I
initially thought that the UN Dispatch was an official publication of the
United Nations but after clicking the “About Us” tab I see it isn’t (although,
it does appear to have the strong support of U.N. officials).  Given that it is not an official UN
publication, per se,  I won’t point out its
broad defenses of U.N. policies rather than inviting open, honest dialog and
addressing legitimate concerns.  The
Dispatch seems to be more ideologically driven which makes Mr. Goldberg’s
perspectives more palatable.

Mr.
Goldberg’s article is oddly entitled “Why it
Should be No Surprise that Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine Endorsed Rick Santorum” however, after reading
it (and I read it several times) I found absolutely nothing answering or even
addressing this connection – nothing. 
About all I can say about the article is that it’s a vehicle for
introducing a previous article from 2007. 
It’s an ok introduction.

What I did learn from Mr. Goldberg is that,
for more than four and a half years, he’s been harboring a grudge with Dave Mustaine.  When Mustaine recently endorsed Rick Santorum
as the Republican presidential candidate, some unfinished bone picking
apparently gained new strength in Mr. Goldberg’s mind as well as re-stoking the
fire in his belly.  Apparently when Mark Leon
Goldberg has something on his mind he’s gonna share it, even if he has nothing
fresh to add to old arguments.  To his
credit though he made no attempt to hide this fact. 

I appreciate his initiative in listening
to the lyrics of “United Abominations” for us (“We listened so you
don’t have to.”) but I’m more comfortable feeding myself.  Thanks anyway.

Today is the
first time I’ve read Mr. Goldberg’s original article from July of 2007.  I’m going to ignore the fact he repeatedly
gets lost in minutia and address discrepancies I think are relevant, even
though I’m pretty sure they’re evident to anyone else who reads the article:

“Blaming the UN for
9-11 is a new trope, even for conspiracy mongers–and rightly so.”

I’ve read
everything Dave Mustaine has said or wrote regarding his feelings about the U.N.
– at least all that I can find.  Nowhere are
there suggestions or inferences that the U.N. was directly responsible for the
attacks on 9/11.  Mustaine is however emphatic
about his belief that U.N. policies, for some time now, have enabled or even fostered
and protected terrorist activities.

“His evidence is the
alleged corruption in the Oil-for-Food program, which allowed Saddam Hussein’s
government to sell oil in exchange for humanitarian items.”

Mr.
Goldberg, should read his own references again. 
Even the Paul Volcker investigation, which he used to defend his defense
of this U.N. program, states there was evidence of fairly widespread
corruption.  Volcker’s report noted that
much of the food provided to the Iranians was “unfit for human consumption”.  The U.N.’s own internal audit (an audit, by
the way, that has never been published) was a much more scathing indictment of
U.N. ineffectiveness than Volcker’s official and published report.  The fact that we know this only because a
whistleblower leaked the U.N. internal audit is sufficient evidence of U.N.
corruption in itself.

“The Volcker
investigation cleared Kofi Annan of any wrong doing, and Kojo has never been
accused of committing any crimes.”

Volcker’s
investigation lacked sufficient evidence to directly connect Kofi Annan to
illegal activity or corruption but never “cleared” him of anything.  As for his son, Kojo Annan, even his most
ardent fans admit Kojo was comfortable with gaining influence through his
father’s U.N. connections as well as his own connections through Cotecna, a
Swiss based inspection company he worked for from 1995 to 1997.  As a wild coincidence, Cotecna was the
company at the center of the oil-for-food corruption investigations.  An additional
fun-fact:  Although Kojo ended his
employment with Cotecna in 1997, he continued receiving payments from them
until early 2004.

As Mr.
Goldberg continues to pick at Mustaine’s lyrics – nearly line for line – he
becomes further mired in that minutia I mentioned earlier.  His use of language is, well, impressive and
his knowledge of apocalyptical references in the Old Testament is equally
impressive. 

Personally,
I’d like to see Mark Leon Goldberg use that talent and intellect to write about
something new and relevant.