Bloggers' 'victory' over Iraq war memos

[sabra]

<<SNIP>>
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4099120.stm

Bloggers' 'victory' over Iraq war memos
By Kevin Anderson
BBC News website


Since early May, left-leaning blogs have been trying to get mainstream media to pay attention to one - and now two - leaked secret memos from meetings that Prime Minister Tony Blair had with key cabinet members and intelligence figures in the summer before the war in Iraq.


Bloggers are keen to keep up the pressure

The bloggers believe the memos, leaked to the Sunday Times, show that the Bush administration had made up its mind to attack Iraq and then went about trying to justify it.

With the release of the second memo, blogs can take some credit in raising the profile of the story in the US media.

And Mr Bush's Democratic opponents sense a political opening to attack a now seemingly vulnerable president.

<</SNIP>>

[Boomer]

1. How quaint

At least that's the tone I keep getting from this somewhat detached view of the issue.

Perhaps it's time for the British "left-leaning bloggers" to put the screws to Blair even harder. This is NOT just a U.S. issue after all.

[damntexdem]

2. The story seems to have grown legs.

It IS appearing now in the media. Even the Dallas Morning News had a front-page article on the DSM, albeit without once noting the 'fixing the intelligence around the policy' portion of the memo. And this morning, NPR reported on Conyer's demands that he would be making today.

So, the legs are shaking and the body weak, but the story does seem to have those legs.

[LightningFlash]

3. Ahh yes, the great Tony Blair....

And his friends in PNAC, patriots for the world......Direct progenitors for the Council of National Policy...

http://www.yuricareport.com

Let's see, one lies...Two lies, three lies....Four lies.....Somebody has some explaining to do. :smoke: :smoke: :smoke: :smoke:

[evermind]

5. Tony also has friends in "BAP" - see inside:

Now I know how this url looks: http://www.bilderberg.org/bap.htm#Tom but it is quoting from a well researched article that first appeared in "Lobster" magazine.

Let's start with the easiest question: what do George Robertson, Chris Smith and Marjorie 'Mo' Mowlam have in common? They are, of course, all strong Tony Blair supporters in the new Labour Cabinet. And what about Peter Mandelson and Elizabeth Symons? Not yet quite Cabinet members, but both are key figures in the 'modernising project' in Blair's 'New Labour' government: Mandelson as Minister without Portfolio having a roving brief to monitor, coordinate and brief the press on all areas of government activity and Symons, the former leader of the union for top civil servants, the First Division Association, is the Foreign Office Minister in the House of Lords.

Symons shares her unelected status with two other key figures in the new Blair administration, Jonathan Powell and Michael Barber. Powell, a former British diplomat in Washington, is now Blair's chief of staff at 10 Downing Street and Barber is special adviser to Education Secretary David Blunkett. And what do these two and the four ministers in the new government share with Ms Symons? They are all members of the British-American Project for the Successor Generation (BAP for short) - an elite transatlantic network launched in 1985 with $425,000 from a Philadelphia-based trust with a long record in the US of supporting right-wing causes.

Its membership reaches beyond formal politics to include rising figures in finance, industry, academia, the military and the civil service. Media members include Economist political editor David Lipsey, Independent economics editor Diane Coyle, Times Educational Supplement editor Caroline St John-Brooks and BBC journalists Jeremy Paxman, Isabel Hilton, Trevor Phillips and James Naughtie.

Executive summary: Reagan policy wonks realised the Thatcher hegemony was not going to last for ever in UK, and realised that the then very left-wing Labour party was not going to be great to work with when they got in power. So British leftists were recruited to bring the Labour party into line with US thinking, and take it over, from the inside.

It's a lovely conspiracy theory, if you like that sort of thing. Very difficult to prove, but makes perfect sense.

It is a matter of record that US intel agencies had been targetting and infiltrating the British left wing trade union movement in the seventies - I believe the recently released CIA agent Ed Wilson has that on his CV.

[LightningFlash]

6. Bilderburg Trilateral House of Cards.

:evilgrin:

[merwin]

4. "he bloggers believe the memos show that the Bush administration

had made up its mind to attack Iraq and then went about trying to justify it."

Uh, it's not just a belief. It's a hard fact.

[Guaranteed]

12. Hey, all the memo says is that they'd already made up their mind

to attack Iraq and that they were fixing the facts around that decision.

It doesn't say that they actually did anything WRONG, for criminy's sake.

[evermind]

7. This story is really quite bizarre

It contains "The second memo, sometimes referred to as DSM II, as in the Downing Street Memo II, said ministers were told that they had no choice but to find a way to make the war in Iraq legal."

Fair enough. But shouldn't it be the basis of a leading story in the UK section, rather than tucked away in a feelgood piece about the power of the "blogosphere"?

I mean, the interpretation in that quoted para just *blows away* what Blair said in his recent press conference, and probably proves he lied to parliament, all in itself! Yet it is just stated flatly in passing as to give a little bit of colour to the story!

I am having difficulty understanding why no British media has addressed the Times' second memo (the 21 Jul briefing paper). (I can understand it not going through the six from March again, they were all reported on at the time.)

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. Bloggers' 'victory' over Iraq war memos

16 June, 2005

Since early May, left-leaning blogs have been trying to get mainstream media to pay attention to one - and now two - leaked secret memos from meetings that Prime Minister Tony Blair had with key cabinet members and intelligence figures in the summer before the war in Iraq.

The bloggers believe the memos, leaked to the Sunday Times, show that the Bush administration had made up its mind to attack Iraq and then went about trying to justify it.

With the release of the second memo, blogs can take some credit in raising the profile of the story in the US media.

And Mr Bush's Democratic opponents sense a political opening to attack a now seemingly vulnerable president.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4099120.stm



Well at least the foreign press is covering the story.

[jillan]

9. A caller on Randi Rhodes made an excellent point

He said that all of the media outlets should wish they had
560,000 viewers!

:toast: bravo - well said!

[DoYouEverWonder]

11. Who are willing

to give up their personal information and their email addresses. How many more people would like to sign but are afraid to do so?

[EVDebs]

10. "A political opening..." That means the puppydog media will have to ask

hard questions....And that's hard work, to steal Bush's favorite phrase.

[OKNancy]

13. kick

[schrodingers_cat]

Bloggers' 'victory' over Iraq war memos (BBC)

By Kevin Anderson
BBC News website

Since early May, left-leaning blogs have been trying to get mainstream media to pay attention to one - and now two - leaked secret memos from meetings that Prime Minister Tony Blair had with key cabinet members and intelligence figures in the summer before the war in Iraq.

The bloggers believe the memos, leaked to the Sunday Times, show that the Bush administration had made up its mind to attack Iraq and then went about trying to justify it.

With the release of the second memo, blogs can take some credit in raising the profile of the story in the US media.

And Mr Bush's Democratic opponents sense a political opening to attack a now seemingly vulnerable president.

(more...)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4099120.stm

[Cha]

14. Yeah, and we knew this

a long time ago even without the leaked memos.

They are just more proof..proof that the world at large can concisely understand.

[peacetalksforall]

16. It would be a very interesting project to go into archives and ferret out

all the facts, clues, and postulations that DU members shared - facts, clues, and postulations that resulted in 'knowing' that it was all conconcted and that the American public was about to take delivery of a big war, lie, and theft pie and were drooling to dig into it.

And now Iran and/or Syria and perhaps soon under another concocted scheme.

[rawstory]

15. Thanks, BBC -- anyone have an email address?

No mention of Raw Story... good in a way, since we're not a blog, but... come on, MSM.

[rodeodance]

17. I llove this part.

And Mr Bush's Democratic opponents sense a political opening to attack a now seemingly vulnerable president.

[wookie294]

20. Yeah, relentless ATTACK on Bush has begun

Pull no punches, take no prisoners.

[BrendaStarr]

18. Or was corporate news allowed to bring them forward now for some reason

The White House and Corporate News were ready with excuses and talking points.

Obscuring John Bolton.

What the White House, the GOP, and Corporate News really don't expect is for liberals to actually go out in great numbers, regularly and work on convincing those who don't already think like them of the validity of their facts and the worthiness of their values.

Please, until Nov 2006 use every moment you can to pass along the great information we get here to people who don't get it.

[Carolab]

19. This guy is pretty dense for a professor.

It's unclear what the bloggers want, he said, but some are calling for a congressional investigation.

"That would make it a formal institutionalised story and a large daily embarrassment for both administrations," he added.


Cornfield. Who is he?