Diplomacy, US-style

[reprise]

All things considered, the choice of a US ambassador to Iraq is a pretty important one in the grand scheme of post June 30 relations between the US and Iraq, which makes me wonder what the heck the US administration was thinking in giving the appointment to John Negroponte (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4780027/).

Appointing someone who has even a hint of the kind of allegations which have previously been made about Neosponte about them was not a smart move.

[The idea]

One nanoQuatlou wager that the newcomer Neosponte will be destroyed.

[Edited to obliterate evidence of interference by the Providers]

How many more men must die at the hands of other men before you humanoids start acting like civilized semi-Pythagorean Greeks? Don't worry about the beans, people. Just soak them before you eat them.

[Nigel]

One nanoQuatlou wager that the newcomer Neosponte will be destroyed.
I'll take that bet.

"He's a diplomat's diplomat," said Bernard Aronson, the State Department?s top Latin America official in the first Bush administration, when Negroponte was ambassador to Mexico.

Because a diplomat's diplomat means he can wriggle his weasly way out of anything.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4780027/

[Mr Manifesto]

Another PNAC'er with his thumb firmly in Iraqi pie.

Jobs for the boys, I guess.

[reprise]

Just to make life in Iraq even more interesting, Chabali is going to be heading the tribunal to try Saddam

Iraq ready to try Saddam (http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040420.wsadd0420/BNStory/International/)

and Jordan and Egypt are a little bit annoyed with the US

Jordan's snub to Bush is tip of the iceberg (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=4880249)

[demon]

The Chalabi tree has many branches.
It's Ahmed Chalabi`s nephew Salem Chalabi, who's on the tribunal. I think he's a civil lawyer trained in the US and Britain so he brings zero knowledge and expertise to a war crimes trial - obviously, the right person for the job. He's not much of a lawyer and it won't be much of a trial.

http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=8708

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,1048204,00.html