"Yung and Easily Freudened"

[H2O Man]

"Bernard Shaw says in Man and Superman: ‘This creature Man, who in his own selfish affairs is a coward to the backbone, will fight for an idea like a hero.’ Of course, we would not call Fascism or Hitlerism ideas. They are archetypes, and so we would say: Give an archetype to the people and the whole crowd moves like one man, there is no resisting it." – C. G. Jung

One of my best friends called me today, and we discussed the attempts by certain interests in this country to manipulate the public by the use of images. Before the invasion of Iraq, this group used the images of 9/11 and mushroom clouds, over and over, and connected these with messages about the threat that Saddam’s Iraq posed to our safety.

Today we are seeing those same interests attempting to connect the image of the fellow from Iran, and to send mixed messages about how the surge is working, but Iran is threatening, over and over and over again.

On October 4, 1935, C.G. Jung delivered the 5th in a series of lectures to the Institute of Medical Psychology at the Tavistock Clinic in London. In it, he spoke about the insights he had in the period before WW1. This was the period where his friendship with Sigmund Freud became strained. Henri Ellenberger called it Jung’s period of creative illness.

"I take the archetypal images and a suitable form of their projection seriously," Jung told his audience, "because the collective unconscious is really a serious factor in the human psyche. All those personal things like incestuous tendencies and other childish tunes are mere surface; what the unconscious really contains are the great collective events of the time. In the collective unconscious of the individual, history prepares itself; and when the archetypes are activated in a number of individuals and come to the surface, we are in the midst of history, as we are at present. The archetypal image which the moment requires gets into life, and everybody is seized by it. That is what we see today. I saw it coming, I said in 1918 that the ‘blond beast’ is stirring in its sleep and something will happen in Germany. No psychologist then understood at all what I meant, because people had simply no idea that our personal psychology is just a thin skin, a ripple on the collective psychology. The powerful factor, the factor which changes our whole life, which changes the surface of our known world, which makes history, is collective psychology, and collective psychology moves to laws entirely different from those of our consciousness. The archetypes are the great decisive forces, they bring about real events, and not our personal reasoning and practical intellect. Before the Great War all intelligent people said: ‘We shall not have any more war, we are far too reasonable to let it happen, and our commerce and finance are so interlaced internationally that war is absolutely out of the question.’ And then we produced the most gorgeous war ever seen."

Our country has been involved in two wars since 9/11, and recent reports document what many of us already knew: that Vice President Cheney and friends are hoping to create the tensions needed to justify a war with Iran.

Our nation was tricked by the threats of mushroom clouds and yellow cake because, to borrow a line from James Joyce, we were "yung and easily freudened." Today, we should know better. Be awake. Be aware. Do not let this happen again.

[monktonman]

1. interesting, tell us more. n/t

[H2O Man]

4. Dan Abrams on MSNBC

(9 pm EST) is featuring a lead story on the drum-beat for war with Iran.

[Theres-a]

11. That story sent me to the computer

I was watching teevee and they were getting so specific,the way he was talking,it sounded like it's "on". So,I thought,better go see what's on the DU. We've been hearin' it for so long,I fear it's inevitable.*sigh*

[H2O Man]

31. There was an article

in the 10-1 edition of Newsweek,by Dan Ephron and Mark Hosenball ("Israel's Raid on Syria: Prelude to a Nuke Crisis?"), which provides interesting information that indicates the build-up to a potentially explosive confrontation involves several groups.

Synergeism can come into play in the Middle East. Those who believe that they exercise a "control" of violence are fools -- violence controls people.

[malaise]

2. That's a great Joyce line

fascinating post.

Sp.

[H2O Man]

21. It was a reference

to his daughter, who suffered from a major mental illness, probably a type of schizophrenia.

[blogslut]

3. Not this time - I pray

I believe that the pendulum is moving in the direction of sanity and reason. But I also believe we are at the dawn of a human awakening. More specifically, just before the dawn, when last battles are fought and all bets are off. We are so close. I just hope we make it.

[Me.]

5. Love The Title

What is the prodding going on today, what is the archetype that is being responded to, why war why now (or is it simply a constant when certain people get bored?)"

[burythehatchet]

9. For a clue, one can look at the myriad of theories and mythologies that

predict the demise of the world, as we know it, in the near future.

[Raksha]

15. Why war and why now? It's because the archetypes

are being deliberately manipulated by what we call the corpomedia. That's what propaganda *IS* and that's what propagandists get paid for, after all. Same thing with advertising but on a slightly less virulent level (not much, though).

[Me.]

6. Quantum Physicists May Be At The Point Of Proving Jung's Theory

"Perhaps we agree on what is "there" or "not there" because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected.

If this is true, it is the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means that experiences such as Watson's are not commonplace only because we have not programmed our minds with the beliefs that would make them so. In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality."

So, at some level have we chosen this reality or is it being forced on us by the few and will fail ultimately because the collective, as a group, has not chosen/will reject it?

[monktonman]

16. Wow I'm amongst kindred spirits

I alway thought reality was the only thing two people could truly
agree on. Were here only because we both believe we are here.

"there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality."
wa-wa-WOW!!!!!

[Raksha]

17. That's funny - I'm becoming more and more convinced

that Republicans live in an alternate reality that bears no relationship to the one I live in. In their reality, MoveOn has totally discredited itself and the entire anti-war movement with that unfortunate "General BetrayUs" ad; all possible diplomatic efforts have been tried and failed to dissuade the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons, so now we have no choice but to nuke them into oblivion; Democratic voters in Florida were too stupid to figure out butterfly ballots and DEMANDED paperless touchscreen voting machines, etc. etc. etc.

Since none of this is true in my reality, I'm beginning to wonder about this whole idea of "consensus reality."

[nashville_brook]

26. "consensus reality" makes even MORE sense in this context --

"consensus reality" refers to the dominant myth -- the conceptual framework that has the most people shouting it the loudest.

up until the advent of the "participatory consensus reality-building" known as the blogosphere, the MSM had no competition in determining "consensus reality."

now that we have the ability to participate in consensus reality, there's a chance that it might reflect values of the masses and not just the values of corporate robber-barons and republican war profiteers.

"consensus reality," like democracy, is a slippery thing depending on who controls the machines.

[Tigermoose]

53. You are referring to David Bohm, correct?

I like his ideas.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

7. How quickly we are repeating the cycle.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2798767

MKJ

[burythehatchet]

8. I'm glad I read this. I want to connect it to another idea called The Other Brain

The theory is that the individuals baseline physical and emotional state is determined primarily by the "second brain", the bundle of nerve endings that are in a cluster called the solar plexus. This primitive brain seems to be to be the parallel to the archetype theory that Jung espoused. This brain functions not upon reason but upon emotion. This would also seem to apply to what Jung says.

[nashville_brook]

32. the "gut" feeling

[annabanana]

10. Jung has always made more visceral sense to me than Freud.

And this feeling has gotten stronger as I have gotten older.

[puebloknot]

20. I was "Freuded" for a couple of years, when I had managed to ...

... escape fundamentalist Christianity years ago, and had nothing but an emptiness for a time. And then five years later, I found a woman Jungian, and knew I had come home. The Freudian was a help, in his limited way, and was the first person to ever really listen to me. That was quite valuable.

I've considered the three major factors that helped me out of the early fundamentalist conditioning that I rejected by the time I was five to be the U.S. Army (which took me to Korea and Germany by the time I was 12, and let me see a larger world), the Freudian therapy, and finally, Jung. Jung was highly psychic (although I don't know that he ever used that term), and spoke of communication with a nonhuman entity that he considered a guide. He honored the dream state as valuable and real. He, and his work, are fascinating!

This whole conversation is making me feel I should find a Jungian group for support right now -- and they exist in abundance in Santa Fe. I've also done a lot of dreamwork, so why do I keep dealing with stress, going it alone with worries over the fate of my life and that of the planet????? I should know better! :)

THANKS, H20 MAN.


My concern now is that Jung understood the power of archetypes, but his knowing didn't prevent the war he could see coming. Can we? I guess that's what the OP is all about -- our being proactive rather than passive receivers.

[Raksha]

12. K & R - One of your best, H2O Man. And so very true.

But the archetype of the Goddess is also on the ascendency, and has been for about 20-30 years now. And it has been steadily increasing in power. The great Mother Goddess is the natural enemy of all patriarchy and authoritarianism and fascism. The big question (for me) is not whether she will prevail, but whether she will prevail soon enough to save her children. Unfortunately, I have no answer to that.

[Kurovski]

13. K&R. (nt)

[MedleyMisty]

14. I've been turning that idea around in my head

I haven't done a lot of Jung research (I'll add it to my list of subjects for future research), but I have read a bit about moral development lately. I like Dabrowski's theory of positive disintegration.

It seems like within the last century, quite a few humans have made it into the upper levels of morality development - thus the struggles for peace and for human rights. Of course, it's also been a very bloody and violent century.

According to Dabrowski's theory, suffering is needed for moral development. It seems to me as if most humans can't really feel the pain of others until they feel their own pain. I mean, just think about what Jung would probably call archetypes - Buddha didn't start his journey to enlightenment until he left the palace grounds and saw sickness and pain and old age and death. Jesus had to suffer on the cross. Harry Potter had to live with an abusive family for eleven years in the cupboard under the stairs, and then go through other things that would be spoilers. ;)

Also, in Dabrowski's theory, not a whole lot of people make it past the transitional level, level two. Level one is your basic Republican - motivated by selfishness and greed and things are only judged right or wrong by how they affect you personally.

But then some catalyst event comes along and you make it to level two, and you either get through it to level three and continue to develop or you go crazy and possibly kill yourself or you slide back down to level one. An awful lot of hardcore level one people are in power right now, pushing back against those of us who've made it to the higher levels.

Here's hoping the the species makes it through.

I'd go more in depth and provide links and stuff, but it's bed time. Hopefully by some miracle this thoughtful and reasoned thread will still be around tomorrow.

[AikidoSoul]

18. As a country we project our own evil onto others

because we don't readily examine the evil that exists in ourselves.

Jung called that dark side that exists in all of us "the shadow"... but for some reason we here in the U.S. feel uncomfortable acknowleging its existence. We may even be afraid of it. When we suppress awareness of our dark side, we cannot admit that we are all capable of evil, and then we busy ourselves projecting evil outward. We see it everywhere, but not in ourselves.

It always amazes me when BushCo makes statements about the "evil" of other countries, or leaders -- how blind they are to the enormous hypocrisy of their words.

[puebloknot]

19. I'm reading Lynn McTaggert's "The Field" right now. And I attended...

...a conference with Dr. Bruce Lipton who says our consciousness can affect our genetic heritage, on a personal level, and that mass consciousness can be tailored to our needs as a global community.

I am caught between finding all this really, really compelling and being annoyed at "New Agers" who think we can just sit in meditation and "create our own reality," but that taking concrete action in the outer world acts as a negation of the original intent.

I remember reading that Jung had precognitive dreams, many of them, prior to the beginning of WWII, which predicted all the horror to come. Many of us had precognitive dreams about 9/11. All of this, I think, is a perfect demonstration of the collective consciousness that Jung wrote about.

So we need to add our strong input into the field, and not let others with a different agenda fill that field with their ideas. Or is that just too simplistic?

I'm thinking out loud here, wishing I had "The Answer."

[mmonk]

22. Amen. Eyes wide open here.

[Me.]

23. Soooo...

How do we stop this? How are these inmates going to get rid of the Nurse Ratcheds? (to reference another thread of yours) That old jingle 'sometimes you feel like a nut sometimes you don't' didn't deal with the issue of there sometimes being too many nuts to make the candy bar digestible.

edited to add: Is simply being aware enough? And how much awareness is needed to turn the tide, a strong minority, the majority?

[H2O Man]

24. Good questions.

There are a number of other good points made, and questions raised, on this thread.

One of the important "starting points" would be in recognizing what is a common feature in human histor, which is man's inhumanity to man, on a group scale. There is a fascinating thread by DUer trumad in which he suggests the militant religious right in the USA is as capable of executing gay people, as the militant religious right in other nations. And there are a number of responses by good and decent people who honestly believe that "No, that could never happen here."

Yet human history -- as well as US history -- documents that without question, one of the most diagnostic tactics of a ruthless dictator is to focus the negative energy of a group of citizens on a weaker group they identify as "the enemy" .... for if a dictator can get the crowd to hate an identified "enemy," they will frequently forget both their humanity, and their own low level of being.

I think that trumad, in his own unique style, is warning people about the nature of dictators manipulating hatred. It is a human potential that has ugly examples found around the globe, from Cambodia to Nazi Germany.

That's a point that Jung makes in his presentation that I quoted from: that good and decent people too often believe that, "No, that could never happen here."

[Me.]

33. Wasn't There A Series Of Experiments Where One Group Of People 'Tortured' Another

By means of electric shocks? And IIRC one of the fascinating/horrifying outcomes was that because they were being 'ordered' to press the button which would send a shock to another, the group pressing the button felt more and more empowered to press for shock as the experiment went along. They were also appalled, at the end of the experiment, at how easy it had been to 'turn' them.

[TahitiNut]

43. Those are the Milgram Experiments ... studies in authoritarianism.

Also of interest were the Stanford Prison Experiments - how we humans tend to behave when sharing the paradigm of power over others.

For me, these have been insights into EVERYONE'S make-up, including my own, and it's been the latter that has been the focus of my greatest misgivings for over forty years. Indeed, I have almost no trust in any individual who says "Not me! I wouldn't do that!" Anyone who says that just hasn't engaged in anything close to a minimum necessary introspection to "know thyself."

[Me.]

49. 'Zactly

One example would be the torture this country is now prone to accept. Who would be able to withstand it and not give up their neighbors? I suspect a repeated taser session would do the trick. Humans can be very frail, but when you think you're a shoot 'em cowboy nation that perspective is often lost.

[bulldogge]

46. Along those lines

As for focusing negative energy on a weaker group that would seem on another perspective to be linked to this whole "illegal immigrant" fervor that has been sweeping the nation for some time.

[MilesColtrane]

25. Unfortunately I think the media's suppression of images of the ongoing wars,

will only help to feed the collective consciousness of this nation with a desire for more.

The administration and the Pentagon, in their need to stage manage what is seen in this country, are fueling something very dangerous.

During the Viet Nam war there were images of the death and violence being wreaked every evening as families sat down for dinner. Not so with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

To the average American it's as if there's nothing at all happening. The reality of these horrible things has been replaced with material goods and mindless media diversions.

Yet, on a deep level, the subconscious, the war is there with all it's fury, building a boiling pressure in the minds of Americans. The god Mars is never so dangerous when his presence is ignored.

Although the media blackout of the war was planned and instigated by the same powers that started it, people in this country are willing partners in its implementation. So many out there like Barbara Bush don't want to worry their "beautiful minds" with what is happening in their names.

This national repression of war WILL find an outlet, and it won't be satisfied by the sad individuals we read about who have allowed the demon out of themselves. A businessman rips the head off of a duck in a hotel, a six year old girl is raped and hanged, a gay man is beaten for no reason...

Crime has always been with us, but could these horrible acts, in their particular cruelty, portend a coming, greater, collective orgy of violence?

As the collective national shadow screams in the cellar it grows stronger.

Iran anyone?

[H2O Man]

27. Good point.

The policy of not showing the reality of the war in Iraq is a purposeful manipulation of the public perception.

[sicksicksick_N_tired]

28. How would Jung have characterized those of us less sensitive to archetypes?

How would he have explained your or my capacity to see past the collective psychology?

I was just wondering because the same people who told me I was 'crazy' for opposing the Iraq War before it even happened and later resigned themselves to the opinion that the administration did deceive the American people are now falling right back into the same 'psyche' with respect to Iran. What is the wiring or whatever that tends to cause that difference in thinking?

[H2O Man]

29. As "awake."

"Awake" being a different state of consciousness than our culture defines as being awake.

[Raksha]

38. I don't think we're less sensitive to the archetypes...

on the contrary, on DU we tend to be MORE sensitive to them, more aware of their presence, and therefore less likely to be possessed by them. We see them for what they are, and being able to name them may not give us power over them, but at least it givs them less power over US.

[H2O Man]

39. I think that is true.

It is interesting to watch what specific things cause waves of passion on DU.

[Raksha]

40. I hope you don't think I was saying liberals are immune to projection.

I've seen those flame wars too and I know that just isn't the case no matter how much I'd like it to be. But I do think we're less susceptible to it than the other side. I've said more than once that conservatives seem to project compulsively and ALL the time. They just can't seem to NOT do it!

[H2O Man]

41. I was agreeing

with you, though my wording may be clumsy. (It's a pain to be old and without proper sleep!)

[TahitiNut]

44. I'm a liberal - NOT because I'm NOT subject to the same appetities as a conservative -

... but because I am and I know it. Honest and forgiving introspection is a wonderful learning experience.

[nashville_brook]

30. one would think that we'd be "one bitten twice shy," but that's not how it's shaking out

just look at all the "i hate" that 'Iranian fellow'" threads on this liberal/progressive board. apropos of nothing, that "Venezuelan fellow" has been added to the hate fest as if to say, "while we're at it..."

any thoughts on how we might not let this happen again'? b/c taking the temperature of the front page, it seems that even the liberal/progressive DU loves their hate of that Iranian fellow more than they hate the coming war. DU wants it both ways -- breathing life into a punching bag, but rejecting the reality created.

as a matter of fact, after reading a few more front page threads, i'm seeing another, more frightening meme emerge -- that, if you don't profess your hate for the Iranian fellow, you are a holocaust denial enabler.

[Psyop Samurai]

34. yup... spot on, (as usual)...

Unfortunately, I don't believe anything can be done at this late hour (if indeed anything might have been done post-2004). That was pretty much the last call, as I see it, and people just couldn't make the leap.

I believe we've lost a war that the overwhelming majority were too terrified to name. I've spent a lot of time being frustrated and angry at my fellow Americans for not "getting it", but the fact is our oppressors have had decades to do the numbers and refine their methods, and people are simply too vain to believe they could be deceived and victimized without their knowing.

I hold out (irrational) hope for a miracle, but honestly, I know it's long past time for diddling around on message boards looking for signs.

Sincere best wishes to you, and the many others that have tried, in whatever way.

[bulldogge]

48. Freud

Recently I was reading through Freud's "Civilization and Its Discontent" and he made the point...roughly ....that when groups of people are sharing in a delusion they almost always fail to realize they are delusional and that is what came to my mind when I read your comment about people being too vain to believe the could be decieved....spot on.

[Me.]

50. That Is Exactly The Point Greenwald Made In A Recent Column About Beltway Insiders

David Brooks and the deceitful tactics of the Beltway pundit

(updated below)

“As I've noted many times before, virtually every column David Brooks writes is grounded in one of two highly misleading tactics and, on special occasions, like today, are grounded in both. That's all there is to him. He just re-cycles these same two themes over and over in different forms.

The first tactic is merely the most commonplace conceit of the standard Beltway pundit: Brooks takes whatever opinions he happens to hold on a topic, and then -- without citing a single piece of evidence -- repeatedly asserts that "most Americans" hold this view, and then bases his entire "argument" on this premise. Thus, the only way for Democrats to have any hope of winning elections is to repudiate their radical, rabid Leftist base and instead follow Brooks' beliefs, because that is "centrism." This is actually a defining belief of the Beltway pundit, and it is as intellectually corrupt as an argument gets.

There is now this new invention called "polling data" which reveal what "most Americans" actually think about virtually any topic. Yet when Beltway pundits claim that "most Americans" think X (and, invariably, X = "the opinion of the Beltway pundit" which = "conventional Beltway wisdom"), they rarely cite polls because those polls virtually always contradict what they are claiming about what "most Americans" think.

Instead, Beltway pundits believe that they are representative of, anointed spokespeople for, the Average Real American, and thus, whatever the pundit's belief is about an issue is -- in their insular, self-loving minds -- a far more reliable indicator of what "Americans believe" than something as tawdry as polling data. Nobody uses this manipulative tactic more than David Brooks.” Cont…

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/?last_story=/opinion/greenwald/2007/09/25/brooks/

[H2O Man]

42. Sometimes I think of

the children's story, about how some town's people were frantic when there was a fire in one of their neighbor's homes. There were two problems: the neighbor was a giant, and he was sleeping in an upstairs room. The people argued about how to best get him out of the house. Some wanted to carry the giant down the stairs, and others wanted to push him out a window. Finally someone suggested waking the giant up, so that he could get out of the burning house himself.

[nashville_brook]

35. .

[xchrom]

36. recommend -- i do want to point out though -- jung is not the anti-freud.

thes are both brilliant theorists about the mind and how it works -- and are best understood when read side by side or complementary to each other.

jung is more than just symbols and archetypes and freud is more than your mommy and daddy's genitals.

[H2O Man]

37. Right.

They were influences on each other in their early years. They moved in different directions on some important issues. Both were strong personalities, and were convinced that the other had a stumbling block that made it nearly impossible to admit an error. Their later works, while considered different schools of psychiatry, are definitely best understood in relationship to the other's work.

[KoKo]

45. Your caution...is good..

What you say:

]Our country has been involved in two wars since 9/11, and recent reports document what many of us already knew: that Vice President Cheney and friends are hoping to create the tensions needed to justify a war with Iran.

Our nation was tricked by the threats of mushroom clouds and yellow cake because, to borrow a line from James Joyce, we were "yung and easily freudened." Today, we should know better. Be awake. Be aware. Do not let this happen again

[Uncle Joe]

47. Creative illness?

I'm just curious as to what motivated Henri Ellenberger to say that.

Thanks for the thread H2O Man

Kicked and recommended.

[H2O Man]

55. Good question.

In his wonderful book "The Sane Society," Erich Fromm writes, "It may be said in passing that the real problem of mental life is not why some people become insane, but rather why most avoid insanity." (page 34) Fromm notes in the book that a person who attempts to maintain their sanity in a dysfunctional society will, by definition, often be labeled as "odd."

I think, though, that Henri Ellenberger was speaking of Jung's experience as being similar, for an awkward example, to what Black Elk experienced in the times when he had his vision. It is what society views as a "break from reality." Some cultures have rituals that induce such breaks, or visions. I think Ellenberger was speaking of Jung as undergoing this type of process.

[H2O Man]

51. In the democratic debate

last night, moderator Tim Russert made several references to the possibility of Israel conducting strikes on targets in Iran. He asked if the candidates, as president, would support Israel if that happened. The implication appears to be that should Israel attack targets in Iran, there would be an Iranian response that would require the US support. By no small coincidence, this is what Newsweek had just reported that VP Cheney was hoping to set in motion.

It is also closely related to the neocon/AIPAC espionage scandal. Neoconservative Larry Franklin, who worked in the vice president's secretive intelligence agency, the Office of Special Plans, has entered a guilty plea to charges that he illegally passed classified military secrets to two individuals engaged in intelligence work at AIPAC. Those two then passed the classified information on to an Israeli intelligence officer.

The AIPAC officials are presenting a defense based upon what they claim are the Amendment 1 rights, having to do with freedom of the press. Neither worked as journalists. More, despite their claims otherwise, an 8-14-06 memorandum opinion by US District Judge T.S. Ellis ruled that a "thorough review of the FISA dockets in issue confirms that the FISC had ample probable cause to believe the targets were agents of a foreign power quite apart from their First Amendment lobbying activities." (page 15)

It's unlikely that Mr. Russert will ever report on the on-going federal court trial of the two AIPAC officials. It is likely, however, that those who were connected -- officially or unofficially -- with the Office of the Vice President and the OSP are intent upon hostilities with Iran.

[Me.]

52. And So We Come Full Circle

The 3 leaves of the clover; Niger Forgeries, Plame, AIPAC. Exactly where the neocons and Zionists wanted it to go. No one held accountable, no one in jail, full steam ahead to war with Iran, which was always the ultimate goal. And no one even trying trying to stop them.

Is there any chance, ever, of the country rising up and putting a stop to the gutting of our young people, treasure and democracy. We are truly in a crisis of monumental proportions when a Lieberman-Kyl bill passes.

[H2O Man]

54. Yes, that is correct.

What is happening today, with the attempts to gain support for the strikes on Iran, is part of the larger plan to transform the map of the Middle East that has been advocated by the PNACers for a long time. At the same time that the media has reported that Iran is the enemy of the USA, we have had forces in the Reagan-Bush1 administration dealing in weapons exchanges in the series of scandals known as the "Iran-Contra scandal." More recently, and related to the neocon/AIPAC espionage scandal, we find that the OVP/OSP's friend Ahmed Chalabi was fronting for interests tied to Iranian intelligence.

Food for thought.