Treason or Trickery?

Susan Lindauer -- a former journalist, congressional aide, and anti-war activist -- has been accused of operating in the pay of Saddam Hussein. I have no idea if the evidence against her is valid and compelling. But so far, this business seems fishier than Sea World.

Am I the only one with a sense of deja vu?

Perhaps you will recall the strange case of George Galloway. He may be the left-most Member of Parliament in Britain. He strongly opposed the war in Iraq. Last year, the Christian Science Monitor and the Daily Telegraph (a newspaper widely considered close to the British intelligence establishment) published stories denouncing Galloway as a traitor in the pay of Saddam Hussein.

The documents backing that accusation turned out to be forgeries. Very clever, very elaborate forgeries. The kind only pros could cobble together.

The Monitor offered apologies. Galloway brought suit against the Telegraph. Few asked the obvious question: Who went to the trouble to construct the forgeries?

This underhanded business cannot be blamed on Iraq. Galloway had pissed off the governments of Britain, the United States and Israel. Obviously, someone within the intelligence organs of one of those three nations accomplished the fakery. The obvious intention was to use war fever to "clean house" on the domestic front.

You may call the previous paragraph a conspiracy theory. I call it the only viable explanation.

Is this unhappy history repeating itself? To my ears, Susan Lindauer seemed awfully convincing in her denials, as broadcast on television...