The 21 Billion Dollar Question

Does anybody really need to be told this? I only mention it since the new amount is more than twice what was reported earlier.

Saddam Hussein's regime reaped over $21 billion from kickbacks and smuggling before and during the now-defunct U.N. oil-for-food program, twice as much as previous estimates, according to a U.S. Senate probe on Monday.

"How was the world so blind to this massive amount of influence-peddling?" asked Republican Sen. Norm Coleman, head of the investigations subcommittee.

How, indeed? Well, first of all, the world wasn't blind. At least not all of it. While debating the issues in the pre-invasion arena, more than a few writers brought up the idea that "gee...Isn't it strange that the same countries who refuse to participate in the coalition, and are doing their best to stop the U.S. are the very same countries that hold the most in Iraqi oil contracts?" (Did you really think that the French, Russians, and Germans actually had moral reasons for not invading Iraq? Really? Even the Germans? Because I'm pretty sure that invading is their national pastime.) And it isn't too much of a jump from that bit of influence-peddling to the filthy swamp of it that we now know went on in the U.N. There have to be some of you out there who remember that there were reasons for removing Saddam Hussein beyond the WMD issue, despite what the mainstream media wants you to think.

No, the question is not "How was the world so blind to this massive amount of influence-peddling," but rather "Now that we know, what is going to be done?" I just don't see how the U.N. is going to survive this. I mean, realistically, I know that the world will just turn the other way, a few will have to be sacrificed, and business will go on. But I just can't understand it. The U.N. has not only participated in fraud on a global scale, it has--in my humble opinion--been acting in concert with a dictator's attempt to deny his people the basics of food and medicine. Please...read that last sentence again, just so it sinks in. I'll wait. Now, you might say "well, they probably didn't know it was happening," but that's only because nobody wanted to look. They were too busy pointing out how the evil, greedy Americans wanted Iraq all for themselves. Which, of course, is now why our gas is cheaper...Oh, it's not? Well, that's why we pillaged all their ancient treasures and kept them for ourselves...Oh, we didn't? Huh..Go figure.

This sickens me. The U.N. needs to go. Now.