Just listened to the first ep of the new Slow Burn on Iraq War. There’s something I’ve noticed a lot in recent narratives on the war; the framing of a lot of it as the manipulations of Chalabi and al-Janabi. It reeks of wily Arabs taking advantage of well-intentioned Americans.

It’s come up again and again as a major theme in recent work done on the war by podcasts and books. And it’s more than a bit disgusting in how it reframes American culpability.

Even in this first episode, the way Robert Baer is shown to be this heroic well intentioned American guy who believes in freedom. He was one of the top CIA agents in the Middle-East. Not Captain America.