Harry Greaves to the Rescue

As a function of fairness, I believe that it is necessary at this time to reevaluate some of the positions we assumed under different circumstances regarding the best way to slow down the rate of corruption in Liberia and, eventually, to bring it under control. In this endeavor, everybody should be a source of potential help. In fact, Harry Greaves could be of tremendous help, especially on the corruption patrol.

I also believe that Greaves can be of immediate help in the investigation of the alleged bribery that former House Speaker Edwin Snowe complained about before he was dumped as Speaker. Of course Greaves and Snowe are not natural allies; but now that we have a national crisis in the form of the bribery charges that have claimed the attention of the government of the United States , I think a Greaves-Snowe team can help us get to the truth a bit more quickly.

Greaves' problem though is that he is already on record for lying, even if his letter of apology, which is the only known documentary proof in that regard, never explicitly said so. And here I was thinking that Greaves was being duplicitous in making an adventure out of an otherwise simple task of apologizing for lying. In retrospect, we should not have allowed Greaves to face potential crooks alone.

So I think what should happen now is for Greaves to recant his apology to the House and make a new plea -- a not-sorry plea. In other words he should say, as he had before, that there is still a crook (maybe two) in the Liberian Congress. He will have my complete support in that endeavor; and if that's not enough, the U.S. has already suggested that the bribery claims should be investigated.

I also believe that Greaves will need some protection: something close to, if not exactly, a witness protection plan. But with the U.S. on our side we should investigate both the Legislative and Executive varieties of the alleged bribery.

However, my desire to help Greaves face the crooks is not out of sympathy for Greaves or mere antipathy for the crooks, but rather because I find it difficult to believe that Greaves was lying when he first said that a legislator approached him for money in exchange for some legislative actions that might benefit both the lawmaker and Greaves. In fact, Greaves stuck to his guns long enough to clarify that the bribe seeker was not a senator. And that was because the Senate was first to take umbrage at the intimation that the bribe seeker might be a colleague.

But it appears that Greaves would have gotten himself into the same tight fit with either one or a combination of the two alternatives he had -- to lie or to tell the truth. So he probably did the nearest thing that convenience or habit allowed. But he, at some point, had to have determined that telling the truth wasn't trouble enough and therefore switched to lying, perhaps to placate the Senate. However, and predictably, Greaves ended up committing two breaches instead of just one: He lied about one legislative chamber and added an insult to the injury of the other.

But once he was before the full Legislature, Greaves didn't say directly which chamber included a crook; he said instead that no one would benefit from the stark truth. Well, I don't know about that; but why didn't Greaves think about this before he opened his month the first, second, and third time until the Senate and then the House stood accused?

Taking full advantage of their strength in number, the full House had pretentiously claimed the higher moral ground by peppering Greaves with questions, mostly in the rhetorical range. Enough said, the House gave Greaves some homework: Go ye and write a letter of apology. “Wow! That was easy,” Greaves most have thought. But when he turned the apology-letter writing into an exercise in verbal acrobatics, the House was not amused.

But, as I've already said, I want Greaves to know that he will not be alone this time. He should also know that truth sometimes has some harsh consequences. But on the whole, those consequences rarely ever exceed the burden of lying, which always has a multiplying effect on the already undesirable results.

So, let's see. How many of us are going to take on the crooks. There's Edwin Snowe; there's Harry Greaves; there's the United States ; and there's me, Tarty Teh

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Contact Tarty Teh at : e-Mail: TartyTeh@aol.com / Phone and text: (231) 05-653-568