".....on the House of Saud payroll."
Exactly; before and DURING his term on the ISG. And with the LameStreamMedia hyping the Dims election results in November as part of an "ethics in government" concern of the voters, where is their reporting on the special interst conflict that Jim Baker had, just for even taking ANY role on the Iraq Surrender Group? Oh, sorry, I forgot, the subjects of investigative reports are only supposed to be people who do not parrot the LameStreamMedia's point of view.
Yes, Jim Baker thanked the dictator in Syria for simply not objecting to our kicking Saddam out of Kuwait - not that we needed any permission or help from Syria to do it - by negotiating an international agreement that made Lebanon a vassal of Syria. Yet, the LameStreamMedia would lead you to believe that the people of Lebabon have forgotton the "cynical American self-interest" that created their present problems, and Mr. Baker's role in that betrayal.
The LameStreamMedia loved how there was not this big giant love-fest from the Shia in southern Iraq when we went back to Iraq in 2003, and how there is still a distrust of the US among many Shia. Yet, they will dare not mention that that distrust comes from the Baker engineered betrayal they felt when they rose up against Saddam and we did not finish him off in 1991, when their men, by the tens of thousands, were begging to "surrender" to us and join us.
As much as the "Arab street" (the Arab government controlled media) might applaud the ISG, I doubt if there is any love for it anywhere in Iraq except among the Baathists, Al Queda and the other insurgents. To the Iraqis it must look like a 1991 redux.
Great post, Wuli. James Baker and x41 are responsible for far more of our current mess than most Americans realize.