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Monday,
May 24, 2004

by …

GOOD morning! How did you sleep?
I bet you slept a lot more soundly than certain neocons, who may have spent the night thrashing about, wondering what American officials in Baghdad are finding out about them in the files seized from
Ahmed Chalabi, right.

There have always been
only three main theories for why so many
influential neocons sold out the United States
to Chalabi:

They are fools. Machiavelli
offered this advice in his Discourses’
Chapter XXXI, which is entitled “How Dangerous it is to Believe
Exiles:”

“How vain are the faith and promises of
those who find themselves deprived of their
country. For, as to their faith, it has to be
borne in mind that anytime they can return to
their country by other means than yours, they
will leave you and look to the other,
notwithstanding whatever promises they had made
you.

As to their vain hopes and promises, such
is the extreme desire in them to return home,
that they naturally believe many things that are
false and add many others by art, so that
between those they believe and those they say
they believe, they fill you with hope, so that
relying on them you will incur expenses in vain,
or you undertake an enterprise in which you ruin
yourself.”

You don’t get sent to prison for sincerely believing nonsense, however. Developing a big fat crush on Chalabi and subscribing to the ridiculous neocon ideology is not a criminal offense. So, the neocons must be hoping that Chalabi’s files include lots of cackling over how he has duped those naive, trusting morons. Embarrassing, yes, indictable, no.

Chalabi bought them. You can buy intellectuals and apparatchiks cheap — just invite them to speak at some impressive-sounding conferences at fancy hotels. There’s nothing illegal about that. But, perhaps Chalabi spent some of his cash more, uh, directly? We may find out.

They did it for Israel. John
Dizard reported in “How Ahmed Chalabi Conned the Neocons” in Salon:[Feither]

“Ahmed Chalabi is a treacherous,
spineless turncoat,” says L. Marc Zell, a
former law partner of Douglas Feith
[A],
now the undersecretary of defense for policy,
right, and a former friend and supporter
of Chalabi and his aspirations to lead Iraq.
“He had one set of friends
before he was in power, and now he’s got
another.” … Zell, a Jerusalem attorney,
continues to be a partner in the firm that Feith
left in 2001 to take

the Pentagon job. He also
helped Ahmed Chalabi’s nephew Salem set
up a new law office in Baghdad in late
2003… Zell outlines what Chalabi was
promising the neocons before the Iraq war:
“He said he would end Iraq’s
boycott of trade with Israel, and would allow
Israeli companies to do business there.

He said
[the new Iraqi government] would agree
to rebuild the pipeline from Mosul [in the
northern Iraqi oil fields] to Haifa [the
Israeli port, and the location of a major
refinery].”

Presumably, Feith could defend himself by saying that all the disasters he has inflicted on America (here’s Slate‘s list in an article entitled,
“What has the Pentagon’s third man done wrong?
[Bush consults with community leaders]Everything“) were due to his truly believing that what was good for Israel was also somehow good for America.

That may be a perfectly valid defense and I hope he tries it out when he’s put on trial for high treason.

Chalabi keeps network, could thwart U.S. goals despite fall from grace
Robert Fisk reports: Video pictures of US helicopter crew shooting wounded men have been censored by British and European
TV (see below)
Atrocity-galleries from a
“bloodless war”: Thousands of images of the Iraqi victims of Bush and
Blair
How to Shoot a Wounded
Iraqi “That was awesome, let’s do it

again!”
[video, WMV, zip file, 1
MB]
1998: The neo-cons wrote to President Clinton: Project for the New Century |
Wolfowitz lies again:
Iraqi pipeline attacks go unreported
“What has the Pentagon’s third man done wrong?
Everything“