Chalabi, Snow White and Pinocchio
The Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi, whose death last week revived the controversy about the 2003 Iraq war, lives on in the hearts of the neoconservatives for the same reason that the burghers of River City, Iowa embraced Mereditih Willson’s swindler. It betrays the better side of the American character: We’re too dumb to lie about other countries’ politics, which are as opaque to us as the dark side of the moon, and we have no way to deal with sociopaths who lie whenever their lips are moving. There are very few uniquely American jokes: one queries what Snow White said to Pinocchio (“Lie to me”). We Americans love it when the Pinocchios of foreign policy lie to us. Those who view American democracy as an export industry still haven’t managed to fall out of love with Chalabi.
Meredith Willson’s sappy 1962 Broadway show “The Music Man” illuminates an inscrutable side of American foreign policy: Why do Americans persist in believing that they can remake the world in their own image, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary? In fact, we love crooks and swindlers who appeal to our national narcissism, even when we know that they are crooks and swindlers. Meredith Willson’s hero is a turn-of-the-twentieth-century rogue who styles himself a professor of music, and sells marching band equipment to midwestern towns with the promise that he will teach the local kids to play. He disappears before keeping his end of the bargain. In one Iowa town, the “music man” is caught red-handed, but pardoned by the townsfolk who bask in the warmth of his flattery. He has a long list of antecedents, like Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry.
Seth Lipsky hailed Chalabi in the Nov. 5 Wall Street Journal as “the leading tribune of the idea of a free and democratic Iraq.” Chalabi helped persuade the Bush Administration that Saddam was building nuclear weapons, and that an American invasion could build democracy in his country. He also proposed the so-called “de-Baathification” program that expunged virtually the whole of the Sunni elite from positions of civil and military power, pushing the Sunnis into the violent opposition that culminated with ISIS.
Chalabi allegedly betrayed American intelligence secrets to Iran long before he aligned himself with Iranian-controlled Shi’ite militias. The New York Times reported in 2004, ” Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi leader and former ally of the Bush administration, disclosed to an Iranian official that the United States had broken the secret communications code of Iran’s intelligence service, betraying one of Washington’s most valuable sources of information about Iran, according to United States intelligence officials.” Chalabi’s devotees at the Defense Department still claim that the Central Intelligence Agency or the National Security Agency invented these charges. I have friends on both sides of the Bush Administration and no way to verify any of the relevant claims. The trouble is that what Chalabi sold to the neo-conservatives was silly on the face of it.
http://atimes.com/2015/11/chalabi-snow-white-and-pinocchio/
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Meredith Willson’s hero is a turn-of-the-twentieth-century rogue who styles himself a professor of music, and sells marching band equipment to midwestern towns with the promise that he will teach the local kids to play. He disappears before keeping his end of the bargain. In one Iowa town, the “music man” is caught red-handed, but pardoned by the townsfolk who bask in the warmth of his flattery. He has a long list of antecedents, like Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Sinclair Lewis’ Elmer Gantry.
Always with us...and Fodder Food for the Rational, Enlightened Humorists to Craft their Wit, when and if, there is a receptive audience in times of strife? They SEE.....in clever sound bytes, both in Short Form (essays) and Long Form novels (for those who have a bit more time)....Not in OUR Current Culture, though. Stewart and Colbert and a select few others had to take up the slack for the Time Challenged in Today's Times....
But...these were the BEST for their time and as Mentors for what has followed......
