Tim Blair

"Before the invasion of Iraq the American, British and Australian people were told by their governments that Saddam Hussein ... had developed a close working relationship with Osama bin Laden."

Sorry about the ellipsis - but I never heard from any of the three governments about this: lots in the media, yes, but I must have missed a lot of news. The government statements I heard or read said there was a "tenuous" and "possible" relationship which included "apparent" alQuaeda members at a remote training camp.

??????
Just clicked on "Why is goodness just too good to be true?" because it looked interesting. Now, the story is about a US doctor donating a kidney and the spin is that a number of blogs looked for a dark lining: so, of course, the folowing were necessary -

"...it would have been better, and entirely within the power of the US army, if they [Uday and Qusay] had been brought to trial in the International Court of Justice. But as the US doesn't recognise any jurisdiction but its own, there was never any chance of that." Never heard of Nuremburg? Figured out yet why, after several 'adjustment' attempts Belgium dumped its international war crimes court entirely?

"We live in troubling times. We read hair-raising stories of the brutality of Uday and Qusay and we have no trouble believing every word, even though much of it is obviously self-serving US propaganda." Golly, guess al Jazz is actually a US outfit, right?

Of course, not knowing Mr. Manne, I can't be sure that he's not either brain-damage nor on mind-altering drugs, but each of those would certainly explain his accusation (if that's what it is) of lying by the Bush and Blair administrations while filling his columns with known and provable falsehoods. Apparently he's afraid someone may have hijacked his favorite method of argument.

Anyway, here it the US, my read is that about .00001% of the population (almost exclusively self-described Progressives and/or media) give a rat's hind-end what Bush said about uranium and Africa. (Besides, many of them are convince he didn't say anything about uranium at all because if he had the liberal media would have claimed he said "your anus".

I'll take the self-serving US propaganda over whatever you call this crap he is offering any time.

It should be clear to all by now just what the problem is:

A small but influential group if intelligent, compassionate and "aware" individuals, despite having an almost complete hold on the ABC and higher educational institutions, as well as a significant grip on the Fairfax press, have been unable to convince the public that the are ignorant, misinformed, and as a consequence keep voting in the wrong leader. (Disregarding the fact the Australians don't directly vote for their Prime Minister is a necessary consequence of keeping the message simple enough to be understood by the voters.)

Redressing this injustice, and restoring these special people to their rightful position of national influence will require a rescinding of the rights of non-socialists to vote.

There is no doubt that British officials lied about Hussain. The British people were told that he was a leader to be feared, but it was all an obvious fraud. He now appears to have fallen on his sword.

Robert Manne comes from the same school as Noam Chomsky who believed that no Cambodian was ever hurt by the Khmer Rouge.

But...but...the UN has no will at all! Have they recently achieved "Jelly-like" status?

Bravo UN!