The real stories
: Tom Evslin, one of the smartest guys I met in a decade online, branches out from his blogging on telecom and business and writes about the news and how news media often miss the real story:
UN oil-for-food Program
Press Take: This is a story about whether Kofi Annanís son improperly used his influence to benefit from the program. Story is over when Volker Commission apparently canít find proof of this.
The Real Story: An enormous and extremely important program was mismanaged in a way which let Saddam Hussein divert billions meant to feed his people into arms and palaces (apparently more of the latter than the former) and bribes for government officials worldwide. This may be the biggest case of misdiverted resources in the history of the world. Incompetent management of this program was certainly a contributing cause to the Iraq War. The same people are still ìmanagingî the UN and all of its could-be-important programs today.
My Rant: The issue of Annan Jr.ís venality is irrelevant compared to the issue of gross mismanagement. Somehow Annan Sr. got a hall pass for mismanaging on an historic scale because his son wasnít caught with his hand all the way into the cookie jar. He needs to be fired for incompetence….
Disrespecting The Koran
Press Take (BBC): The most important news in the world on Wednesday were the charges that an American at Guantanamo Bay desecrated a copy of the Koran. This was reported as sufficient cause for violent outbreaks throughout the Muslim world.
The Real Story: The Koran is being desecrated by those who carry out terrorism in its name.
My Rant: Symbolic tolerance is important but punishing some pieces of paper is not on the same scale as beheading hostages…..
Tom needs to spin this off into a blog of its own.
