Fredricksberg VA Freelance Star: If It's Old News, That's News To Me

[stickdog]

http://fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2005/062005/06232005/109183

No news in the Downing Street memos--but should we believe it?

The mainstream media organizations deny there's any news in the news from Downing Street.

Date published: 6/23/2005

THE SMOKE HAS just about cleared following the small brush fire caused by the Downing Street memos, and responsible observers agree that we can ignore them. Perhaps I shouldn't have said smoke. I didn't mean to imply that the secret British documents are smoking guns that show the Bush administration made up its mind to invade Iraq as early as March 2002 even though the intelligence did not support such action.

These memos certainly aren't smoking guns. In fact, they don't even tell us anything new, and if you had any sense you'd know that, just as you'd know that our leaders choose war only as a last option, that we invaded Iraq because we were attacked first, and that the Iraqi insurgency is in its last throes. The wise folks on The Washington Post's editorial board summed up the irrelevance of the British documents in an editorial last week: "The memos add not a single fact to what was previously known about the administration's prewar deliberations. Not only that: They add nothing to what was publicly known in July 2002" (when the latest memos were produced).

The Post's editorial writers are authorities on all this prewar stuff. After all, they could see that Colin Powell's February 2003 presentation to the United Nations amounted to an "irrefutable" case against Iraq. As they put it then: "It is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction."

But if you really need a second opinion about the Downing Street memos, how about The New York Times? They're real smart, too. After Powell's U.N. speech, the Times said the then-secretary of state "may not have produced a 'smoking gun,'" but his presentation left "little question that Mr. Hussein had tried hard to conceal one."

more ...

[demnan]

1. News-Free Fredericksburg

we used to call it radio-free Fredericksburg too (that's when I was on the college radio station)

[salin]

2. great item

and good to see these series of items in local papers ... thanks stick dog!

[MountainLaurel]

3. Wow

I am impressed that this is coming out of Fredericksburg: There's a huge military presence there, and it represents the demarcation line between Northern Virginia (read liberal, or at least reasonable) and the other Virginia.

[Tommymac]

4. The Ghosts of Fredericksburg won't rest until...

this unjust war is over. Tens of thousands were slaughtered there in the Civil War because of incompetant leadership...their spirits are still remebered there; and once again America's soldiers are being sent to their deaths under incompetant and uncaring leaders.

BRAVO to the The Free Lance Star for the courage to speak out. I know they will be getting heat from their readers in the outlying counties...but that paper has always been a class act. There are still a few real papers left in America...send them an email telling them of your support.