Straw tells Blair what the Facts of Life are all about

Again from AfterDowningStreet, I keep reading each of these memos, and have to wonder if their order is intentionally directed to form a crescendo of astonishment, as in the final of the 6, Jack Straw to Tony Blair

1 The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few.

He could have stopped right there, having already typed the most-eloquent summation of a trip to Crawford ever devised. Has anyone, other than a Saudi or a failed Cabinet Member, been rewarded by a trip to Crawford?

But what comes after that is tantamount to a set of peacenik talking points. It sounds like everything being shouted from the rooftops by pro-peace demonstrators, bloggers and writers since early '02... just about the time it was being written. Only this is coming from the office of Jack Straw, and is written to Tony Blair.

...snip...

Colleagues know that Saddam and the Iraqi regime are bad. Making that case is easy. But we have a long way to go to convince them as to:
(a) the scale of the threat from Iraq and why this has got worse recently;
(b) what distinguishes the Iraqi threat from that of eg Iran and North Korea as to justify military action;
(c) the justification for any military action in terms of international law; and
(d)whether the consequence of military action really would be a compliant, law abiding replacement government.

...snip...

3 The Iraqi regime plainly poses a most serious threat to its neighbours, and therefore to international security. However, in the documents so far presented it has been hard to glean whether the threat from Iraq is so significantly different from that of Iran and North Korea as to justify military action [emphasis mine]

Hell, it even goes on to complain about the infamous Axis of Evil speech being a problem, where they would have to "delink the three" (Iraq, N.K., Iran) so invading Iraq could be justified without encouraging the logical (and militarily unviable) conclusion that the others must be invaded as well.

Did anyone write memos like that in OUR government? My guess is they'll start appearing soon. This story has legs, as well it should.

I'm dumbfounded. Where is the outrage from the Right at how a President dared lie to the American People? Don't expect any word at all from those hypocritical, treasonous, lecherous, cronie-feeding, America-hating jackasses. They're probably preaching about the moral value of lying countries to war and killing innocent men, women and children for profit, or stumping about how anyone that opposes the President's War On "Terra" is an America-bashing terrorist-lover. Over the top? Did you read these memos I'm quoting? The Bushies LIED. Get it straight and stop denying it or shut the hell up.

Watch for the Bush Admin, if anyone in the Press even asks them about this crap, to say that they disagree with the premise of the memo, or perhaps that it is old news (everyone already knows they lied us into war, so it's a non-story). They won't deny the authenticity. And because the memos are British, they'll assume the story will not be successfully used against them long-term.

mcolley
I'm not liberal, I'm just paying attention