May 20, 2004, This was just a WARNING, Ahmed; Next time it had better ALL BE THERE...
Does anyone have any idea why our military and CIA suddenly decided to go all "Abu Ghraib" on Ahmed Chalabi's house, including holding a gun to the head of the embezzler himself, while searching the place and removing all sorts of goodies?
I mean, first we cut off the Iraqi National Congress's monthly stipend check, and now, I sense some hostility towards Ahmed, raiding his house, removing files and computers, and of course, being mean to Ahmed. Surely its not because Ahmed's deliberately faulty intelligence based on unreliable "defectors" was extrapolated by a Bush Administration eager for any excuse to take out the guy who (1) tried to kill Dubya's Dad (btw-- a long debunked story, as are many Bush myths), and more importantly, (2) the guy Dubya always blamed for his Dad LOSING to the loathsome Bill Clinton in 1992 (Dubya is too stupid, of course, to blame, say, Ross Perot, or even Poppy himself).
Anyway, since failure is just not something that has adverse consequences in the Bush Administration, what's going on? It MIGHT be Chalabi's ongoing criminality (he IS, of course, a criminal-- which I had always presumed was what QUALIFIED him to be the choice of the Bushmen for putative first post-Saddam Iraqi dictator), but his shakedowns and kickback schemes are pissing off a lot of people (presumably because Ahmed, being a pig, is doubtless not spreading it around), not to mention his attempts at landgrabs of government property just ahead of the "sovereignty transfer" in 41 days (come hell or overflowing Tigris and Euphrates).
At least two of Chalabi's fellow puppets on the IGC have threatened resignation over this treatment of... the putative leader. Could this be a ruse by the neo-cons to throw others off the trail? Who the hell knows; Iraq is one fucked up place now. The only thing we can be certain of is that it will probably be even MORE fucked up once we put Chalabi, or one of the other IGC players that the locals by and large regard as collaborators and traitors, in charge.
Has anyone noticed that American body counts are not being well reported anymore? Have we finally reached the point where the deaths of our service personnel ARE ROUTINE? I don't know; war is something not to be sought out as your favorite choice-- Bush should, frankly, having gambled on finding WMDs and LOST, not run for reelection. But see above re: consequences of failure in the Bush Administration. We can only hope that the Donald's favorite catchphrase catches on (Trump that is, not Rumsfeld-- who, btw, seems to have gone back to business as usual, despite this... torture thing)... and the voters tell the President in November... well, you know. And that phrase is not from the OTHER Donald-- "goodness graacious, the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence". Except in the case of honor, integrity, or even a shred of decency on the part of the Bush Administration... Well, we are at the bottom of a huge hole in Iraq; hopefully the voters will recognize that "stop digging" is an appropriate first step.
Comments
This latest Chalabi development leads me to wonder if this war wasn't set up by a cabal of spy-thriller writers like Clancy, who need more fodder for their tales in the wake of the Cold War.
I'm not sure whether that theory is more or less plausible than my Crawford-ranch-running-low-on-brush theory, in which I postulate that Bush needs the photo-ops and heard that Iraq has lots of brush to be cleared.
Posted by rorschach at May 21, 2004 04:36 AM
What do they tell Chalabi to do when it's time to pray toward Mecca?
Posted by Pray for Dignity, Bitch at May 21, 2004 01:05 PM
No, not because he's criminal and not because people got pissed off about the "faulty intelligence." Not a ruse by the neocons, though I heard a theory that this was a ruse by the Provisional Authority to try to engender some sympathy for him among Iraqis.
The reason appears to be that he was biting the hand that fed him. Since the UN/Provisional Authority powers that be decided Chalabi would NOT be one of the leaders of the new interim government (becasue Brahimi seemed to think he was corrupt and unreliable), he was trying to undermine Brahmimi and the UN/US efforts to set up the interim government; was attempting to create a secular Shiite revolutionary movement, allied with both Hezbollah and the Mullah Sadr guy, and explicity anti-U.S., anti-U.N. and anti-interim government, with plans to try to fight, stop, bollux up, impede, blow up, gun down, or otherwise interfere with the interim government and the "orderly" transition of power to Iraqi control on June 30. Who'd-a-thunk-it? Apparently, he believed that Sadr was intevitably going to be killed by the US (which may already have happened today), and that his angry Shiite followers would be looking for leadership. He was planning to offer himself for the job.
I'll say one thing for him--he's got a creative, flexible and determined attitude toward the personal accumulation of wealth and power. He'll suck anybody's anywhere, any time, and any place.
See talkingpointsmemo for an amusing piece on how official Washington is now dismissing him as a minor player who had only peripheral and insignificant influence on any Iraq war planning (technically true, I guess, since there apparently was no such planning).
Posted by mamayo at May 21, 2004 01:43 PM
Sorry, that should have been "anybody's anyhow, any time and any place." Need edit function . . .
Posted by mamayo at May 21, 2004 01:49 PM
Well, there was ALSO that handing over American military intelligence to the Iranians. I hear some of the Pentagon get pissed off about that kind of thing.
Chalabi apparently went to the Yasir Arafat school of diplomacy: tell everyone what they want to hear in the appropriate language, while stabbing them in the back and stealing as much aid money as is humanly possible as fast as possible. (Interesting that neither man is welcome to step foot in Jordan... makes you wonder...)
Arafat himself, at least, knows how to DRESS for the part... Well, Ahmed may prove to be the Houdini of this show yet... we'll see...
Posted by the talking dog at May 21, 2004 02:02 PM
P.S., T.D. This has nothing (directly) to do with Chalabi, but make sure you read WKC's completely excellent article in Washington Monthly (available online, of course) about democracy, history, how the neocons failed to understand both, and what we can do to foster freedom in the Middle East. Sigh, he would have made such a wonderful President.
Posted by mamayo at May 21, 2004 04:36 PM
Apparently Chalabi didn't know that it's more American to marry a dead colleague's wife for money, than it is to try to swindle the good ol' U.S. of A.
Posted by They Call Me Mr. Crabcake at May 21, 2004 04:37 PM
M.A.--
There is no question that like the other Rhodes Scholar from Arkansas, Clark would have been one of the most intelligent men ever to run for President, let alone BE President were he elected. And last I looked, Wes didn't have a series of sex abuse allegations behind him. But, he was a political novice, and indeed, ONLY a political novice would have chosen to sit out Iowa... and the rest is history. Not to worry-- I'm getting surer and surer that Kerry will win, and Clark will doubtless have an important role in the Kerry Administration (as hopefully, will Gov. Dean)... BTW, any day now, I'm going to let the world in on my friend from upstate NY who is himself running for Congress as a Dem in an allegedly GOP "safe district" (HAH!)... part of a grand strategy to take back the WHOLE DAMNED GOVERNMENT-- not just the W.H.
Mr. C--
Last I looked, Crabcake, being an embezzler and a thief was against the law, while getting a rich chick to marry you is not. Also-- Teresa got HER money by marrying it, and the late Pennsylvania legislator earned HIS money by INHERITING IT, from his ancestors who made an honest and legitimate fortune peddling condiments.
Compare and contrast President Bush, who got his money by being HANDED IT it by Daddy's friends for a series of shady (and usually illegal, and occasionally treasonous) deals that made Whitewater look like a church bazaar.
In short-- don't go there. Criticize Kerry for his political record if you must-- its fair game in any election-- but as no less a figure than Bill Clinton once said: YOU LEAVE HIS WIFE OUT OF THIS.
Posted by the talking dog at May 21, 2004 04:52 PM
Dog,
"No less a figure than Bill Clinton?"- Whooh, good one.
You liberalles keep telling us to leave Clinton out of it, but in three pithy paragraphs, you reference the Fatman twice.
Whitewater: trials, convictions, and burial of all friends of Clintons (Ho, Ho, I don't mean burials literally, except.....oh, never mind.)
Impeachment: investigations, hearings and burials of all friends of Clintons.
As Clint Eastwood said in the Outlaw Josey Wales: "People I like don't tend to live too long."
His Indian sidekick retorts: "People you don't like don't live too long, neither."
I think that was the Clinton campaign slogan.
Bush I & II, on the other hand: Apart from the theories of you and the rest of your tin foil hatted constituency-No trials, no impeachment, no convictions.
Get with it, lad. We are, after all, a results-oriented society.
Posted by They Call Me Mr. Crabcake at May 21, 2004 07:09 PM
YOU LEAVE BILL CLINTON OUT OF THIS.
Baby Bush is not likely to be impeached by a Congress whose Republican leadership he hand-picked (largely leadership from the "Texas of Evil"). And Poppy Bush was blessed with a Democratic Congress which wasn't particularly mean-spirited. Baby Bush's offenses, I assure you, are infinitely more "impeachable" than Clinton's were... and actually threaten the continued existence of our nation (again, unlike Blowjob Bill)...
Can't you at least find a decent Hogan's Hero reference for this one? I mean, Clint Eastwood is great and all-- but Clinton... I don't know... General Burkhalter, perhaps? Or perhaps, a more direct and relevant Clinton/Clint reference (Monica-- in all the confusion, I'm not sure if I shot 5 times... or 6...)
Posted by the talking dog at May 21, 2004 09:44 PM
TD...Baby Bush's offenses are criminal and the reason for no impeachment....you nailed it. The image of a smirking Tom 'indict me now' DeLay behind a disgusting Dennis Hassert questioning John McCain's knowledge of sacrifice might give us a clue. Mr. Bill 'kill them cats' Frist leading the Senate might be another clue. We are surrounded by immoral goons that hide beneath a shroud (no pun intended) of religion and superiority. Our nation is lead by people I wouldn't let my children spend an unsupervised moment with. I'm sick. Speaking of sick, Larry King has the nerve to follow John McCain (who just revealed that the Armed Services Committee apparently didn't receive ALL of the Taguba report) with Kathie Lee Gifford speaking about religion and other issues relevent to her life. (I confess I left the room to retreat to the comfort of my computer) because I'm sick! Why do we, this 'results-oriented society', tolerate such nonsense? Do Kathie Lee Gifford and John McCain belong in the same sentence much less on the same program sharing the same hour? I do not know how to spell the sound of my disgust. AND, where is the rest of the Taguba report? What might it impart? Larry just didn't have time to pursue that IMPORTANT BIT OF INFO! Can it possibly get any worse? I fear the answer to that question. Final thought....a MUST read for today...Mark Morford at SFGate..."Bush:Dumb Like a Bullet" And Mamayo, I agree Wes Clark's paper in the Washington Monthly is excellent and sadly enlightening.
Posted by alicia at May 21, 2004 10:45 PM
Speaking of Clancy (well, tangentially), did you notice that he's co-author with General Zinni on that new book?
Man, I don't have the budget for all these tomes!
Posted by Linkmeister at May 21, 2004 10:56 PM
Did you see that Clancy is a co-author with General Zinni on the next Bush/Iraq bashing book?
Posted by Linkmeister at May 21, 2004 10:58 PM
Thanks y'all for the support.
Be sure to buy my book, and at 800+ pages, fortunately, it's not as lenghty as some of the tomes posted in these comments.
Posted by Bubba at May 22, 2004 09:57 AM
Thanks y'all for the support.
Be sure to buy my book, and at 800+ pages, fortunately, it's not as lenghty as some of the tomes posted in these comments.
Posted by Bubba at May 22, 2004 09:57 AM
Who knew Bubba was a reader?
Wes Clark would be a great leader, except for that whole almost starting World War Three with Russia in Kosovo thing.
Who would play him? How about Newkirk, the little regarded gadget genius on Hogan's Heroes.
Clinton strikes me more as the Dick Shawn character in It's a Mad, Mad World.
Finally, I must say that Pray For Dignity, Bitch is an oddly intriguing name.
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