If Bush was Joking, Why is Blair Panicking?

[cal04]

Stop what you’re doing and listen to this NPR report on the British cover-up of Tony Blair holding Bush back from bombing the headquarters of Arab satellite station Al Jazeera. Day to Day’s Madeleine Brand interviewed the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland, who reported the questions being asked in England are: If that good-natured, wacky cut-up George Bush was just joshing, then a) why was his proposition – and Blair’s attempts to talk him out of it – included in an official memo; and b) why is the British government going to such great lengths – invoking a gag order and threats of criminalization against anyone who might leak the memo’s contents – to squash it?

The answers to those questions include the possibility that there are other things in other memos, both about Bush’s idiocy and Blair’s restraining hand. And maybe, just maybe, the actual bombings of Al Jazeera in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the one at the Hotel Palestine in Baghdad, which killed one Al Jazeera journalist and critically wounded two more, were not the pure accidents the Bush administration claimed. Nabil Khoury, a U.S. State Department spokesman in Doha, said the strike on the Arab satellite TV network’s office was a mistake, and he called upon al-Jazeera not to jump to conclusions. “My personal view is that it is a mistake, a grave mistake. It is something we all regret,” Khoury said. “I personally cannot imagine that a country which respects general freedoms can target media establishments.”

Time to get a more vivid imagination, Nabil.
Some Al-Jazeera employees felt the bombing might have been deliberate, for the station has been reporting extensively on the plight of Iraqi civilians and the number of casualties from U.S. bomb attacks…
Chief editor Ibrahim Hilal, speaking from the station’s headquarters in Doha, said witnesses “saw the plane fly over twice before dropping the bombs. Our office is in a residential area and even the Pentagon knows its location.”
Meanwhile, Freedland paints an even more nauseating picture.
The idea of Blair putting a restraining hand on George Bush casts Bush as somehow trigger happy…with Blair constantly reaching for the cold flannel to mop his forehead and calm him down. That’s not a flattering image, really, for either of them.”

http://www.pensitoreview.com/2005/11/24/must-listen-if-bush-was-joking-why-is-blair-panicking/

[spindrifter]

1. The spin from the Brits definitely

makes it appear that their issue is preventing "embarrassment."

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, has warned newspapers they could be charged under the Official Secrets Act if they publish further material from the note. In the Commons yesterday, the Liberal Democrat MP David Heath said Lord Goldsmith had threatened editors with the Official Secrets Act to prevent government embarrassment rather than protect national security. The attorney general's warning was "not on the grounds of national security but on the grounds of potential embarrassment to the prime minister or to any presidents he happens to have conversations with", he said.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1650505,00.html

[copydude]

4. A controlled leak

The 'Daily Mirror' was surprised that the story was OK one day and taboo the next.

To Brits, the base story makes Tony look like the good guy - even someone with influence over GWB. So it was OK to publish this much, but no more.

The story has since developed into one of a Bush vendetta against Al-J. But the original story ran the headline, 'Bush planned to bomb ally'. Blair was much more worried about raining bombs on Quatar than slaying journalists. In fact, that part of it didn't appear to bother him at all.

[ncrainbowgrrl]

5. Welcome to DU, copydude!!

:hi:

[flordehinojos]

2. bush is a killer, and the tone of his voice may have been "jesting", but

he meant every word he said.

[Dirty Hippie]

7. As they say...

Many a truth is said in jest.

[teryang]

3. Propaganda is so important to Bushco that it is unlikely...

...that attacks on journalists and cameramen aren't politically motivated. The corporate view of information warfare is fairly consistent with the military view.

It's all part of the ridiculous notion of marketing the American image overseas. Bomb a village, bomb a neighborhood, invade a country, then ship a few child amputees overseas for surgery, and pass out toys to orphans. The latter hypocritical efforts are similarly and cruelly targeted by the insurgents. It's diabolically evil but there is a method behind it.

If you need a memo to see that this is what has been going on all along, this is part of the problem.

[baby_bear]

6. good points, teryang

As usual!

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

b_b

[SF Bay Area Dem]

8. Memo ok to print until the Bushies figured out it was a PR disaster...

... more than likely Rove and the boys got on the phone and started making threats and the Brits caved...