Everyone else is linking to this article, too

Well, I'm back from New York with lots of pictures of my adorable nephew and niece. It also seems that my major research paper has a second reader, which hopefully means I can defend it soon and move on to the dissertation. Good. This dumb paper has been a thorn in my side for the last two years almost. I need to put in a few hours working on it tonight, so here's a quick link and then I need to go.

Soundfury points to a very scary look at the continually developing UN Oil-for-food program corruption scandal. Here's what it says:

Especially with the U.N.'s own investigation into Oil-for-Food now taking shape, and more congressional hearings in the works, it is high time to focus on the likelihood that Saddam may have fiddled Oil-for-Food contracts not only to pad his own pockets, buy pals, and acquire clandestine arms ? but also to fund terrorist groups, quite possibly including al Qaeda.

There are at least two links documented already. Both involve oil buyers picked by Saddam and approved by the U.N. One was a firm with close ties to a Liechtenstein trust that has since been designated by the U.N. itself as "belonging to or affiliated with Al Qaeda." The other was a Swiss-registered subsidiary of a Saudi oil firm that had close dealings with the Taliban during Osama bin Laden's 1990's heyday in Afghanistan.

Okay, so who got some of the money Saddam got thanks to crooks at the UN?

1. UN bureaucrats who kept the gravy train rolling.

2. Wealthy, well-connected scumbags in France, Russia, and elsewhere who made sure that Saddam got "No War" in exchange "For Oil."

3. Palace and monument-builders in Iraq, as well as miscellaneous cronies and relatives.

4. Reporters, especially in the Arab world, who acted as propagandists and apologists for the Baath dictatorship.

5. Peace creeps, including politicians like George Galloway.

And now we know one more bunch of bad guys who got bling-bling from Baghdad:

6. Terrorists, who did Saddam a favor by attacking his No. 1 enemy, the USA.

And it's all thanks to Kofi and our pals at the UN! Thanks for looking out for world peace and all that good stuff, guys! Way to go!

I wonder if folks in Iraq are as glad as I am that they have the United States and not the United Nations as their occupier. Holy freaking crap. Good thing John Kerry isn't president.

--ABDUL ALEM