There just wasn’t enough room in tomorrow’s Loose Canons to announce – with proper fanfare -- our nomination for Kofi Annan’s successor. The choices remaining – despite heartfelt campaigning by supporters of William Jefferson, John Bertrand Aristede and Mark Malloch Brown (Kofi’s deputy SecGen) -- has been chosen from among the four finalists. It was, as Wellington said of Waterloo, a close-run thing.
Saddam Hussein - dictator, murderer of thousands, and all around bad-guy - would have been a natural choice. But during Kofi’s early years, Saddam was de facto Sec Gen. He was allowed to run the Oil for Food for Bribes for Weapons scam from the privacy of his palaces, to run the Security Council through the time-tested method of bribery. To allow Saddam a second term would be terribly unfair to the others.
Arundhati Roy – hysterical anti-American Indian calumniast – would be a great choice but for her gender. How can Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia accept her if she won’t wear a burqa in the Security Council? Even if she would, our budding alliance with India couldn’t suffer the strain. So much for Mizz Roy.
George Galloway was the runaway choice from the beginning. His performance before the Senate Permanent Investigations committee was a classic. But his taking bribes from Saddam was, at last, a disqualifier. His willingness to be bribed – along with so many others including Bad Vlad Putin’s political party and however many French ministers Saddam chose to buy (they do give volume discounts) – made poor Galloway just a small fish in a very large pond. No way to distinguish him from among the other bottom feeders. It all came down to the rhapsody of rap.
Steve wrote, “If not now, when? Gotta go with Ken. Only one can bring it home. That means Mista Livingstone.” And so it does. From mayor of London to the Secretary Generalship of the UN, “Red Ken” Livingstone is over-qualified by his unfailing devotion to devolution of the West, his insistence that American ambassadors pay London car taxes, his unflagging attachment to legal, moral and social error, his outrageous conduct – even to reporters -- and so much more. That’s it then: Red Ken for Sec Gen.
topics:
Taxes, Iran, Oil
