:: Wog Blog ::

:: WHAT AM I THINKING ABOUT? ::

:: Friday 11 July 2003 ::

5-4-3-2-1 Wilkie

How about the SMH? Always on song. Apparently intelligence evidence once thought to be good stuff but then checked and rechecked and learned not to be worthwhile at all, is somehow "lying".

And who does this stinking rag wheel out to comment? A self-aggrandising lowleveller, who has just got back from being humiliated in the UK when it revealed he, Andrew Wilkie, knows nothing of the workings of this government or its intelligence agencies, and in fact is a peddler of his own intuition and personally held views that the govt is somehow duplicitous to its core.

Big words. Yeah, yeah.

I will simplify: The man has it hand on it, okay?

Now this, from the newly lurched-to-the-right Aus is closer to the mark with "error", but even then that is not quite right.

See, correct infallibile information is attainable. But it may need to be attained after a sorting process. And a checking process.

To suggest that Oz, UK and US govt's are now "admitting" "errors" and "lies", as I heard on a very sloppy SkyNews presentation yesterday morning, is to argue that there was deliberate action in running with dodgy information beforehand.

"Admit". Pulease.

Bollocks, as the Brits have discovered.

Condoleeza Rice, Jack Straw, Alexander Downer, and Bush, Blair and Howard, all in a room together deciding to fabricate evidence to bring on a war......Zif.

More likely, Oz intelligene agencies, UK intelligence agencies, US intelligence agencies, worked superhard to come up with stuff, bunched it all together and then started to sort through it, and while it was getting sorted through, State of the Union addresses were made, and Commons Speeches, and Addresses to the Oz nation to - and some of the material was put into those speeches before being fully checked, and when it was later checked it was found not to be accurate enough and in some cases, downright wrong wrong wrong (niger uranium).

Upshot,

the case against Saddam was not 100% bulletproof from the get go.

G'ah.

It was enough bulletproof at the end.

Even after Blix's obfuscation.

And none of the rubbish made it into Powell's address to the UN, amemba?

So, what are the real complaints, now? I will tell you clear and plain:

The people who have to get up every day and look at themselves in the mirror and know that they made precisely no contribution to the removal of Saddam Hussein, in fact they actively were against his removal and thus for his remaining in place (and don't listen to the idiots who say "I wasn't marching for Saddam" because they fucking were - one foot in front of the other for a couple hours, all because they couldn't bring themsleves to side with Bush and Howard and Blair and Aznar and Berlusconi et al. In a pinch, they chose Saddam. Good grief.)

Those people are still choosing Saddam over Bush et al. They want Bush out. They are driven by what they loathe and not by what they aspire to. But driven, nevertheless. And they want to win. And their game, the one they are playing, is against Bush, Howard, Blair, Berlusconi, Aznar etc etc and against anyone who might not loathe those guys.

I do not believe for one second that Oz intelligence services or any others for that matter, are perfect.

How can they be when they hire Wilkie's?

But I do believe they are not wholly imperfect.

Most intelligence A-grade, some of it C and D-grade. Yeah, well yeah.

Does not change the outcome. Saddam out. Objectively good stuff in my view. Does not make the outcome less agreeable to me. Does not alter my view of government.

Anyone who wants to get all nuanced on my ass, and argue that 'the end doesn't justify the means' and we should not be manipulated into doing good, is just too bloody cynical for words. Yes, cynical. Because they bloody well know it's not a perfect world, and they know that intelligence isn't a perfect activity. But they're trying to act as if it is, and as if, recently, I have been raped by my govt becuase of some niger unranium forgery.

That's the worst the pro-Husseini's can come up with - one niger uranium forgery and one 45 minute bomb statement. That it it. That is it. And to them, what? We should put Saddam back? No. So, what then? We should lynch Howard, Blair and Bush? (well, 'yes', is what they really feel, but ) No. But they do want everyone who is happy about Saddam being out, every pro-war person, to feel ashamed for holding that point of view.

That is what the pro-Husseini's want. They just want me to feel bad about my views. And they want me to admit my wrongness and assume the kneeling position so I can show them how much I admit their rightness.

Admit.

Admit.

what Phil Adams wants, and George Monbiot, and Pilger, Fisk, MacKay, Fitzsimons, Alibhai-Brown, Roy, McGeogh, Riley, etc etc etc all want me to feel.

That is their game.

Well, okay. It is a harmless enough game and I will play.


:: WB 8:15 pm [link+] ::