Starting to make some sense...

[mburbank]

Okay, I'm not saying Chalabi was ever guilty of bank fraud in Jordan, but as Hitchens himself points out, what the hell do we know about it?

I agree totally that the forgery claim is bogus, I mean why would you bother with Dinars when you have real actual US dollars which I'm sure are a lot more usable in Iraq these days, certainly privately, if not publicly.

But I really have to wonder about Hitchen's crush on Chalabi. Setting aside alleged bank fraud and currency scams, no one can say Chalabi wasn't lying through his teeth when he provided 'deserters' and climed to know anything about what was going on in Iraq during his exile. No one can argue that when Chalabi got too hot for even the Neo Cons to handle, he turned himself from sophisticated secular modern Chalabi into extremist muslim Chalabi faster than you can change outfits on a Barbie doll. He could be %100 percent innocent of any economic fraud ever, Jordan could have robbed his family blind at Sadaams request, that doesn't mean Chalabi isn't an opportunist shark you shouldn't trust any further than you could throw him.

Hitchen's talk of Chalabis 'amusing' after dinner annecdotes, and phrases like 'he actually introduced the Visa card to the Middle East in his halcyon days' are psychofantic and nauseating. When did Hitchens become so fawning, so proud of being on the 'inside'?


Hitch seems to be pitching the idea that since this most recent series of dustups is an obvious clumsy frame job that means any previous charges against him are too. He mentions Chalabi's trial in Jordan seemed strange, but he doesn't even give the number of years between his fleeing Jordan and filing this lawsuit. If it wasn't urgent in the intervening years, why now?

I'll admit, it seems pretty ugly that now Chalabi's no longer of any use to the the administration their hanging him out to dry (and it seems pretty evident we've at very, very least withdrawn our protection and funding and more likely we're the ones setting him up to be 'shot while resisting arrest'. But if even the Neo Cons who once thought Chalabi could hand them Iraq on a silver platter can see there's no hiding what a sham he is, what's up with Hitchens?