Been away. Now back. But working on deadline and not feeling any particular blog-imperative. Doesn't matter because there's so much good stuff popping up to keep me and everybody else busy reading.
Such as the dispute between Michael Kinsley and Mark Danner in the letters section of The New York Review of Books over the Downing Street Memos. Kinsley thinks they're of trifling importance. Danner disagrees. And sees in Kinsley's blithe dismissal a symptom of the press's failure to confront the deception and full dimensions of the Iraq debacle. Tomdispatch sets the stage for their duelling missives before reprinting them in full.
Kinsley comes off rather the worse in the exchange, if I may deploy a rare bit of understatement. And I agree with Danner that the American people are coming to understand what the grand high e
xalted mystic pundits seem willfully to miss:
"We must be grateful that the American polity is broader and more complex than the American press. Kinsley claims that the Downing Street memo 'will not persuade anyone who is not already persuaded. That doesn't make it wrong. But it does make the memo fairly worthless.' But it is Kinsley who is quite demonstrably wrong on this question. Whether or not the memo will 'persuade anyone who is not already persuaded' is of course an empirical question and I know myself a number of people who have been so persuaded. And the fact that more than half of all Americans now believe the President and his administration intentionally 'misled the American public before the war' seems a rather strong suggestion that, as a matter of persuasion and of politics, the Downing Street memo is very far from worthless."
Similarly, Tariq Ali observes at Counterpunch that when he made the link between the London transport bombings and British involvement in Iraq (a link George Galloway also made), a chorus of disapproval thundered from the newspaper pulpits. "The next day the entire media was united in refusing to accept there was any link. They loyally echoed the Government. Blair said there was no link and tried to prove it by arguing that 'President Putin opposed the war in Iraq but his country has been subjected to terrorism'. He must have thought that British citizens had never heard of Chechnya (Blair had supported Putin's offensive against the Chechens and applauded Russia)."
But despite such official erasure attempts, the British people sussed out the fine mess Blair had helped get them into by attaching himself to Bush's missionary hip.
"On July 18, a Foreign Office think-tank, the Royal Institute of International Affairs published a special report which argued that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had resulted in an increase of terrorism and Blair had made the UK vulnerable. In other words (mine) it happened, without any doubt, because Tony Blair decided to lock himself in embrace with the US president, from which he could not be easily prised loose. Blair and his court denounced the report.
"On July 19, a special opinion poll commissioned by The Guardian/ICM has made this view public. 66 percent of the British public believes there was a link with Iraq. The Guardian, embarrassed by its own findings did not report this on its own front page. The message is clear. Despite the weight of official propaganda people refuse to believe Blair. The British political and media elite is as isolated from the public as its French and Dutch counterparts. No doubt Blair's tame journalists will accuse the public of being scared and ignorant. The reality is otherwise."
Similarly, Tariq Ali observes at Counterpunch that when he made the link between the London transport bombings and British involvement in Iraq (a link George Galloway also made), a chorus of disapproval thundered from the newspaper pulpits. "The next day the entire media was united in refusing to accept there was any link. They loyally echoed the Government. Blair said there was no link and tried to prove it by arguing that 'President Putin opposed the war in Iraq but his country has been subjected to terrorism'. He must have thought that British citizens had never heard of Chechnya (Blair had supported Putin's offensive against the Chechens and applauded Russia)."
But despite such official erasure attempts, the British people sussed out the fine mess Blair had helped get them into by attaching himself to Bush's missionary hip.
"On July 18, a Foreign Office think-tank, the Royal Institute of International Affairs published a special report which argued that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had resulted in an increase of terrorism and Blair had made the UK vulnerable. In other words (mine) it happened, without any doubt, because Tony Blair decided to lock himself in embrace with the US president, from which he could not be easily prised loose. Blair and his court denounced the report.
"On July 19, a special opinion poll commissioned by The Guardian/ICM has made this view public. 66 percent of the British public believes there was a link with Iraq. The Guardian, embarrassed by its own findings did not report this on its own front page. The message is clear. Despite the weight of official propaganda people refuse to believe Blair. The British political and media elite is as isolated from the public as its French and Dutch counterparts. No doubt Blair's tame journalists will accuse the public of being scared and ignorant. The reality is otherwise."
And recent events in London are unlikely to make that perceptual link evaporate.
More On Abu Hafs Al Masri A Fistful of Euros
The Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino has just stated that he considers threats against Italy by the Islamic militant group Abu Hafs Al Masri Brigade to be credible.
OBL expert and former US government adviser Michael Scheur also takes them seriously (and confirms the el mundo story indirectly):
”On the tactical and strategic levels, the London attacks were quintessentially al-Qaeda operations. At the tactical level, the attacks were preceded by the usual al-Qaeda warning that an operation in Europe was near. On 29 May 2005, the AHMB’s “European General” posted a statement on the Internet that foreshadowed the events of 7 July. In part, the statement said:
“We direct a message to America and all its allies around the world that the desecration of the Holy Qur’an will not go by without a response. In fact, the retaliation will come soon in the near future, God willing.
And recent events in London are unlikely to make that perceptual link evaporate.
