Posted on 05/21/2004 9:16:55 PM PDT by Destro
Busted neo-con icon
Published: May 22 2004 5:00 | Last Updated: May 22 2004 5:00
The spectacular rise and sudden downfall of Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of the Pentagon ideologues who launched the war in Iraq and saw him as its future leader, would look Shakespearean in its plot development were it not so shabby, and the irreducible reality of Iraq not so bloody and still so distant from catharsis.
Front pages across the world illustrated the drama through the splintered glass of a framed portrait of Mr Chalabi, smashed after US troops raided his Baghdad house on Thursday. As the ghost of Hamlet's father put it in a different context: "Oh what a falling off was there!"
Mr Chalabi's recent history in many ways encapsulates the delusionary nature of the US adventure in Iraq - not least because it was he who fed these delusions to his patrons at the Pentagon. Some of the most alarming stories the Bush administration passed on to its allies as intelligence - such as the one about Saddam Hussein's mobile biological weapons laboratories - were the fabrications of defectors supplied on demand by Mr Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress (INC). Colin Powell, the US secretary of state who repeated these assertions to the United Nations Security Council as justification for the war, earlier this month described that particular information as "deliberately misleading".
Mr Chalabi's claim that Iraqis would welcome US troops with flowers, moreover, played perfectly to the gullibility of the neo-conservatives in and around the Pentagon who had long been determined to invade Iraq and use it as a lever to reshape the Middle East. But if they were taken in by these stirring tales, it was and is their fault; the record of Mr Chalabi is no mystery.
The INC leader is a brilliant man who lobbied Washington with charm and conviction. A western-educated, secular member of Iraq's Shia majority, he must have seemed an ideal projection of Iraq's future after regime change, a seductive image confused as reality. It seems to have given no one pause that he had no standing in Iraq, which he left as a boy. Or, indeed, that he was best known in the region for the Petra bank fraud in Jordan, for which he was sentenced to 22 years in jail in 1990 (he fled the country to avoid imprisonment). He says he was set up by Saddam; that is not what knowledgeable bankers in Amman and Beirut say.
In 2001 the INC - which has received nearly $40m (£22.5m) from Washington - fell foul of a US audit reported to have uncovered expenditure on paintings for its offices and gym subscriptions for its staff. Now, it appears, the INC seems to have profited from last year's currency changeover in Iraq. Mr Chalabi, a gifted mathematician whose doctoral thesis was on Knot Theory, has left a lot of loose ends dangling in his controversial career.
Unsurprisingly, when the US flew him and his self-styled "Free Iraqi" militia into Iraq last year, those Iraqis who knew him were unimpressed. His part in persuading the occupation authority to dissolve the regular army, as well as a blanket purge instead of the selective rooting out of Saddam's henchmen, top the lengthy list of misjudgments of the past year. So bad has Mr Chalabi's relationship with his former patrons become that officials in Washington are accusing him of passing US intelligence to Iran.
Yet it would be quite wrong to make Mr Chalabi a scapegoat. Ultimately, he was the construct of geo-political fantasists in Washington, which is surely where the responsibility lies for his and their shortcomings.
nicely put.
this place should not be simply a pep rally.
Liberty Caucus too but no one seems to post much there
wardaddy wrote:
this place should not be simply a pep rally.
______________________________________
I'm sure JR would agree, privately.
But it seems that any public hint of encouraging diverse opinion at FR now leads to the 'pep boys' clique having a major snit. Apparently we must bow to political correctness for the duration of the war on terror.
The Framers of our Constitution, [outspoken anti-pc rebels to a man], are rolling in their graves.
I never voted or will ever vote for Buchanan for president.
Trust me, folks, when people speak of "the Neocons", they really mean "the Jews". If Chalabi was working for the Iranians, we might have busted him after we rolled up some of their assets. God knows what is going on right now. But I can tell you what isn't going on. There's not some Neocon Hooked Nosed Jewish Bankers' Conspiracy to hand America over to the Likudniks, that's for damn sure.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Or are you saying that Clinton and Chalabi are so corrupt that they both fooled President Bush for the last four years?
No - neocons hide behind the "antisemite" charge when they are exposed - they commies cum conservatives return to their Red roots and use the tactics they learned in that movement. Yell out racisim to frighten off and throw off balance the neocon questioners.
Horsesh*t. Paleos scream "Neocons" because they know that screaming "Juden" isn't in style. Buchanan, for instance, hasn't made the mistake of Jew-baiting in some time. But he'll pull out the old "Neocon" canard like good ol' Father Coughlin.
Go peddle this crap in the next issue of The Spotlight, not here.
Be Seeing You,
Chris
Too bad for you I am not a Pat supporter or a paleocon - just an orthodox conservative.
You are playing word games; but not very good ones at that. Ronald Reagan may have been a "liberal," in his youth. He was a solid traditional Conservative by the time he made the most famous speech of the Goldwater campaign in 1964. Calling a Goldwater Conservative a "neo-con," is ridiculous.
Frankly, and personally, I injected myself into one of these defining threads about a year ago, to question whether neo-con did not in fact relate to the idea of a new conservative, rather than some form of wacked out theorist--as it has lately been used for--and was told in effect to butt out. That "neo-cons" on the thread were simply defining their movement.
While I think most of those who choose to label themselves as "neo-cons," meaning not newly Conservative but rather embracing a most unconservative policy, are intellectual jokes, I am concerned by the statement sometimes encountered that some of them have openly identified with Leon Trotsky. Is there any truth to that? Trotsky, of course, represented the brutal Left of Bolshevism, head of the original Red Army. He was Left of both Stalin and Hitler.
While some people, such as Whitaker Chambers, left Communism and came to accept and speak out for traditional Western values, many who left Communism simply left Communism; they left the specific movement, or party. They did not repudiate its ideology. If there are such "neo-cons," who have ties to the extreme Left of the Communist world, is it not appropriate to inquire as to how specific and how detailed has been their repudiation of Marxist values. Trotsky was a very, very evil man!
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
The dems and others will have to remain somewhat quiet on this matter, as they are complicit in the rise of this guy as well. The New York times being his best source of support.
We also cannot discount the value of the intel and activities that Chalabi's organization provided. They assisted us greatly.
As I stated before, Chalabi became a liability as a result of his refusal to back off the Iraqi Governing council and he tried to interject himself as a political entity in a apolitical process. It is way too early for that.
Then it came to light that he, or one of his aids gave classified intel to Iran in exchange for backing from the Iranian run clerics in Iraq. I think this came from Jordanian sources.
Chalabi may in fact be distanced from the actions of his lieutenants, but it does not matter. He would have lost his funding anyway.
He has become a thorn in a thorny arrangement and as such has to be cut off along with the others as the transfer takes place.
If he is still around when political parties begin to be formed and the election process begins, then so be it. It will be a Iraqi matter from that point, but right now the process needs to walk before it can run.
As for Bush and the DOD and DIA and State, this is all election year BS and needs to be put in it's proper place.
The round file.
Hogwash.
The term neo-conservative fits perfectly for those that put party before country regardess of policy, such as the new Republicans that have completely ignored this epic invasion of our country by literally million of people that are entering our country illegally. Years ago the Republican party would have never put up with this crisis and would have been the most outspoken group in the courtry. Now? They not only ignore it, many aid and abet this titanic nationwide lawlessness.
So you see, the term neocon fits perfectly, and that's MY definition. Don't like it neopardons? Tooooo bad....
Words and terms have specific,set meanings,which are NOT open to whims,vicissitudes,and machinations of change,that you or anyone else decides.If I know the meaning of the word doleful,use it correctly,but you decide that it means something else completely and keep misusing that word,no one will understand YOU and will be confused.Arguing that doleful means "happy" or "jollity" or perhaps,"green",doesn't make it so! And so it is,with what you're trying to do with "neo-con".
It doesn't make any difference that you "think" that YOUR version makes sense.The truth of the matter is,Irving Kristol invented the term and he decided WHAT the term means.Yes...it IS set in stone,written in blood,and immutable!
Others HAVE misused,abused,and corrupted the term;using it as an anti-Semitic,code word,slur.Others use it to bash and trash President Bush,his administration,and/or as an anti-war,anti-JEW pejorative.
YOU? You change the meaning week to week,month to month,to abuse anyone and EVERYONE who disagrees with anything ( the topic doesn't matter at all!)you say.And playing games with my nic is juvenile,puerile,and only reflects badly on YOU ! Just as making up your own perverted meaning for neo-con,calling me "neopardons",doesn't make me a neo-con (which I'm not)any more than calling me something else,makes that.
Joe,languages have set rules,words have set meaning,and when someone ignores the set rules,it is THEY who are wrong.That's just how it is.
OTOH,I wouldn't consider Reagan a neo-con at all, because I use the original meaning of the term,which precludes calling anyone other than neo-cons,neo-cons.But since some here want to make up their own definitions for the term,and that definition absolutely makes Reagan a neo-con,I posited the query.
And FYI,Reagan was not in his youth,when he was a Dem/became a GOPer,or when he praised FDR,publicly,as a sitting president.
"Where'd the Libatarians go?"
Texas responded to the effect to check the smoky back room. How perceptive. Check the following URL:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-backroom/1124818/posts
I consider my philosphy similar to how wardaddy described himself but I do have libertarian sympathies. When you get the same old tired retort that you're a closet pothead, you're advocating drug abuse when you really are not, the mindlessness of the counter arguments, and the absolute refusal to acknowledge the harm that is caused by prohibition, some folks get tired of bringing up certain topics.
I've known a number of friends and family that were physically harmed by alcohol. I just buried a friend of forty years who literally drank himself to death.
I didn't read that whole thread, maybe 80%. IIRC, I only made the first comment. I thought I would be a skunk at the garden party for the heck of it when I posted the article.
As for abortion, I'm against it in almost all situations, but there are always exceptions to everything. Say you're a doctor, and a pregnant woman has a rubella infection, aka german measles. You're obligated to tell her that if she carries her baby to term, that there's a very high chance of her child being deaf, mentally retarded, having heart disease, etc. If you don't tell her that, it's malpractice. Upon hearing that many women would want to have an abortion. If she really wants to have children, she'll probably have another chance.
Jack Benny's character, being 39,no matter how old he was and stingy,was "shtik".Harpo Marx being a "mute",who ran after women,put someone else's hand under his knee and then swinging his leg,and honking a horn were all "shtik".W.C.Fields' entire character is "shtik".
But,what was posted,by the person who claimed what he posted was "shtik",was NOT "shtik"...which,in turn, prompted my query,and engendered your reply.LOL
I hope this answer clears it all up for you. :-)
You sound 95% ok to me....lol....some folks around here just like to fight.
I don't think Libertarians or Objectivists should be verboten...nor Neos or Paleos either.
Let folks have their say as long as we all know who the enemy is and don't make it "ourselves".
You know how around here when you get to where you usually like somone then you lose the chance to publicly call them on something you might not agree on.
FR protocol....a small sacrifice to be around so many great like minds.
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