{"id":185951,"date":"2014-07-07T19:19:00","date_gmt":"2014-07-08T00:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/07\/07\/first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce\/"},"modified":"2014-07-07T19:19:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T00:19:00","slug":"first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2014\/07\/07\/first-as-tragedy-then-as-farce\/","title":{"rendered":"First as Tragedy, then as Farce*"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Wolfowitz is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/2014-07-03\/wolfowitz-sees-chalabi-as-viable-iraq-leader-even-with-iran-ties.html\">boosting Ahmed Chalabi as the next Prime Minister of Iraq<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><span style=\"color: blue;\">Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi who helped spur the U.S. invasion of his country, would be viable as its next prime minister though close ties he established with Iran pose an impediment, said Paul Wolfowitz, a top American national security official when the war launched.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">\u201cThe man is a survivor,\u201d Wolfowitz said in an interview on Bloomberg Television\u2019s \u201cPolitical Capitol with Al Hunt,\u201d airing this weekend. \u201cThat\u2019s impressive. I think he wants to succeed in what he does, he\u2019s smart; maybe he\u2019ll figure out a way to do it.\u201d<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Chalabi, 69, currently serves in Iraq\u2019s Parliament as government forces battle insurgents who have destabilized the country and prompted calls for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki\u2019s resignation.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">Chalabi\u2019s political group, the Iraqi National Congress, supplied Wolfowitz and others in President George W. Bush\u2019s administration with information that tied then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and alleged he was developing weapons of mass destruction &#8212; the justification for the U.S. invasion in March 2003.<\/span><br \/><span style=\"color: blue;\"><br \/><\/span><span style=\"color: blue;\">The information was later discredited and in May 2004, U.S. soldiers raided Chalabi\u2019s house and offices in Iraq to investigate allegations of fraud and grand theft against him.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Why are we listening to these people after all that they have screwed up to completely?<\/p>\n<p>The fact that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Pearle, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams, etc. are viewed as anything but a punchline is a complete indictment of our media.<\/p>\n<p><sup>*<\/sup><span style=\"font-size: xx-small;\"> The full quote, ascribed to Karl Marx, is &#8220;History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Wolfowitz is boosting Ahmed Chalabi as the next Prime Minister of Iraq: Ahmed Chalabi, the Iraqi who helped spur the U.S. invasion of his country, would be viable as its next prime minister though close ties he established with Iran pose an impediment, said Paul Wolfowitz, a top American national security official when the &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[970,969,1034,1063,1064,982],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-185951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corruption","category-evil","category-iran","category-iraq","category-media","category-stupid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185951"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}