Phoebus said:
Wait! This gives us an excuse to invade Iran, right?
I'm an athiest but even I'm praying that this isn't the case. If this happens the situation over in the Middle East would be turning into one of those shitty horror movies where the charecters always do really stupid things.
Also, I've long believed that by going to war with Arab countries in response to September 11th, the U.S. has thus far been giving Osama Bin Laden precisely what he wanted.
You mean the biggest ass kicking in history? Or did you see OBL walking down the Champs Elysee last week without a care in the world?
Oh yeah, he's in the catbird seat, living large and in control of his destiny. Just as long as somebody doesn't decide to stop living in a cave with terrorist/poet and become $25 million richer.
That Bush cowboy'ed up after 9/11 came as complete surprise to everybody, especially OBL. I suppose that if you're rewriting history, you should make no exceptions. Gotta give you points for thoroughness, though.
What he means is that we gave bin Laden the reality of the perception of a war between East and West via actual bombs over Baghdad. In other words, there wasn't a whole hell of a lot of actual physical proof that the mullahs and terrorist assholes could point out and say, "Look, there's America killing our sons!"
Bin Laden was testing the US by giving pin pricks here and there trying to egg us into a conflict which would increase his credibility and powers of forsight in the Arab world. For the longest time we did nothing but strike back using cruise missiles which didn't prove his point too much. Finally he sent a message we couldn't ignore--9/11--and the massive retaliation we've sent out in terms of the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq only gave credence to his and other terrorists/extremists/mullahs warning about the impending war between East and West.
It's a power play and we've given them what they've wanted. It remains to be seen however whether they'll regret getting their wish and whether the our resolve can weather their atrocities.
Chalabi was known mostly before heading up the INC for being a con-man who'd screwed a Jordanian bank out of millions of dollars.
He was Cheney and the other neo-cons first choice to be appointed head of the "Iraqi government" upon Hussein's overthrow, except that wiser heads at the State Dept (read: Colin Powell) prevailed.
Wouldn't that sort of be like the Supreme Court appointing Neil Bush as President, instead of W?
In any case, Jordan has been pressuring for Chalabi's return to face charges. That could happen, I suppose. Depends on how much he's pissed off those his fate depends upon. Hard to say whether the chicken came before the egg here though.
The story does make enough sense though. Both Iran and Iraq have had dissident or exile groups funded by the enemy's intelligence for years.
YAWG
Victoria, BC
November 2003
MAY 23, 2004 08:29 AM