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Thread: Disturbing Iraq Memo in the London Times

  1. #1

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    Impeachment Time

    The above link is a commentary of Greg Palast, British Writer and Journalist, about a report that was published in the London Times on Monday ('splashed across the front pages&#39. It is about a UK government memo detailing talks with US government officials about what to do with Iraq. Scroll down to read the memo itself.

    Has anyone read the Times on Monday?

    What do you think? This does perfectly fit the Anti-War line. Too perfectly?

  2. #2

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    Yeah, couldn't he have just made the memo up though? I.E. the entier Memogate crap with Dan Rather. What he is saying is very possible, but his memo is flimsy.

  3. #3

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    I don't trust it until I see proof. I've been fooled many times by so-called "news" before.

  4. #4

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    Heh. Denile is not a river in Egypt people. Not exactly the first leak concerning the illegality of the Iraq War either, is it?

    If you want proof you can try searching http://www.timesonline.co.uk/ I actually read the article for myself last week.

  5. #5

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    Thanks for the link, Ferret54, just searched the website (searches in the last week's articles are for free), and I found it and all the downplaying afterwards. The follow-up articles are about statements of Blair, Straw and others. They deny any wrong-doing on their part, that at that stage (July 23, 2002), nothing was yet decided in the UK Government. Maybe true. But the real smoking gun is

    C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record.
    This is copied out of the memo printed in the Times on May 02, 2005, not Palast's report. Palast (and the whole leftist movement) did therefore not make it up. Seems to be genuine.

    As Palast says, this was not printed in the New York Times, and when asked Bush and Co. mumbled about "something over there [europe]" "British election fanfare" and what not. But the one sentence remains:

    But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.

  6. #6

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    There will be three reactions to this in this thread. Europeans will be mostly apathetic and completely unsurprised. American left-wingers will use it to vindicate their opinions, and American right-wingers will probably choose to ignore it.

  7. #7

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    Good analysis, Ferret, but I, as a completely unsurprised european, have never seen anything so much "black on white" than this, this time even coming from a very mainstream source.

    In a world where truth matters, this would have caused much more uproar than it really has. I mean, it probably was published by the Times only in the context of the UK general election, as a way to trouble Blair. The "facts fixed" thing was not especially stressed in the first article and the subsequent reporting, in fact, it was omitted in favor of generic "Blair hell-bent on war?" angle.

    That the memo proves that the US was hell-bent on war, which is the real scandal, along with the UK willingly following while fixing evidence on their own and talking about an "Iraqi casus belli" which would be manufactured in case the war had to be started early and if the war would otherwise be illegal. The press seems to always stop short of asking the really tough questions.

    This does not shed a good light on democracy. One may ask whether it even exists.

  8. #8

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    I don't think it was necesarily published as an attack on Blair, since the Times did support Blair in the election, and it was released too close to polling day to make too much of a difference, the other parties didn't have time to capitalise on it.

  9. #9
    Nihil's Avatar Annihilationist
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    the memo proves that the US was hell-bent on war
    There is also the evidence that the whitehouse had sold all the contracts for civil rebuilding work in Iraq several months before the war, while Bush and Blair were still engaged in the farcical pantomime of acting like they really didn't want a war and hoped that it wouldn't come to that.

    That the war had already been decided on is confirmed by the fact that Cheney's friends in Halliburton, among others, were given lucrative contracts for post-invasion activities inside Iraq.

    Naturally, as with all things NeoCon, extensive corruption was involved, with other companies complaining that they had not been allowed to compete fairly for these contracts. Halliburton has so far been awarded over $10 billion from Iraq contracts (and there is considerable controversy about gross overcharging and payment for services not rendered). The entire Iraq venture is an organised crime caper by the NeoCon mobster fraternity.

    Here's an amusing link to tickle the funny bone:

    http://www.hermes-press.com/spoils.htm
    Ex Nihilo, Nihil Fit.
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  10. #10

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    More

    Ya see what I did there? Smith is my avatar and I said 'more'. Tee hee.

  11. #11
    Nihil's Avatar Annihilationist
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    Good link Ferrets, you have done well (almost as good as thebricktestament.com *wink* ).

    I'm very interested to see if anything comes of this, but not very optimistic. A quick search of the net has turned up nothing new this evening.
    Ex Nihilo, Nihil Fit.
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  12. #12

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    so nihil wouldn't that tell you that it isn't a very good soruce and the meno is probly a fake. As liberial and anti American as the world press is, including the U.S. press, wouldn't you think this kind of thing would be all over the news in every country. Or even your "eveidence" about the contracts were already sold. You Libs kill me. You people are the same people that would go as far as it takes to cover up truths about Clinton screwing up and then say theres no conspiracy here. Then you guys try to drum up some world wide consiracy theory about how the evil U.S. and her allies wanted to destroy sweet innocent Sadamm and the wonderful people he had doing his bidding like his son's. I just dont understand liberialism. I'm not a big fan of Bush either and I'm sure he wanted saddam out. I'm sure he didn't wake up the morning of the envaison and say hey I'm feeling spontanious today lets invade Iraq. I garuntee if we didn't invade Iraq and sadamm blew up saudi arabia and maybe even set off a bomb in america some where you libs would say its all bush's fault. I mean look at 9-11 look at how hard the libs have tried to pin it on Bush. Oh he should have known something was up or we should have gone in to Afganastan earlier and taken out Al Qeda before they did this. But wouldn't this be a preemptive strike as well. I think the thing is you and your Lib friends hate bush so much it doesn't matter what he does in your eyes he's always going to be wrong. Just think if this was Clinton he would have been given the pulitser prize for taking sadamm out for the good humans on earth. One last thing that memo reads like lib propagand. The part where it says hey I'm going to push for UN inspectors even though Bush just wants to invade and "kill innocent arabs"my comentary. And another thing I've seen secreat documents in the military before and they dont say very sensitive dont make copies thats just movie crap. Cause if you have a clearance at all you would have already know you dont make copies of crap.

  13. #13

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    'Libs'

    Sorry, but that was an awful post. Paragraph issues aside, what's your actual point? I'm guessing that you're saying the memo is fake, which is a weak accusation to begin with and you fail to even attempt to back it up. Then you just have an anti-left rant. Unimpressive.

  14. #14

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    Too bad this story is not on the flag waving American cable news...so much for the "liberal" press.
    SecureROM is stupid....

  15. #15
    Nihil's Avatar Annihilationist
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    Originally posted by zmoney@May 10 2005, 06:31 PM
    so nihil wouldn't that tell you that it isn't a very good soruce and the meno is probly a fake.
    Well zmoney, those 88 congressmen seem to think there may be something in the memo. Why don't you ask them? Their names are there on the list, as an American citizen maybe you should email them and ask them what's going on. I have no idea personally. It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest thing to have happened in the Iraq fiasco. What I was referring to when I said "I hope something comes of this" was this congressmen's letter.

    As for the Halliburton thing, I just thought it made intersting reading. It's always informative to understand who profits from a given situation. Money speaks louder than :wub:. If Bush had said "we're invading Iraq and giving $10 billion to Halliburton and Dick Cheney" rather than"we're invading Iraq to look for (:wub:***) WMDs", wouldn't that have been more honest?

    EdDIT -woah, that's some weird censorship there. Okay, substitue "snicker", meaning a kind of "heh heh" or "tee hee" sound, since I'm not allowed write ":wub:***" for some reason... :mellow
    Ex Nihilo, Nihil Fit.
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  16. #16

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    I read the article. It was pretty disturbing. Makes ya wonder what else old corrupt Bush's got planned.

    Ferrets, since you said most right wingers will ignore the article, I'm curious to hear whatelse they should do? You know as well as I Bush won't stop being supported, too people in this country would rather have Bush in and support him unquestionably.

  17. #17

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    Look once again I’m not a Bush supporter and I don’t and didn’t support the war in Iraq at the time. I am just saying if this document was real don’t you think it would be all over the International news not just some no name free lance? This document is perfect for the Internet because it claims to be authentic, which in reality if it were it would not only be on the internet but on national news and on TV. Now Warrior flag waving American news HAHA HEHE. That was a joke I hope. Look at how long they dragged on the Abu Grab deal. They were so eager to show the US and the worlds public those images but something truly grotesque and in humane like the beheading of innocent people or other US citizens jumping out of a burning world trade tower they decide to censor. Plus if you are worried about a big cover up in the US media don’t you think Al Jazzera would publish the “truth”. I’m also not trying to Lib bash I should have clarified. I just really think that people who are looking for America to screw up and love it when we do are really dumb. Specially American citizens. Maybe you can answer why you hate your country so much. Now that being said if this story turns out to be true I will be the first to post saying I was wrong and I’ll eat my words. Another example of how flag waving the US press is, that CBS news man who was just arrested last week for conspiring with the terrorist. Apparently the terrorist would call him and let him know when an ambush was happening or a car bombing and he would go and set up his little flag waving self and camera and tape what took place. Instead of giving a heads up to his fellow country men so they wouldn’t be killed. That’s just a small example of how patriotic the US news is.

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    Here's the latest:

    http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/bri...emo/index.html

    This was posted in the symposium, so y'all may not have seen it.

    Still no response from the whitehouse. Note that the British side did not dispute the authenticity of the memo.
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  19. #19

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    Originally posted by Nihil@May 14 2005, 11:39 AM
    Here's the latest:

    http://www.cnn.com/2005/US/05/11/bri...emo/index.html

    This was posted in the symposium, so y'all may not have seen it.

    Still no response from the whitehouse. Note that the British side did not dispute the authenticity of the memo.
    I think it has been clear for a year or two that either a) Bush lied out of his teeth or b) someone screwed up big time and told him the wrong info, and he just went along with it. Which one you want to believe is up to you, obviously the memo supports theory A.

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    Am I the only one that can see that this so called memo is a totally fake.

    Here is a big clue. It speaks in the past tense of things that had not happened yet.

    This was dated 23 July 2002

    Saddam was worried and expected an attack, probably by air and land, but he was not convinced that it would be immediate or overwhelming.
    Shouldn't that be Saddam is worried . . and is not convinced

    Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
    Again Bush wants to remove Saddam . . And the intelligence and facts are being fixed . .

    I could go on and on.
    As a teenager, I was taken to various houses and flats above takeaways in the north of England, to be beaten, tortured and raped over 100 times. I was called a “white slag” and “white ****” as they beat me.

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