ROGER SIMON has more thoughts on Kofi Annan’s Meet the Press appearance today, and observes:

Meanwhile, the whole world’s media, Internet and otherwise, are justifiably upset by the behavior of some US and British soldiers and (probably) their superiors in and out of intelligence. And let’s hope they are all punished for what they did. But bad as it is, it is not nearly as bad as what was done in the name of the United Nations and the whole world. Billions of dollars were made keeping a homicidal maniac dictator in office who, as state policy, dropped his adversaries (or anybody he just didn’t like) in paper shredders or simply shot them or pushed them off buildings, leaving behind 300,000 unmarked graves and counting. We’re all concerned that one Iraqi prisoner died from interrogation. Not good at all, but let’s keep it in perspective. The real crimes are on a mass level — Iraq and Rwanda where well over a million died en toto. And we all know who looked the other way on both of them. The Secretary General of the United Nations.

Indeed. Kofi’s misbehavior doesn’t excuse the misbehavior of the guards. But neither does their misbehavior excuse his. More on Kofi’s appearance here.

FOR SALE, REALLY CHEAP! (Background here, in case you missed it.)

THE GOOD NEWS: Kerry wasn’t hurt when he fell off his bike. The bad news: this photo made the papers.

If I were running his campaign, I don’t think I’d let him get into these situations. Though goofy photos are becoming something of a campaign theme, which I’m told is important. . . .

[LATER: “If I were running this campaign, I’d question the ‘sunburst’ color theme.”]

UPDATE: On a much more substantive level, here’s a lengthy interview with Kerry from the Wall St. Journal, which they’re making available to nonsubscribers for free.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Filling our enemies with fear? Could be!

How come there’s nothing about this on Bill Hobbs’ new cycling blog?

MORE: A reader observes: “His level of physical activity seems to be a constant theme, second only to Vietnam. Until his medical records are released in their entirety I’ll harbor Tsongas concerns. Next week mountain climbing, then a summer of surfing? At least he’s not blaming the secret service this time around.”

Hard to believe that someone would conceal a serious health problem in this context — but then, Kerry has lied about his health before.

STILL MORE: Hobbs comments — but not on the cycling blog.

GOOD NEWS IN THE NEW YORK TIMES: If you can find it. Hey, more people probably read the sports section than, say, the oped pages anyway. . . .

UPDATE: Or, in the Los Angeles Times, the comics section. Sheesh.

BRYAN PRESTON files a firsthand report from the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner: “To see the press assembled in one place and on full display is to have peered over Han Solo’s shoulder as he piloted the Millennium Falcon near the Death Star. To wander among them is to appreciate the enormity of the task we bloggers have set for ourselves.”

VARIOUS BLOGGERS have noted this story about the Army recalling some loaned howitzers from ski resorts. The idea that these are needed in Iraq or Afghanistan doesn’t make much sense though — we’re not calling a lot of fire missions there, and tend to rely on air power.

So where might we actually need these? Korea?

UPDATE: A knowledgeable reader emails:

The howitzers they are calling in are probably needed because of the current TOE (table of equipment) that the military was moving to. The military was looking to standardize all artillery to 155mm howitzers, phasing out the smaller 88mm and 105mm howitzers which are not produced any further for the US Army. However, in Afghanistan these caliber of guns are needed because of the mobile/moutainous nature of this war. A 155 cannot easily be transported around the mountainous terrain, while the smaller calibers can- forcing a rethink for the Army’s artillery. The smaller caliber cannons had probably been donated to these resorts in the expectation the Army would never have use of them, yet, lo and behold they do now and are recalled. There actually was an excellent article in the professional magazine of artillerymen detailing this tactic shift in Afghanistan where they actually load the smaller cannons onboard helicopters so as to conceal/transport them instead of the traditional slingloading method.

We do call a lot of air- but air’s reponse time is measured in minutes, while artillery’s is in seconds. For this reason, and its immediate availability in all weather as well, if you can get it, Artillery is the weapon of choice…. Thanks for your time and all the hard work you do!

Interesting. And, thanks for all the hard work you do, which dwarfs mine in significance.

READER TUCKER GOODRICH notes something interesting from the transcript of Kofi Annan’s oil-for-food interview on Meet the Press:

MR. RUSSERT: Someone also very close to you has alleged involvement in this scandal. This is how The San Diego Union Tribune wrote about it. “What particularly troubles are revelations that several hundred individuals, political entities and companies from more than 45 countries profited from doing illicit business with Saddam, accepting his oil contracts and paying the murderous dictator secret kick-backs. That included, according to Iraqi Oil Minister records, U.N. Assistant Secretary General Benon Sevan, executive director of the oil-for-food program, who received a vouch for 11.5 million barrels of oil through the program, enough to turn a profit as much as $3.5 million.”

Now, Mr. Sevan has denied that allegation.

SEC’Y-GEN. ANNAN: Yes, sir.

MR. RUSSERT: But NBC News has obtained this letter that was sent on his stationery on April 14. This is just two weeks ago. “I refer to your e-mail … regarding a request by `a Governmental Authority’ for reports … relating to the Oil-for-Food Programme. … While we understand Saybolt’s”–that’s a company–“desire to be cooperative with bodies looking into the Programme … we would ask that Saybolt address any further requests for documentation or information concerning these matters to us …”

So Mr. Sevan, who’s being investigated, is telling a company that’s also being investigated, “Don’t cooperate with government authorities unless you clear it with me.” Why is he still involved in the investigation?

SEC’Y-GEN. ANNAN: Right. No, I wasn’t aware of this confess for–Benon has worked with the U.N. for several decades, and I will be surprised if he’s guilty of these accusations.

I wasn’t aware of this confess — er, document, either. And as Goodrich notes:

This is particularly interesting since Sevan has been on “vacation” since mid-March in Australia, and is supposed to stay on vacation until he retires. . . . Guess it’s a working vacation. Poor guy, can’t catch a break; or maybe he just doesn’t know how to delegate.

Heh.

MARK STEYN ON TED KOPPEL:

As Stalin said, one death is a tragedy, 1 million is a statistic. The fact that America’s dead in Iraq are not yet statistics, that they’re still small enough in number to be individual tragedies Ted can milk for his show tells you the real cost of this war. In Afghanistan, the numbers are even lower, which is why ”Nightline” hasn’t bothered pulling this stunt with America’s other war. . . .

Here’s where it’s worth considering the cost of Ted Koppel in the broader sense. Our enemies have made a bet — that the West in general and America in particular are soft and decadent and have no attention span; that the ”sleeping giant” Admiral Yamamoto feared he’d wakened at Pearl Harbor can no longer be roused. . . .

It’s unbecoming to a great power, and very perilous. The cost of war is the cost of losing it measured against the cost of winning it. We can reach our own conclusions about which the coalition’s dead would opt for.

Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: ABC also seems to have double-counted.

MORE LOST CREDIBILITY FOR KOFI ANNAN — but maybe it doesn’t matter:

That is the culture of the UN: believe the best of barbarians, do nothing to provoke controversy among superiors, and let others be the butt of criticism afterwards. Even subsequent revelations about Annan’s responsibility for the disasters in Rwanda and Bosnia did not affect his standing. On the contrary, he was unanimously re-elected and awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. . . .

Annan had at his disposal all the instruments of power and opinion Wallenberg lacked. Yet, when thousands or hundreds of thousands of people were exposed to mortal threats he had the authority and duty to avert, alleviate, or at least announce, he failed.

Now, despite revelations about bribery in the UN’s oil-for-food program for Iraq, the world is clamouring to entrust Annan with the future of more than 20 million Iraqis who survived Saddam Hussein dictatorship. That is because of who Annan is and what the UN has become: an institution in which no shortcoming, it seems, goes unrewarded.

Read the whole, damning thing.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Roger Simon notes reports that journalists were being bought off, too. Imagine.

LYING LIARS AGAINST THE WAR: That would be antiwar activist and fake military veteran Micah Wright, whom the Washington Post describes thusly:

In the Style section last summer we profiled a Los Angeles writer named Micah Ian Wright, who’d just published a shrill antiwar poster book called “You Back the Attack! We’ll Bomb Who We Want!” In his book, he described himself as a veteran of combat, a former Army Ranger whose experiences during the 1989 invasion of Panama turned him into a peacenik. In interviews with The Post and other media, he played up that background.

Wright, it turns out, is a liar. He never served in the military — and confessed that last week to his publisher, Seven Stories Press, after we insisted on evidence of his service. Pursuing a tip from real Rangers who’d never heard of Wright, we filed three Freedom of Information Act requests with separate Army commands — and last month finally confirmed that Wright never served.

Military blogger Greyhawk has observations:

Say whatever you will about the war, war is a brutal endeavor and no one desires peace more than the soldier. Say what you will about the president, by virtue of birth in America you have the freedom of speech that so many GIs have died to give you. But don’t you dare claim brotherhood with me, and don’t presume to speak on my behalf, or on that of any imaginary GI you believe thinks like you do.

Michele Catalano is less gentle. And she and Greyhawk are running a contest. Also, Jim Treacher offers a lesson.

UPDATE: Interestingly, a blogger was on this story back in July.

TAXBLOGGING: TaxProf has a Kerry art-deal roundup here, and also an item on tax questions the candidates don’t want you to ask.

PETRODOLLAR DIPLOMACY:

Some of the most prominent former diplomats who condemned Tony Blair’s policies in the Middle East have business links with Arab governments, The Telegraph can reveal.

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.

The disclosure last night prompted allegations – denied by the diplomats – that they were merely promoting the interests of their clients. Andrew Dismore, the Labour MP for Hendon, said: “If an MP had made statements like these without declaring an interest in the subject they would have been before the standards and privileges committee we would have had their guts for garters.

“This casts a very different light on what the former diplomats have said.”

(Emphasis added.) Yes, it does. And I suspect that this merely scratches the surface where former diplomats — and, perhaps, current diplomats and journalists — are concerned. I’m also pleased to see that the phrase “have their guts for garters” is still in general usage in Britain, something I didn’t realize.

AMERICAN HOSTAGE HAMILL escapes from captors. Cool.

I’M A DAY LATE, but this May Day memorial post from Catallarchy is well worth your attention. Be sure to follow the links.

UPDATE: Jay Solo has more thoughts.

UN SLEAZEFEST DOUBLEHEADER: First this:

Kickbacks paid to Saddam Hussein’s regime on contracts signed under the United Nations’ oil-for-food programme were far higher than the 10 per cent rake-off previously assumed to be the norm. . . .

Joseph Christoff, a GAO official, said that the audits were shown routinely only to Benon Sevan, the UN Under Secretary General who ran the programme whose name was on a list of 270 companies and individuals who allegedly received vouchers.

Then there’s this not very promising sign of the U.N.’s attitude toward housecleaning:

The United Nations has threatened to fire two officials who wrote an expose of sleaze and corruption during its peacekeeping missions of the 1990s.

Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, is understood to have favoured an attempt to block publication of the memoir, Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures, a True Story from Hell on Earth, due to be published next month.

Still reeling from the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal, officials in the upper echelons of the UN are alarmed by the promised revelations of wild sex parties, petty corruption, and drug use – diversions that helped the peacekeepers to cope with alternating states of terror and boredom.

This is why I find John Kerry’s involve-the-United-Nations approach implausible.

UPDATE: Jan Haugland notes that Kojo Annan’s company is popping up again. And reader Tucker Goodrich emails:

Kofi is self-destructing on Meet The Press… This guy’s so complicit, it’s unbelievable.

I missed that, but I’ll look at the transcript.

BELMONT CLUB POSTS more thoughts on what’s going on in Fallujah: “The Corps, besides incorporating the Chinese word Gung Ho into its vocabulary, may have finally proved to the Arabs that they can out-hudna anyone who ever stood on a patch of sand.”

Read the whole thing, which is quite interesting and suggests that blogospheric calls for a more, um, forthright approach were possibly misguided.

UPDATE: Belmont Club has a followup post. I hope that this analysis is right, and that what’s going on is clever negotiations and divide-and-conquer of the sort that the Marines are good at. I just can’t tell from here.

And here’s some useful perspective, noting that Fallujah isn’t Iraq, much less a proxy for the entire war on terror. That’s certainly true, and it’s interesting that it’s getting so much attention. It’s almost as if it’s meant to distract everyone.

CATHY SEIPP’S MONTHLY REVIEW OF MAUREEN DOWD is up. In this installment, she explains why Dowd’s columns remind her of soft porn.

JEFF JARVIS REVIEWS TED KOPPEL:

To put this another way: The device presents those listed as victims. That is how the device has been used in print with the dead in Vietnam, from AIDS, from urban crime, 9/11 and other acts of terrorism, and so on. Victims. And where there are victims, there is a wrong done to them — by man or nature.

But these are not victims. They are soldiers who went to do a job and did so valiently. But that is not how I saw them presented last night on Nightline. I did not see a tribute. I saw victims. And that is the problem I have with using that device now.

UPDATE:” Jay Rosen says, of course, Koppel was making a political statement — and so what?

I agree with that… except.

Koppel says he wasn’t making a political statement. That’s what’s dishonest about it. He was making a political statement and that would be OK if he’d level with us about it.

He’s trying to be “political” and “objective” at the same time and that doesn’t work. It’s an on-off switch and he’s trying to put the switch in the middle. And it’s arcing.

One of Jeff Goldstein’s commenters observes:

Watched it. Thought it was sad, moving, tasteful.

This is bias I began with, but the program left me with a desire, more visceral than before, to make sure our soldiers didn’t die for nothing, to finish the job.

What Lincoln said at Gettysburg is still true, and that is the lesson I hope our leaders on both sides take from seeing the faces of the fallen.

There are some other interesting comments.

MY BROTHER’S IN TOWN, and blogging will be light this weekend. But I want to be sure to recommend Ron Rosenbaum’s new book, Those Who Forget the Past: The Question of Anti-Semitism, a collection of essays and excerpts from all sorts of people including David Brooks, Frank Rich, Barbara Amiel, Larry Summers, Nat Hentoff, et al. My copy showed up in yesterday’s mail, and it was immediately seized by the Insta-Wife (this happens often) but she pronounces it excellent, and it looks that way to me, too, based on what I could tell before she got hold of it.

I also notice that the book includes a chapter by Laurie Zoloth on the anti-semitic riot at San Francisco State University, which I wrote about here a couple of years ago. There seems little question to me that anti-semitism is undergoing a major revival, and I’m glad that this book is addressing it.

IF A BUTTERFLY BALLOT FLAPS ITS WINGS, does it lead to volcanoes and tidal waves? In Hollywood, yes.

UPDATE: More here:

Hollywood has never been known to let scientific fact get in the way of a good story, and recent releases provide plenty examples in which a filmmaker will rely on technical fudgery so as not to bore an audience. In Godsend, for instance, the parents of an eight-year-old car accident victim employ some technologically dicey methods to clone their son after his death. Last month’s Enternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, in which Jim Carrey plays a man who erases all memory of his ex-girlfriend from his brain, intentionally glosses over the neurological aspects of such a procedure, preserving a sense of possibility without the burden of scientific realism. It should come as no surprise, then, that Fox’s upcoming The Day After Tomorrow might not offer an entirely accurate portrayal of global warming. . . .

What one might not expect, however, is seeing well-known environmental policy advocates rally behind the erroneous earth science upon which Day After Tomorrow is founded. Yet this is exactly what they plan to do. In a “town hall” meeting scheduled for the same night as and literally down the street from the premiere of the movie, Al Gore, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and MoveOn.org will use the film to draw attention to Bush’s record on environmental abuse. “The Day After Tomorrow presents us with a great opportunity to talk about the scientific realities of climate change,” Gore said to Variety. “Millions of people will be . . . asking the question, ‘Could this really happen?’” In true Hollywood cliffhanger fashion, the former Vice President offered no answer, implying that the voters will have to tune in to find out.

I’ll spare you the suspense: The answer is “no.”

SOME GOOD STUFF FROM KERRY: “I believe that failure is not an option in Iraq.”

Unfortunately, I don’t see the multilateralism he champions as viable.

KERRY = GORE: That’s the fear of leading Democrats like Tony Coelho and Donna Brazile.

JEFF GOLDSTEIN: The Ted Koppel Interview. Again, as reliable as Maureen Dowd — but much more amusing!

UPDATE: An interesting bit of historical perspective on war casualties and the reporting thereof.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Vecchione emails with a point that many readers have made:

If it wasn’t a political stunt to show disapproval of the Iraqi invasion why aren’t the names of those soldiers killed in Afghanistan and Kosovo (two the other day) being listed? Because Koppel doesn’t have a problem with those fights.

Seems that way to me.

THE TORTURE INCIDENT: I don’t have a lot to add to what Kim Du Toit says:

If they’re found guilty, I hope these assholes go to jail.

Because when the Islamist pricks do this kind of thing to our soldiers, I want to be able to go after them with a vengeful spirit.

Of course, it’s not the same as Saddam’s torture — which was a matter of top-down policy, not the result of assholes who deserve jail or execution, and will probably get one or both. As with other reported misbehavior, it should be dealt with very, very harshly. But those who would — as Senator Kerry did after Vietnam — make such behavior emblematic of our effort, instead of recognizing it as an abandonment of our principles — are mere opportunists.

LT Smash has more thoughts:

THE UGLY TRUTH of warfare is that there are no “knights in shining armor” who will always fight for Good. Evil lurks deep in the hearts of all men, and it doesn’t care what flag you wear on your sleeve. We are most vulnerable when we suffer under the burden of tremendous stress – but the ultimate responsibility to resist Evil lies with every individual.

Our soldiers sometimes do horrible things. Disgusting things. Cruel things.

When they do, we must not hide from the truth. Those repsonsible must be identified, prosecuted, and punished appropriately. There must be a public accounting for these crimes.

Because we are a civilized society, we must never give in to the temptation to brush aside such atrocities as “the way things are in war.” For if we fail in this responsibility, we will ultimately become no better than those we are fighting.

And that would be the greatest tragedy of all.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg:

This needs to be investigated and prosecuted. If there’s more to the story — whatever that could conceivably be — let’s find out. But if the story is as it appears, there has to be accountability, punishment and disclosure. Indeed, even if this turned out to be a prank, too much damage has already been done and someone needs to be punished.

Under Saddam torturers were rewarded and promoted. In America they must be held to account.

Indeed.

UPDATE: Several readers point out that California Attorney General Bill Lockyer probably wouldn’t see a problem here. But let’s not let our standards fall so low.

ANOTHER UPDATE: “what they have done is tantamount to treason, in that they have certainly given aid to our enemies, in the form of propaganda fodder, during a time of war.”

Sgt. Stryker is equally harsh: “Every single angle of this story is disgusting and infuriating.” Read the whole thing, which gets much harsher.

MORE: Will Collier emails (and, though his email didn’t say so, posts):

What’s the difference between what this small group US guys did in Iraq and what Saddam (and every other Arab state) has been doing for years?

In our case, the people who did this will spend most, if not the rest of their lives in Kansas making small rocks out of big rocks.

In every other case, they¹d be promoted.

End of comparison.

Indeed. Which isn’t a reason to ignore it, but which is relevant to the lessons people might tend to draw.

STILL MORE: Greyhawk notes an unsung hero: “Does anyone out there think 60 Minutes exposed this story? They didn’t. (but they want you to think they did.) This was a case of a courageous individual stepping forward and enabling the Army to police itself.”

Read the whole thing.