There are no few people in and around the international adoption world who feel that corruption in birth countries is so pervasive that adoptions originating in those countries can be nothing but tainted. Many would prefer that adoptions from such places stop until transparent systems can be put in place that would assure total transparency.

There is no doubt that bribery, graft, obstruction of justice and more happen on a daily basis in the course of doing government business in birth countries around the world.

Terrible. Tut, tut and for shame. Let's look down our noses upon the scum ... and all that.

And ...

According to Transparency International a global coalition against corruption, the USA came in at number 17 on the Corruption Perspective Index for 2005, behind Iceland, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Singapore, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Australia, Austria, Holland, UK, Luxembourg, Canada, Hong Kong and Germany.

Some may be surprised to learn that between 1990 and 2002, federal prosecutors in America convicted more than 10,000 government officials of acts of corruption including fraud and obstruction of justice.

In case you're curious, the top three corrupt states were Alaska, Mississippi and Louisiana, while Oregon, Washington and Vermont were the least corrupt ... interesting, or ironic, for Cambodian-adoptive parents since Lauren Galindo, the only person to serve time because of dealings that led to the shutdown of Cambodian adoptions, ran her agency out of Seattle.

Yes, this is where we get into that 'glass houses' thing that should have people asking: "So, who should be in charge?"

Can we take a look at just one aspect of US corruption, the one that relates to dirty dealings in Iraq that the CSM calls a "free fraud zone"?

The Christian Science Monitor reported on other allegations of corrpution in Iraq leveled against companies, including a "report by special inspector Stuart Bowen [which] found that $8.8 billion dollars had been disbursed from Iraqi oil revenue by US administrators to Iraqi ministries without proper accounting."

Hmmmmm.

So, maybe sitting in judgement isn't appropriate when the BBC reports that a UN report that came out in January also criticized the US as being a " poor role model" in "keeping corruption at bay."

With some calling the reconstruction of Iraq the "biggest corruption scandal in history", shouldn't there be a heck of a lot of debate over who is throwing stones?

(I won't even go into the "pot/kettle" conversation that would fit about here.)

Children have been stuck in Cambodian orphanages for more than six years now when some may have found families in America had they been allowed. Guatemala is now looking down the barrel of the gun that may blow adoptions from that country all to hell. Allegations of corruption are made, programs are closed, children are trapped.

Corruption is a horrible thing and must be stopped. The world must also find a way to world peace and an end to poverty and hunger.

My concern is what happens in the meantime.