I realise that this is somewhat parochial, Chris linking to me and I linking to Chris on the piece that Chris links to me on……if you see what I mean. But an interesting question:
Do classical liberals and Guardian writers have different
rationalities?
I hope so?
“Do classical liberals and Guardian writers have different rationalities?”
Just where does Tony Blair slot in that binary classification?
I ask because in news reported in The Guardian and other media as well is this:
“A constitutional showdown was looming last night between parliament and the Foreign Office after the latter threatened legal action against a diplomat to stop him revealing details of alleged government ‘deceit’ in the run-up to the Iraq conflict.
“At the centre of the tug-of-war is Carne Ross, a member of the British mission to the UN in New York during the run-up to the invasion, who told the Commons foreign affairs committee earlier this month that he hoped his still secret testimony to the Butler inquiry on the war could be made public.”
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,,1957372,00.html
“A high ranking British diplomat, who quit over the war with Iraq, has called policy in the region a ‘rank disaster’.
“Carne Ross told MPs the intelligence presented to the public about weapons of mass destruction was ‘manipulated’.
“He also added that ‘the proper legal advice from the Foreign office on the legality of the war was ignored’.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6128630.stm
See link to the submission of evidence by Carne Ross to the Butler Review in 2004 of Intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/15/uiraq115.xml
Surely that cannot be so when we check back with this BBC report on the G8 heads of government summit at Evian in June 2003:
“Speaking at the G8 summit in Evian, Mr Blair said he stood ‘100%’ by the evidence shown to the public about Iraq’s alleged weapons programmes. ‘Frankly, the idea that we doctored intelligence reports in order to invent some notion about a 45-minute capability for delivering weapons of mass destruction is completely and totally false,’ he said.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/2955036.stm
Tony Blair wouldn’t have lied to the G8 heads of government, would he?
If he did, who among the G8 heads of government would believe him ever again even if we among the electorate in Britain are foolish enough to do so? Or who would believe any other official report about the government and its policies? Not if he lied to Parliament to get us involved in a war in which many thousands of civilians have been killed and the Butler inquiry covered up the lying.
Reassuring to see that US and international media have picked up on press reports here about Carne Ross blowing the whistle on Tony Blair and his government colleagues who were advised before the invasion of Iraq that Iraq didn’t really pose a threat to Britain’s security and that the invasion would be illegal without UN sanction:
“LONDON, England (AP) — Britain’s former top Iraq expert at the United Nations said in previously secret testimony that most government officials did not believe Iraq posed a threat in the months leading to the U.S.-led invasion, according to a new report.
“Carne Ross, a former first secretary to the British mission at the U.N. responsible for Iraq policy, told a House of Commons committee that he and other analysts believed that Iraq had only a ‘very limited’ ability to mount an attack of any kind, including one using weapons of mass destruction, or WMD.”
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/12/15/iraq.uk.report/
I suppose all this trouble has cropped up because the Foreign Office cut back on the basic training of Britain’s diplomats so they weren’t reminded of the twist that their function was to go abroad and lie for Tony Blair.
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