The Kiss

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss
--Won't Get Fooled Again, The Who

This is based on a recent must-read New Yorker article on Iraqi President Jalal Talibani, wheeler-dealer extraordinaire. It is titled, "Mr. Big," and like Carrie Bradshaw's eponymous commitment-phobe boyfriend in "Sex and the City," Talibani's allegiances are mightily amBIGuous. You will be left utterly confused about the direction of the war.

Talibani, an avowed socialist, refers to GWB as his "good friend," but Mao Zedong as his political role model. He recalls fondly his meeting with Chou En-lai in 1955--"I kissed him, too," he said. Reassuring stuff from the president of a country totally propped up by U.S. tax dollars. I'm sure that 3,000+ dead U.S. soldiers should not have died to insure Talibani's political life as a socialist.

In addition, Talibani spent time in the mid-70's in Beirut, working with the group the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, "a Marxist Palestinian guerrilla organization." PFLP was also a terrorist organization that also killed American citizens, in addition to Israelis, according to the State Department.

It appears that former terror direct affiliation is not a disqualification for leadership in the wonderfully democratic people's republic of Iraq. As this Ranger previously stated, nobody in this administration or the MSM will discuss or examine present Iraqi government support to Hezbollah. Talibani would be a great place to start this investigation due to his past linkages to terror international.

Talibani is lavishly wealthy, and is "believed to have amassed many millions of dollars in 'taxes' of oil smuggled out of Iraq through Kurdistan between 1991 and 2003, when the country was under U.N. sanctions." So his fabulous wealth is ill-gotten.

A Kurdish M.P. is quoted as saying "The Prime Minister and President have discretionary funds to spend as they like of million or more dollars a month," and "I think the corruption is widespread and systemic and comes from the very top."

On a recent trip to Paris, Talibani spent $13,500 per night for accommodations, and and a half mil over the length of his stay. This is stunning, since the average American working for minimum wage must pay for this largesse through his tax dollars.

While in France, Talibani was attempting to set up a joint oil venture with French oil company Total. The company was attempting a multinational partnership, including an American "in the hope that the U.S. military would help with security." Now the U.S. military is a proposed security arm for foreign oil companies? Total also "allegedly paid for Iraqi oil under the scandal-ridden Oil for Food program."

Proudly speaking of his home area in Iraq, Talibani said, "There are now 20 billionaires and 2000 millionaires in Sulaimaniya alone!" I wonder where the money came from to produce this effusion of wealth? Hint: April 15th deadline.

So, we have another oil man prospering in the world of GWB, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer who funds, and the U.S. soldiers who keep dying. "Chemical Ali," Ali Hassan al-Majid, once called Talibani a "wicked pimp." Not a bad assessment from the "it takes one to know one" files. People such as Talibani are opportunistic scum, and good Americans should realize that our support props up former supporters of terrorism and current Maoists.

American foreign policy has certainly come a long way, baby. We had a generational struggle against Communism, and now we support an avowed Maoist. It seems obscene and insane. Perhaps if I were on the other side of the looking glass...