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.