Our Man in Baghdad? Tom Hayden's Zany Zarqawi Speculation

On the day of the running of the final leg of the Triple Crown, we've got a new leader in the Wackiest Zarqawi-Take Stakes. The new favorite in the kooky conspiracy derby is far from a colt. Galloping ghosts! It's De-Frosted Anti-Vietnam War Man and battle-hardened Jane Fonda veteran Tom Hayden. His winning notion? That Zarqawi might really have been our guy in Iraq.

In this Huffington Post piece, Hayden tries to give himself cover by stating "I have no reason to believe Zarqawi was an [American] agent," but then immediately goes on to contradict himself, darkly musing:

"But I still wonder what those British soldiers disguised as Iraqis were planning on the day they were discovered in Basra in September 2004. I wonder if US Special Forces ever dress up as Iraqis and paint their faces."

He argues that, whether intentionally or not, Zarqawi served US purposes:

"It is enough to argue for now that Zarqawi served the purpose of dividing and fragmenting the Iraqi national resistance into bloody sectarian strife. The tensions were built into the power shift from Sunni to Shi'a, and only needed sectarian leadership to unleash the death squads and ethnic cleansing. In doing so, they gave the US a new rationale for intervention, one appealing to guilty liberals and moderates, the need for an occupier to keep the fanatics from killing each other. Permanently. But in doing so, Zarqawi was engulfing Iraqs in a boiling cauldron that promised no end to the killing and no exit for the US. There were many interests who wanted him dead."

And for good measure, Hayden also muses-out-loud: "One wonders who really turned him in."

Did it all go down on The Grassy Knoll, Tom?