[source]
“Faryal Al-Masri hopes to be the first Saudi-American to enter the US Congress, contesting elections in California to become a member of US House of Representatives,” reports the Arab News:
Al-Masri is running on a Democratic Party ticket in the 37th electoral district in California, which has been a Republican stronghold for over half a century. But Democrats have high hopes for her. “They are optimistic as they see my birth in Makkah [Mecca] as a good omen,” she said.
At first we suspected this was a hoax, because California’s 37th Congressional District is in fact represented by a Democrat, Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald and we couldn’t find any other reference to al-Masri in news databases or Web searches. But it turns out she does exist; she just transliterates her name differently, and although she’s running for office, her name won’t appear on the ballot tomorrow. A letter to the editor of the Ventura County Star urges readers to write in the name Ferial Masry because “the previously declared candidate, Paul Herzog, became ill and missed the filing date.” If Masry gets 1,187 votes or more, she will be on the November ballot.
The district Masry seeks to represent is indeed the 37th, but she’s running for the state Assembly, not the U.S. House. So there isn’t yet a Saudi-born woman running for Congress in America, though perhaps one day there will be. Also, perhaps one day a Saudi-born woman will seek elective office in Saudi Arabia. That may take a few centuries, though.
Well, the Saudi Entity is already run by Saudis, so there’d be no benefit there.
What’s $5 billion or so among the august members of the United Nations? The accounting irregularities in the UN sponsored “Oil for Food” program just keep coming.
It turns out that not only were the Ba’ath selling oil below cost in exchange for kickbacks, but they would turn around and buy “humanitarian supplies” from the lowest bidder and pocket the difference.
Let’s give credit to a normal bashing target, the NY Times, for its strong article on the subject, which leads with
In its final years in power, Saddam Hussein’s government systematically extracted billions of dollars in kickbacks from companies doing business with Iraq, funneling most of the illicit funds through a network of foreign bank accounts in violation of United Nations sanctions.
It has the detail
In the high-flying days after Iraq was allowed to sell its oil after 10 years of United Nations sanctions, the lobby of the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad was the place to be to get a piece of the action.
That was where the oil traders would gather whenever a journalist, actor or political figure would arrive in Iraq and openly praise Mr. Hussein. Experience taught them that the visitor usually returned to the hotel with a gift voucher, courtesy of the Iraqi president or one of his aides, representing the right to buy one million barrels or more of Iraqi crude. [emphasis added]
Isn’t that interesting? I wonder how many of those people were CNN employees?