That memo nonsense
As honourable as I find this sort of thing and the subsequent support, does anyone else get the feeling that something's not right here?
Am I merely being cynical in thinking this could be a deliberate ploy to keep the "look - Tony Blair really DOES have influence with Bush" story running for a bit in the wake of his Terrorism Bill defeat? (And in any case, I'm pretty sure that Bush isn't stupid enough to seriously suggest deliberately targetting al Jazeera - it sounds more like a Reaganesque "we start bombing in five minutes" joke.)
This is all far too much like the whole "whatever you do, don't throw me into the briar patch" thing. Why has the government opted for such heavy handed methods when there are subtler ways of keeping the story under wraps?
4 Comments:
No-one thought of it?
I think it is a bit of an overreaction, which guarantees the press will splash it all over their front pages....be it just UK or further afield.
These were exactly my thoughts too...
Maybe they are hoping that the foaming at the mouth anti-war types will charge at this. And make fools of themselves spectacularly.
I would tend to disagree with the idea that Bush isn't the sort of person to try something like this. It has most certainly been discussed at length in Washington. The question is more of whether it would actually have happened.
There you have to remember a couple of incidents from the past. The US bombing of the Serbian television headquarters, for example or, more recently the 'accidental' bombing of three (three!) other Al-Jazeera offices during the war in Iraq.
The main problem with this idea, had it come about, is that the Al-Jazeera offices mentioned in the suspected memo are in Qatar, and Qatar is an ally.
Pi.
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