US court rules for UN on papers in oil, food probe

[struggle4progress]

May 16, 2005 — UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - <snip>

The investigator, Robert Parton, a former FBI agent, resigned his post from the Independent Inquiry Committee headed by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. Parton said the panel's last report was not tough enough on Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and he took materials from the independent inquiry with him.

The United Nations went to court last week after Parton turned over documents from the Volcker committee to the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee, led by Illinois Republican Rep. Henry Hyde. The U.N. suit seeks to force Parton to return the documents and not comply with subpoenas from two other congressional committees.

Judge Ricardo Urbina in U.S. District Court in Washington ruled that Parton had to provide to the Volcker committee "the opportunity to inspect and copy all materials that the defendant allegedly copied, removed or otherwise … obtained from the IIC," the Independent Inquiry Committee.

Urbana on May 9 issued a 10-day restraining order against Parton from responding to subpoenas from two committees as the Volcker panel had requested. <snip>

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=761779

[Mountainman]

1. I smell right wing anti UN scum at work here

They are setting the stage to pull us out of the UN or to weaken it so much that it is useless. I doubt that it will work because the rest of the world will not kiss the asses of U.S. neocons. The neocons will make the U.S. irrelevant before they make the UN irrelevant.

If we try to weaken the UN then then the UN will expand membership so that we are out voted.

[DulceDecorum]

2. If the US gets itself kicked out of the UN

PEACE will break out.

[Psephos]

3. US won't be kicked out of UN

The US pays almost $4 billion annually in cash and services, more than any other country. Something like a third of all the UN's resources come from the US.

Considering the UN record on peacekeepers raping children in Congo, peacekeepers keeping their hands in their pockets in Kosovo while mass graves filled up, studied indifference while 800,000 were hacked to death in Rwanda, and current pretending there's no genocide in Sudan, I'm not so sure peace would break out, even if the UN decided it could do without US money.

Just a thought....

[CHIMO]

4. Rwanda Ten Years Ago: How the World Stood Back and Watched a Genocide

But the international community, and the U.S. in particular, are not just guilty of apathy. They had actively worked to ensure there was no international intervention until it was too late.


Stephen Lewis, Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. He is the former Canadian Ambassador to the U.N. and a former Unicef official. In 1997, he has appointed by the Organization of African Unity to a Panel of Eminent Personalities to Investigate the Genocide in Rwanda. The 'Rwanda Report' was issued in June of 2000. It charged that the United States, France and Belgium, as well as the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, actively prevented peacekeepers from moving in to stop the genocide in Rwanda.

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/04/01/1621233

One can not get out more than is put in. Or in other words you can't make a silk purse from a sows ear.

[Psephos]

5. I hear you

I still haven't forgiven Clinton for that.

Peace.