Downing Street Memo: The Prequel (Slate)

[dooner]

Downing Street Memo, The Prequel
By David Wallace-Wells
Posted Monday, June 13, 2005, at 3:46 PM PT

<snip>

"One of the reasons the previous Downing Street Memo hasn't gotten much traction with the press — and the reason these new memos will probably get limited attention as well — is that I don't think anyone really finds any of this a surprise," says stalwart California liberal Kevin Drum, writing at the Washington Monthly. "After all, previous evidence has already made it clear that George Bush was intent on war against Iraq almost immediately following 9/11."

<snip>

For some, the media's silence isn't a clear-cut injustice. "All the memo shows is one individual's take on what was going on in Washington," cautions "conservative of doubt" Andrew Sullivan, pointing to this piece by the Los Angeles Times' Michael Kinsley. At conservative syndicate Power Line, John Hinderaker repeats his skeptical earlier analysis: "In short, this British memo, while it does provide a fascinating glimpse into high-level decision making in Blair's government, is far from being a 'smoking gun,' as Cole calls it. It adds nothing to our knowledge of the important issues surrounding the Iraq war."

http://slate.msn.com/id/2120821/

[bpilgrim]

1. the OFFICIAL STORY is that we were JUSTIFIED going in... hello

this is NEWS, numb-nuts :eyes:

peace

[Career Prole]

4. Well sure! That's what

this guy just told me.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1543770&mesg_id=1546376

[stepnw1f]

2. It Proves They Are WAR CRIMINALS

you know?

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Why isn't this quote on every billboard across the country

as well.....
And remember people.... this was CBS NEWS.


http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/04/september11/main520830.shtml
Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld.

"Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

[powwowdancer]

5. missing the point

There is no way of knowing how smokey this gun is unless it's investigated. This memo is definitely cause for that. If bush lied to congress and fixed intel to START a war, he's a multiple felon and a war criminal. Whether or not this surprises any or all california liberals is completely immaterial. The rule of law only works when it is applied all the way up; otherwise, it's just a pretense for oppression by those in power. There is enough accumulated evidence on the table so that all that remains is for someone with real testicular fortitude to stand up and say, "HEY!! Not only is the emperor wearing no clothes, he's a murdering, lying, theiving bastard!! It can be proven, and he will face justice!" I'm sorry, if ken starr gets bottomless government pockets to finance his witch hunt over a consentual freakin' blow job, then this oughtta tip the outrage meter clean off the scale! To quote HST, "How long, oh, Lord, how long?" Indeed. bush and saddam... cell mates. Justice can, sometimes, be truly poetic.

[Roland99]

7. Exactly! Also, what has been said for two years is the culmination of...

guesses and opinion.

Now we know FOR SURE! This is the PROOF that we've been right in our opinions!

[damntexdem]

6. Nonsense!

Yes, WE thought that Dubya was lying, but the American people bought his lies. These memos provide the proof that he lied us into war by 'fixing' the intelligence -- which he subsequently blamed on CIA incompetence. The revelations SHOULD be enough to bring him down. If they do not, that will demonstrate that the American system is inadequate to govern itself -- has been totally undermined by the corporations and the right.

[lonestarnot]

16. I agree!

[sandnsea]

8. One MORE individual's take

If it was one individual, he'd have a point. But when you've got Bob Woodward, the former Secretary of the Treasury and this British official as well, that's not just another opinion. Of course, it only took us 50 years to apologize for ignoring lynchings, so maybe we'll get around to apologizing to Iraq in 2055. Then again, we still haven't apologized for slavery or to Native Americans.

[Dr Fate]

9. Let Bush go on TV and say "Aww, ya'll already knew I was a lying..."

"...don't let me bore ya with all this old news..."


I call BULLSHIT.

You dont hear any Republicans saying "this is old news, let it go..." Only Liberals defending silence on this or the media itself is using that desperate excuse..

[killbotfactory]

10. It's not news to the left

But to the middle of the political spectrum, who tend to take politicians at their word when it comes to matters as serious as this (thinking wrongfully that no one could sink that low) it IS NEWS. Stop trying to avoid your jobs as reporters you sacks of shit.

[bin.dare]

11. Slate started out with such promise but ...

... has degenerated in yet another rightwingers hack forum. They are a waste of our time.

[redacted]

12. Compared with John Hinderaker, Kim Jong-il seems sane

and far more in touch with reality. Of course, Hinderaker probably has a mortgage and a couple of kids, so he's spouting what his Freepidiot audience desperately wants to believe.

The problem for that crowd is that they're starting to appear more and more out of touch with reality to the American public as each hour brings new secret documents read aloud into the pay phones up and down Downing Street.

[Miss Chybil]

13. They're right. This is old news

that was never widely reported when it was new news. So, nothing new to see here. Move on... move on.

[candice]

14. See the timeline to go to war with Iraq on rawstory

...first, it was envy of Maggie Thatcher and her Falkens war. Of course, Iraq was supposed to be a cakewalk (and no WMD to worry about, no chemical band around Bagdad). This much was known by our intel, correct?

[KoKo]

15. If I hear "Everyone Knew...Old News" one more time ....!

One wonders how they can keep saying this and to hear it from some of our supposedly more liberal folks is too much. How many bring up the Niger Connection, John Bolton, Neocons, Doug Feith's backroom intelligence manufacturing shop. Very few even find it significant that there were NO WMD found and yet we were lied and lied to and 04 Election showed that most Americans thought Saddam did have WMD and some even thought (according to one poll) that the US had FOUND them, FGS! Bush won that election based on fraud and that honest folks really didn't have the time like the rest of us to read through reams of information leading up to that war. And, the press did nothing to inform the millions of Americans who saw nothing but hours of Bush Campaign stumping on the Cables every damned day and Kerry barely got a soundbyte.

They don't want to report on the story so it's easy to say: "Nothing new here (because heh heh, all of us on the "inside" here knew all along) but you folks out there should have caught on ....wink, wink, nod, nod...why all the fuss now?"

Sheesh ....

[Inland]

17. One individual's take--from the perpective of being an intel expert

looking right at what the policymakers in DC were doing with the sypathetic eye of our closest ally..

That's the difference. It is not a judgment from a million miles away by some hostile person. Nobody can say that the observation was made to get publicity or out of sour grapes.

That's the difference. Yeah, you and I already knew. But who can deny it now? That's the difference.

[sidpleasant]

18. First of all let's stop calling it the Downing Street "Memo"

Let's call it the Downing Street Minutes. That sounds more official than "memo" which has overtones of casualness. Minutes is in fact a more accurate description of the document anyway. A very important point about the minutes has not been emphasized enough: it was circulated among the participants in the meeting afterward for comment and no one - including Tony The Poodle - requested any changes or objected to the characterization of intelligence being "fixed."