The monetarization of foreign policy

News regarding the foiled al Qaeda attack in Jordan has been slow to make its way into the mainstream news. One must be an avid consumer of news via the sources available on the Internet to deduce how the story connects the dots regarding the Bush administration’s case for war on Saddam Hussein.
Today’s column by Jack Kelly of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, just one step removed from the bigfoot media, should help the slow learners in the audience: “They’re out there.” (Courtesy RealClearPolitics.)
Kelly adds one piece of information I have not seen elsewhere. Kelly notes that intelligence expert John Loftus said the nerve agent in the chemical cocktail to be used by the al Qaeda conspirators was VX. “Syria doesn’t make VX. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did.” Kelly also suggests that the WMD secreted in Syria have made their way to the Sudan and, perhaps, back to Syria.
Kelly also observes that Charles Duelfer, the chief weapons inspector in Iraq, has identified kickbacks on contracts set up under the United Nations’ Oil-for-Food program as a primary source for funding Saddam Hussein’s illicit weapons.
Kelly concludes: “These developments have received little attention from the major media, perhaps because they are unhelpful to Democratic prospects in the fall. But what if the Jordanian attack had succeeded? What if the target had been Chicago instead of Amman? Some things are more important than domestic politics.”
Today’s Telegraph has several interesting reports related to the monetarization of foreign policy at the UN and elsewhere. Glenn Reynolds calls it a sleazefest doubleheader, but three stories fall under the umbrella of the sleazefest. First, the Telegraph reports on the magnitude of the corruption involved in UNscam: “Iraq oil-for-food kickbacks ‘higher than suspected.'”
The Telegraph also reports on the connections of the authors of a letter on foreign policy published in the paper last week: “Diplomats failed to disclose their own Arab links.” The Telegraph reports:

In a letter published last week, 52 former British diplomats condemned the invasion of Iraq and the Government’s support for Israel. The letter failed to disclose, however, that several of the key signatories, including Oliver Miles, the former British ambassador to Libya who instigated the letter, are paid by pro-Arab organisations. Some of the others hold positions in companies seeking lucrative Middle East contracts, while others have unpaid positions with pro-Arab organisations.

Finally, the Telegraph reports on Kofi Annan’s threats to fire officials who wrote an expose of corruption in its 1990s peacekeeping missions: “UN threatens authors of ‘racy’ expos

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