McCain's Dangerous Liason

We're pleased to present a Guest Post by Ken Anderson of Shockfront.Org. Ken's posts here are always well received - he's a writer with an eye for detail, just as we like it.

The neoconservatives' favorite disinformation peddler, Ahmed Chalabi, has found himself roiled in yet more Iraq controversy, as one of his deputies, Ali Faisal al Lami, has been arrested by US military forces.

U.S. forces have arrested a deputy of Ahmad Chalabi, who was once the Bush administration's favorite Iraqi politician, and implicated him in bombings that killed Americans and Iraqis, Chalabi and Iraqi government officials said Thursday. The U.S. military alleged that the arrested official was working with the "highest echelons" of the Iranian "special groups" criminals, referring to what the U.S. military says are Iranian-backed militias operating in Iraq.

Chalabi has quite a long history of double dealing, not the least of which was his weapons of mass destruction media crusade, co-hosted by Judith Miller. Chalabi has long been supported by the neoconservative infrastructure in this country; his Iraqi National Congress (INC) is practically a creation of the Rendon group, the PR firm that pushed the Iraq war propaganda at the behest of the White House Iraq Group and was funded entirely by the US government.

The US military has long been critical of Chalabi and his doings in Iraq, even raiding his offices with suspicions that he was funneling information to Iran. Though Chalabi has proven politically toxic in Iraq (apparently the Iraqis can smell a rat, even if Washington can't), he has succeeded in drifting around the halls of government in Baghdad, even managing to become oil minister for a time.

But that is not the interesting part of the story. The interesting part of this story is its political connection to the presidential campaign.

John McCain, himself, has been a long time supporter of Ahmed Chalabi and the INC, often personally intervening on Chalabi's behalf.

McCain welcomed Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), to Washington and pressured the administration to give him money. When General Anthony Zinni cast doubt upon the effectiveness of the Iraqi opposition, McCain rebuked him at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

For his part, Chalabi supported McCain during McCain's failed presidential bid in 2000, which in turn generated later praise from McCain, who said that Chalabi was "a patriot who has the best interests of his country at heart." But the connections are deep, as McCain's foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann, the man of exposed ill-repute in the Georgia conflict, has also been a "close friend" of Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress.

What we have on display here is clear and continuously poor judgment on the part of McCain. His advocacy of and support for a well-known fugitive and dubious huckster like Chalabi speaks volumes. And with Chalabi's connection to terrorist activities and the deaths of American soldiers, McCain's support of the man is open wound.

The question becomes, will anyone notice? Certainly the media cannot avow this narrative. It will have to come from weak-kneed Democrats. Which means we already know this festering political sore will be bandaged and allowed to heal. I would say that attacking McCain on this front is probably getting a little to close to the bone for the American political establishment. For not only does it revive the theme of the falsified intelligence against Iraq, it has the potential to recast the klieg lights on White House and McCain support for someone now sewn up in a web of terrorist connections.

While this situation could rightly be seen as knock-out political attack -- the poor, poor judgment of John McCain and his scary circle of "friends" -- it will go nowhere because the Democrats are simply incapable of raising this as an issue. Given that GOP surrogates easily found it within themselves to essentially call Vietnam vet John Kerry a traitor, what we do know is that, were Obama in the same situation McCain could find himself in with having to acknowledge connections to Chalabi, the GOP would jump at painting Obama with the terrorist smear. Successful or no, they're already trying to do it with their Ayers gambit. Obama in a position like this would be pure gold for the febrile minds in the McCain camp and they wouldn't hesitate to use it.

Comments

[Ron Beasley]

Very informative post Ken and I look forward to hearing a lot more from you in the future.

[anderson]

The question becomes, will anyone notice?

Well, I guess we have our answer, and it is a resounding, NO!