Good cop/bad cop: Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan is adored by the Globalist/Interventionist Left for having declared the invasion of Iraq illegal. Of course he only made this pronouncement months after the invasion was already a fait accompli, and it was not accompanied by any indictments for violations of international law.

Is that man really a friend of peace and justice?

I'll let you decide for yourself. Please consider the evidence: as the highest-ranking official in the United Nations, Mr. Annan presided over the economic embargo that impoverished Iraq, causing widespread squalor, malnutrition, and a medical catastrophe that significantly reduced the population of Iraq.

He promised the Iraqis that they would not be invaded if they cooperated with UN disarmament staff, knowing full well that the invasion of Iraq was a foregone conclusion. He left them helpless and wide open to invasion, and then did nothing but shed crocodile tears for them.

Installing a puppet government in Iraq, gutting its economy, and seizing the petroleum was planned before the collapse of the Soviet Union. I remember clearly that there was already a good deal of anti-Iraqi propaganda circulating in certain circles at least as far back as the late 1980s. As long as the Soviet Union did stand, Iraq was considered strategic enough that Washington officials did not yield to pressure to strike. The Iraqis were lead on to believe that they had an alliance with the USA. When the Soviet Union collapsed, priorities shifted suddenly and the Iraqis were stabbed in the back.

All that was needed was the causa belli. April Glaspie was recruited to deliver it. Her meeting with Saddam Houssein was discretely recorded by the Iraqis and transcripts (follow the link if you haven't read them) were delivered to the foreign press; the one I linked to is the version supplied by the New York Times, which is not known for its sympathy to Iraq; it contains more qualifiers in key sentences than other versions. As for alternative explanations for what happened, evidence of a setup is collaborated by other evidence including an interview with Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly two days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and a Washington Post story confirming that "an Iraqi attack on Kuwait would not draw a U.S. military response". In any case they're not worth pursuing because it really doesn't matter whether Glaspie acted out of stupidity and incompetence, or malice.

While Mr. Annan might possibly be able to claim catastrophic incompetence for not being aware of US Realpolitik, how could he not have been aware of the bellicose tone of Committee on Foreign Relations reports? What about policy documents and a letter to President Clinton openly advertising their intentions to lobby for an invasion? The letter is signed by the authors and they even have it out on their website. Is he completely illiterate?

Maybe Kofi Annan is not the man the Globalist/Interventionist Left want to believe that he is.

There is an old trick used in many different cultures. In the USA it is called “good cop/bad cop”. If you take someone prisoner and want him to cooperate with you, one approach is to have two different interrogators interact with him. One of them tortures and threatens him. The other one doesn't do anything rough. He even seems sympathetic, and listens to the prisoners' concerns.

If the two collaborators are patient enough, the prisoner's resistence will break down. Oddly enough he will tend to continue resisting the “bad cop”, but will start developing a relationship called “Stockholm Syndrome” with the “good cop”. He'll start confiding in the one who seems to be sympathetic, and cooperating when asked to do something.

The important thing to remember is that the one who appears sympathetic isn't your friend. He's in league with the one administering the beatings and torture. In fact if you outlive your usefulness by telling him everything he wants to know, he won't stop the executioner from taking you away.