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Submitted: Have The Brits Got"Psy-Ops" On Da Job?


Hours Before U.S. Secretary Of State Colin Powell Was To Deliver His Speech Before The U.N. Security Council, British Defence Intelligence Officials Leaked A Top Secret Report To Bbc, asserting that there are no current links between Iraq and the al-Qaeda terrorists. Such a link had been claimed, by U.S. President George W. Bush, in his State of the Union address, and soon thereafter, British Prime Minister Tony Blair told the British Parliament that there are such links, without providing any evidence whatsoever.

According to BBC's Defence Correspondent, this was an "almost unprecedented" leak by such intelligence officials, as it "flatly contradicts" official government policy. BBC comments, that British military intelligence people are angry, that their work has been repeatedly "politicized", in order to help build the Blair government's case against Iraq.

The top secret report documents how Saddam's Baathist regime and bin Laden's al-Qaeda mistrust each other, and have incompatible ideologies. Bin Laden has denounced the Baathists as an "apostate regime". The report states that bin Laden's "aims are in ideological conflict with present-day Iraq." A senior continental European strategist said today: "I am not astonished that British military intelligence would leak this. These are no-nonsense people. They are fed up, with how their work has been misused by this government, for the purposes of this war."

A British defense establishment figure stressed that "this leak is coming from a very high level here. There are a group of military people, who have very strong reservations about this war. This time around, it is not the usual suspects who are coming up with the arguments against the war, but rather top people in the military, in military intelligence, and in the Ministry of Defence."

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This British source affirmed: "It is not Iraq as such, that has them concerned. More than that, is the question of the {consequences} of this war, for the wider region. They, like me, have been troubled, by the growing influence, in American official quarters, of an evangelical-fundamentalist line, according to which, what is simplistically called `freedom' and `democracy', can be exported everywhere. And even worse, that freedom and democracy must be imposed by force, and that longer-term, more patient methods must be tossed aside. All of this is very dubious, and there has been too little public discussion of this bigger agenda behind the Iraq war, and what its consequences might be." (mjb)

- YOU DON'T BELIEVE THAT SHADOWS SHAPE WORLD HISTORY, DO YOU? -

More than 60 organizers, led by 40+ youth, hit the Washington, D.C. area on Feb. 4, with the pamphlet containing LaRouche's webcast, and the message that LaRouche's leadership must be followed, if the depression collapse and the war are to be stopped. Fully conscious that the circulation of LaRouche's perspective on how to save the nation, is {the} way in which the Chickenhawks' threatened war against Islam can be stopped, the youth, in particular, went to Capitol Hill, where, initial reports say, they met a much more open and serious response than in their last "lobbying" effort. On the same day, New Jersey organizers began distribution of the webcast pamphlet at the United Nations -- where U.S. Secretary of State Powell was scheduled to "do his thing" on Feb. 5.

Meanwhile, LaRouche in 2004 has secured the paper to produce a total of 400,000 of the candidate's State of the Union webcast transcript, which will be printed before the ICLC/Schiller Institute conference. One thousand videotapes of the keynote are also scheduled to be produced starting next week.

By contrast to this activity, yesterday's "news of the day," the Powell speech to the UN, has the significance of shadows on the wall. It will not determine anything, and no one is going to decide anything based on this.

LaRouche characterized Powell's performance (with a very bad script, one might add), as follows:

Powell did the job he was assigned to do. But those who were expecting a commitment to war to come out of it from the U.S., will be disappointed. Powell got stuck with the job, because he would not evoke a strong reaction. People see him as someone who's not insane. Within the bounds of what Powell was ordered to do, he probably kept things at the borders from the edge of war.

The risk of war is admittedly increasing, but it has nothing to do with what Powell did. Powell was sent in to embarrass Powell. If Rumsfeld or one of the other nuts had been sent in, you'd get a veto. Powell made the soft pitch, he carried the ball as ordered to do, and no collision occurred.

One thing we can say: What we were getting, is that the gang in the White House was afraid that they'd lose the next election if they backed off from the war. Now, what we got yesterday on Karl Rove, as reported by Wiesbaden, was that going to war could hurt the election campaign in 2004. (In fact, the latest LA Times poll shows only 45% of registered voters likely to support Bush's re-election.) This is {not} an all-out war drive.

Lyn stressed: you've got to understand how the American Presidential system works. Sure, there is a small group of utopian nut-cases who are desperate for this war, a war which the likes of Ledeen and Perle make very clear, is aimed at the entire Islamic world, and now, perhaps, at France as well! But the Presidency is trying to wriggle around it -- pretending to be seriously committed to a war, while aiming at not having a war.
source: New York Times, by Tom Friedman, Feb. 4]

PRO-WAR COLUMNIST SAYS AMERICAN PEOPLE DON'T SUPPORT IRAQ WAR. {New York Times} columnist Tom Friedman, who supports a U.S. attack on Iraq, says that he is struck by the "incredible contrast" between what the Bush Administration intends to do in Iraq (a war, and then supposedly a post-war rebuilding of Iraq along the lines of Germany and Japan after World War II), versus "the narrow base of support that exists in America today for this audacious project."

"I've had a chance to travel all across the country since September," Friedman writes, "and I can say without hesitation there was not a single audience I spoke to where I felt there was a majority in favor of war in Iraq."

Friedman decribed the dominant mood in the country as follows:

"Mr. President, we don't want to be against you in a war on terrorism. But do we really have to do this? My 401(k) is now a 201(k), heading for a 101(k). Osama bin Laden is still on the loose. The Europeans are uncovering new terrorist cells right and left. And I have walked through so many airport metal detectors in the last year that I now glow in the dark. I understand what the Afghan war was about and would have volunteered with a pitchfork -- but I just don't get this war."

Friedman adds that he doesn't care what the polls say, that this is the real mood of the American people. [ews]


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