying kickbacks to the mass-murdering Beast of Baghdad.
Right?
Wrrrrrrrrroooonnng! (Continued below the fold)
More on the UN oil for food $cam:
In mid-February 2003, just weeks from the onset of the U.S.
invasion of Iraq, oil tankers began loading Iraqi crude at the Iraqi
port of Khor al-Amaya. The Bush administration-approved
sanction-busting oil shipments involved a Jordanian company named
Millenium, owned by the Shaheen Business Investment Group and a
Connecticut-based shipbroker called Odin Marine, Inc. Oil tankers were
permitted to off load their oil at the UAE port of Fujairah for
reshipment on larger tankers without any interference from the U.S.
Navy-led Maritime Interdiction Force (MIF), set up to enforce the
sanctions. Giangrandi's company, Italtech, was involved in a number of
the shipments as a U.N. contract holder (lifter).
When Iraq's Oil Minister expressed his suspicion that the oil
shipments would never get by the U.S. Navy defenses, a mysterious
high-ranking visitor told him the Iraqi oil was "for the sake of the
people who work for the defense of the United States. It will pass
through safely." When the unknown visitor later asked for additional
oil shipments from Khor al-Amaya he assured the minister that "you
will never hear about this in the press any more. The U.S. forces will
make them be quiet."
How odd. How very, very odd! But surely this won't be more than some low-level, low-life bunch of rogues who deserve to be in federal prison?
Well, no. No wait, low-level, low-life rogues, you say? Perhaps
yes!
At the same time Enron Chairman Kenneth ("Kenny Boy") Lay was
involved in Vice President Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force secret
dealings and when he was stuffing hundreds of thousands of dollars
into the pockets of George W. Bush and Cheney's political campaign, he
also managed to illegally stick $206, 757 into the pockets of Saddam
Hussein and his cohorts.
The Iraqi Oil-for-Food scandal also involves one of the Bush
children--Dorothy "Doro" Bush Koch, sister of George W. Bush and
married to Bobby Koch, reportedly a cousin in the oil industry Koch
family, the owner of Koch Industries, which is also one of Bush's
largest political donors. The minority committee report indicates that
Koch Industries was also a major recipient of illegal Iraqi oil and a
huge source of kickbacks to Saddam Hussein.
The total sum in kickbacks from George W. Bush's cousin-in-laws to
Saddam's bank accounts: $1,294,620.
You mean,
the George W. Bush? The
President of the United States of AMERICA?
His
family were involved in this illegal, and very unrighteous kickback and oil smuggling business? And with the connivance of our own
government and military?
Well, well, well.
I'm shocked,
shocked that there are illegal, sanctions-busting oil transactions going on in this Establishment. Round up the usual suspects!