Saturday, December 16, 2006

[blogfocus saturday] outrage and rhetoric at the keyboard

The little matter of Tony’s timing of his announcement dominated many posts this week, which can be loosely grouped under a number of headings. first off:

Saudis

1 Paul Linford, Belper boy, alleged Tory Blogger and guest at the party I wanted to go to, kicks off with the perils of old age:

I must be getting less cynical in my old age, but in retrospect I was far too kind to New Labour in yesterday's post on whether the Government might have been guilty of burying bad news under the cover of the Ipswich murders and Lord Stevens' inquiry in the death of Diana. It's now absolutely bleeding obvious that this is exactly what they were doing.

2 Shuggy provides backup with the key phrase which should strike terror into every heart:

The public interest outweighs the need to maintain the rule of law. Let's read that again: the public interest outweighs the need to maintain the rule of law. Then let's delete 'rule of law' and try it with 'democracy' or 'liberty'. I'm not one of these who thinks they know the inner-workings of intelligence services throughout the world but I can't think of a single Middle East commentator that doesn't agree that much of the money used to fund the Terror we're supposed to be at War with comes via Saudi Arabia

3 Oliver Kamm minces no words in stating his take on it:

The Saudis therefore clearly encourage an aggressive Islamist ideology, Wahhabism, to divert political dissent into the mosque and then outward to the world. There could scarcely be a more effective way of incubating the forces of fanaticism that threaten us, and the Saudis too. Pressing for political reform in Saudi Arabia is urgent. Mr Blair is not pursuing that course, but instead is acquiescing in corruption for reasons of state. It is an unprincipled decision, but worse, it is a stupid one.

More from the bloggers here

2 comments:

  1. Great focus again. A lot of anger about, as you say. Are things really bad? Or are we getting angry for other reasons?

    ReplyDelete

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