Another Puzzle Piece Falls Into Place

Well, what do you know - another memo has surfaced from Great Britain regarding the need for creating a legal justification for attacking Iraq. Apparently George Bush was hell-bent on attacking Iraq no matter what, and Britain had no choice but to look for a way to make it legal. According to a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper:

"This was required because, even if ministers decided Britain should not take part in an invasion, the American military would be using British bases. This would automatically make Britain complicit in any illegal US action."

Tony Blair was in a bit of a sticky wicket because he had already agreed to back Bush in his determination to go to war three months earlier at a meeting in Crawford at the President's ranch. But it was equally clear that, as things stood, the legal conditions for initiating a war had not been met. The London Times reports:

The document said the only way the allies could justify military action was to place Saddam Hussein in a position where he ignored or rejected a United Nations ultimatum ordering him to co-operate with the weapons inspectors. But it warned this would be difficult.

“It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject,” the document says. But if he accepted it and did not attack the allies, they would be “most unlikely” to obtain the legal justification they needed.

The suggestions that the allies use the UN to justify war contradicts claims by Blair and Bush, repeated during their Washington summit last week, that they turned to the UN in order to avoid having to go to war. The attack on Iraq finally began in March 2003.

So, basically, the US and Britain had agreed to try to 'goad' Saddam Hussein into rejecting the UN weapons inspectors, or, failing that, to respond in kind to being bombed by the US and Britain. This contradicts the assertions by Bush and Blair that they were trying desperately to avoid war at all costs. On the contrary, they were doing everything they could think of to maneuver Saddam Hussein into a position where they could find a 'legal' reason, no matter how flimsy, to attack him.

Technically legal? Perhaps (but doubtful). Morally justifiable? Absolutely not. And the American people are starting to see that. For a President who cannot shut his pie-hole about the 'Culture of Life' and how every little clump of cells must be protected at any and all cost, this amounts to the most egregious and grotesque hypocrisy imaginable. It is the most despicable Orwellian double-speak to romanticise "Snowflakes" while killing and maiming thousands of American men and women and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, torturing prisoners, and detaining people without recourse to legal assistance.

This is the most amoral President, the most corrupt Administration I can think of in American history. Nixon could only wish to be that venal. And to be so sanctimonious and self-righteous at the same time is just more than I can bear. These people would not recognize a real value if it bit them in the ass, and, hopefully, that's what's beginning to happen. Real values, real respect for life, real fiscal responsibility, real concern for security- that's what we need right now.

And, no, Sean Hannity, we are not better off or safer with Saddam out of power. Because of the way we did it, we are creating America-haters out of people who were not before. It's like a terrorist factory, churning out fresh new terrorists every day we continue with this madness.

I think that the pieces of the puzzle are starting to fall into place in a way that even partisan Republicans are beginning to have difficulty ignoring. We need to continue giving them enough real truth and information so that they can justify jumping off the Bush "Crazy Train Express" before it heads over the cliff.

Kudos to all you bloggers who have been an important part of getting this information in front of the public when the mainstream media stuck their heads in the sand and hoped it would go away!

Here's the new memo.

Here's the coverage of it by the London Times.

And don't forget to check in with the Big Brass Alliance for the latest news and updates on this fast-moving situation!