Randi Rhodes said that Allawi and Chalabi are cousins

[CatWoman]

and that they are basically two of a kind.

They are both criminals, thieves, murderers and exiles.

[dennis4868]

1. are they really cousins?

[CatWoman]

2. ............

http://rwor.org/a/1243/awtw_iraq_chalabi_allawi.htm

Iraq: A Story of Two Cousins

Revolutionary Worker #1243, June 13, 2004, posted at http://rwor.org

We received the following from A World to Win News Service.

May 31, 2004. A World to Win News Service.It is worth comparing the rise of the U.S.'s new chief puppet in Iraq, Iyad Allawi, and the fall of his life-long rival cousin, Ahmad Chalabi.

How Allawi was chosen reveals a lot. The U.S. had asked UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to pick a new Prime Minister, the key post in the new interim government which the Bush administration declared will be "sovereign" after June 30. The idea was that by putting the decision in Brahimi's hands, the U.S. was signalling its willingness to loosen its grip on the country, even if only a very little, and compromise a bit with its European critics.

Brahimi wanted to install Hussain Shahristani, a nuclear scientist thought to be acceptable to both the U.S. and Europe. Within days, the U.S. overruled him because it was worried that Shahristani was "not sympathetic enough to American politics, particularly the Bush administration's desire for U.S. forces to have unfettered power in the country after the handover" ( Washington Post , May 31).

Then White House envoy Robert Blackwill and U.S. administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer met with the U.S.- appointed Iraqi Governing Council. Official American government sources put out the story that making Allawi the head of the new government was the Council's idea. Unofficial Iraqi sources complained that Bremer ordered the Council to rubber-stamp his choice.

The irony here is that the U.S. asked for Brahimi's help in the first place because, as The New York Times wrote, "Opinion polls show that Iraqis view the Council largely as a U.S. mouthpiece."

[knowbody0]

3. allawi

bin laden chilabi
im thinkin we are all cousins

[Generator]

4. Wow I don't know why anyone would be surprised that the US

would appoint anyone decent. Do they ever? Oh, and with Cheney questioning Kerry's right to critcize, I swear to God what they really want is a mafia. All loyalty, all thugs and lies.

[soothsayer]

5. Not only that, but both are direct relatives of the goons the British

installed back in the....20's? 30's? 40s? Same names!

So even tho we may not know that, the IRAQIs sure know it! It's vile history repeating itself with the same friggin' cast of characters.

Unbelievable.

[fairfaxvadem]

6. And what was this bit with the axes in a London flat?

So, Chalabi is out of Iraq by a young age, in what, the 1950s? And Allawi is an Iraqi ex-pat by early '70s. Both in England, Europe, all these years. They surely knew each other well enough.

No surpise if they are related.

The thing that blows me away is, at least, my opinion is: The Bushies are supposedly very tight w/the Saudis, etc. You'd think that after all these years, they'd have a clue as to how the Arab culture works. But it seems they are tone deaf on this as well. They see the business end of it,but they don't seem to see the human relation side of it. Iraq is no different than Saudi Arabia in this regard. Clan is everything. That's why this was doomed from the start.

The West has failed in every venture into the Arab world. We never learn. I just don't get it.

You have to figure: if the Brits couldn't turn a country in their heyday, it can't be done. Give it a rest already with these grand designs for the Middle East.