Press Action ::: Oy Vey Zmeir*

Saturday, May 29, 2004

Oy Vey Zmeir*

By Neo Khan, as told to Jordy Cummings

Ahmed Chalabi Introduction by Jordy Cummings

I cannot stop hearing the music of “Baby Elephant Walk” or better yet, “Turkey in the Straw.” Dear reader, I would assume you know these simple melodies, used often in animation to denote absolute, even sublime stupidity and hubris. I remember, I think, Chomsky saying, “you’ve got to be pretty well educated to be so dumb.” Thus we see the grand story of a man who I will call “Neo Khan,” a prominent, if eccentric member of the neoconservative movement.

I first contacted “Neo Khan,” on a whim, when the Ahmed Chalabi story broke one week ago. I first wrote about him and his political background six years ago, in my column in The Concordian. Though the piece is not online, Montrealers and Concordia students with access to back issues can find out the identity of a man rumored, when he lived in Italy, to be a prominent member of P2 (look it up,) and also a man who wrote a masters thesis on Bakunin.

His responses to me were friendly, so I can’t reveal his name here — but he seems to want to tell his story — as after I indicated to him by e-mail that I was a journalist, he freely discoursed about capitalism, the failure of the Iraq war and a few other issues. I call him Neo Khan for his seemingly genuine, if methodologically misplaced, hatred of the Mullahs of Iran. If he reads this, no disrespect, pal, but anyone who writes, as you did, “kill or be killed” and influence the United States to act in a manner that cannot even be described in common parlance, should be given the opportunity, to — like banal Eichman — tell his side of the story. So I have edited together a series of his communiques to me, clearing up some of his metaphors and expanding on what I believe he was trying to say. Anyone can contact me for copies of the original letters that Mr. Khan sent me.

Enter Mr. Neo Khan:

My friend Ahmed Chalabi is a scapegoat, and I’ll support him thick and thin, even if — especially if — he joins the movement against the U.S. occupation. It’s very funny to see the American left and Anthony Zinni (who is an AntiSemite) want to see the neoconservatives be spied on and persecuted by the CIA. Everybody knew what Ahmed was up to, and now, as I said, they’re making him a scapegoat, because he wants Iraq to be run by Iraqis. I know that he is the best man for American interests and the cause of freedom.

I can’t really tell you what the deal is. Once you start wandering around the wilderness of mirrors, anything is possible. It reminds me of a play called “Romanov and Juliet” in which Peter Ustinov, the prime minister of some tiny entity, wandered back and forth between the u.s. and soviet embassies. first he learns the u.s. knows the soviet code, so he tells the soviets. they say they know. so he tells the americans “they know you know their code,” and the americans say they know. so he tells the soviets “they know you know they know your code” and so on, until finally, after a dozen “you knows” and “they knows” one of the ambassadors exclaims “they do??!!”

It is like that. Everybody knows that Chalabi is the Ustinov character playing both sides. He has to, because he is the hero of the Iraqi people. I can’t understand why making diplomatic connections with a neighbour makes him a bad guy, when Richard Armitage thinks that the Iranian theocracy is a democracy. Look at the news from today. He’s still calling the shots, no matter what Uncle Sam says.

My own view of the Iraq war was that it was the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time. we should have liberated Iran first, which is a political struggle, not a military one. we should have proven our seriousness to the iraqis by setting up “free iraq” in the north and south no-fly zones, and invited iraqis to flee Saddam and come live freely. The real struggle is against the Mullahs in Iran. It is a political, not a military struggle. And I agree with the left when it says that Israel should get rid of its nuclear weapons too. I wouldn’t necessarily say it was “capitalism” but the way the world market works now, America uses Israel (and the Saudis and the Iranian Mullahs) so it can’t pressure it as much as it should. Maybe if the world moves beyond the current economic designs, things will change.

Of course I don’t know much about Israeli politics. Great cabalist I am! In fact, I think its reverse racism to not criticize Jihadis or Israel. We must hold Jews and Muslims to a high standard!

JC again:

And so it goes, Neo Khan reveals himself to be heterodox in his current persona. Perhaps he is going through the McNamara phase of “maturation” along with a clear-eyed vision of his own failures. But the words he now speaks contradict a career of friendliness to terrorists and gun-runners, Iran Contra weirdos and other underground ne’er-do-wells. In fact, he fetishizes the legendary paranoid CIA operative James Jesus Angleton — portrayed wonderfully by Norman Mailer as “Harlot” in Harlot’s Ghost.

And so, along with Harlot supping with Reinhard Gehlen, we have Neo Khan, on Khashoggi’s ship with the BCCI board, cocaine dealers and other crazies. But he has now realized that the real problem is capitalism. Are the neocons turning back into Trotskites? Watch this space…

*The title of this article is Yiddish, roughly meaning “Oh shit.”

Jordy Cummings, editor of Pure Polemics, lives in Toronto and can be reached at yorgos33ca@yahoo.ca.

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