UN Secretary Genearl Kofi Annan<........................................................................................EXPAND YOUR BROWSER FOR THE BEST READ........................................................................................>
CHRIS GELKEN FROM HONG KONG
Go for it, Kofi
UN Secretary Genearl Kofi Annan
The other night I sat here and watched Bill's Pentagon speech. Stirring stuff. Well, it was after the mutual admiration society got off the podium and let the C-in-C get a word in. He told us what a bad guy Saddam is - yeah, we know that already, thanks, Bill. He also gave us a history lesson.
"Let's be clear," said Bill, "on how this whole thing started." Bill then went on to tell us how Saddam broke a promise to declare all his weapons of mass destruction within 15 days of the end of the Gulf War. Er, yes, Saddam did and continues to thumb his ample snout at UN resolutions, but let us not kid ourselves here, that is not when this whole damn thing started.
It is pointless to go over old ground. If you have been reading my recent columns you will know what I am saying. Saddam Hussein is a threatening monster, but apart from having a natural talent for the job, he is in many ways a creation. A Persian Gulf Frankenstein. To complete the picture, all Saddam really needs is a bolt through the neck stamped with 'Made in the USA' (or Britain, France, Germany, Italy....etc etc). If it weren't for the overwhelming and often illegal help Saddam received from the West he would still be a class-act SOB, but perhaps a small-fry and relatively insignificant class-act SOB.
But I've said that already, it is time to move on. Before I do, though, I have to admit I could not help heaving a huge sigh of disgust when Bill told the Pentagon folks about Saddam's stockpiles of Anthrax and Botulism. Yeah, Bill, where did he buy huge amounts of the f'ing stuff?
Anyway, the UN Secretary General is about to embark on a last ditch attempt to prevent Gulf War Two. I hope he is successful, I wouldn't like to see thousands of US military personnel being given the same experimental vaccines their Gulf War One predecessors received.
I wonder how distant history will judge this moment? Just recently I was watching a documentary where some former US Army Medical Corps guy recounted his first impressions of walking into Dachau in 1945. Speaking about the medical experimentation block, the fellow got all choked and said it was beyond comprehension that doctors could sink low enough to do such things to fellow humans. Yeah, Tuskeegee, er, sorry, Dachau, was a real bitch of a place. Just awful folks, those Nazis.
The point I am trying to make is this. How many times will we have to hear: "I had no prior knowledge of the Watergate break-in," before people begin to wake up to the fact that a good many of our elected leaders are not everything their spin-doctors would like us to believe they are and begin to say "Enough!"
Listen, I don't expect them to be angels. Who is? If they screw around, dress up in pantyhose, whatever, what they do when they clock-off for the day is their own business. As they say, just don't do it in front of the hired staff and the horses, okay? Or is it in front of the hired staff and with the horses?
But when they lie. When their lies cost lives. When they break their own and international laws. And when they try to hoist their pennant on high moral ground while being guilty of the former, that is when I get really mad. Check out the Dratt Mudge segment on the APJ homepage - expose those suckers!
The bottom line this week comes from a Discovery Channel program I saw this morning about the Mayan Indians. I don't want to give you the impression I am a couch potato, I only watch the educational stuff. Honest. But apparently the old Mayan kings and queens would pierce their tongues and genital areas to draw blood as a sacrifice to the gods.
The peasant masses would witness this painful sacrifice, and suitably impressed, would continue to serve and support their monarchs as loyal subjects would under such circumstances. One of the program's guest 'experts' suggested that if elected representatives were required to undergo regular genital mutilation as part of their job, we might start to see some real dedicated and honest folks in government. Now there's a thought.....
Chris Gelken
Feb 18th, 1998 Hong Kong
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A Word from Eliot Janeway
"JK, a client, a friend, and one of the keenest minds in American politics, told me one afternoon: 'A good place to begin thinking critically about American and Western European democracies to ask yourself: What kind of man or woman would choose to run for public office? Think about that.' - I did."
- Eliot Janeway ,1991 New York
From an Introduction to JK's essay and speech, "Washington - The New American Babylon"
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