Overplaying The Downing Street Memo

[06-26-05 Update: Welcome Times Herald-Record readers! By now you've likely read Beth Quinn's hysterical editorial on the Downing Street Memo. This is one of two articles I've written on the Downing Street Memo. Read the second article, "Downing Street Downer" to understand why Beth's "proof" has absolutely no merit.]

“You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war,” goes the old canard from the (relatively few) half-baked half-wits that half-finished college when I was at East Carolina in the early-to-mid 1990s.

Like other clueless ideologues from the Berkshires to Berkley, they sincerely if only half-lucidly believed that capitulating to tyrants would somehow make the world a better place.

These people naively held, and indeed many still do hold, the sincere, bong-induced belief that happy thoughts will solve the words ills, that it is all just a matter of coming to a mutual understanding. Much of this crowd would like us to cut our military down to bare minimum levels—just enough to stop the enemy before they make it to Beverly Hills or the Hamptons. This is the “bake sales for bombers” crowd.

These people are fools.

"In peace prepare for war, in war prepare for peace. The art of war is of vital importance to the state. It is matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence under no circumstances can it be neglected." –Sun Tzu, circa 500 BC

Despite this, the Internet, especially center-left blogs, have been in an orgasmic frenzy over what is being called the “Downing Street Memo.” The memo purports to be the secret minutes of a meeting of a handful of high-level British government officials that took place July 23, 2002, eight months prior to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

I'd avoided talking about it until this point for several reasons.

Some on the right would point to the fact that there is not a single credible source confirming this memo's authenticity, and that it could have been fictitiously written just like the fake documents dredged up by CBS News. Only “anonymous government sources” have confirmed this document. Pardon me, Michael Isikoff, if I take“anonymous government sources” with a grain or two of salt.

But even if the Downing Street Memo is fake, I certainly hope it accurately reflects what was going on behind the scenes.

According to the memo, recent talks in Washington noted:

“…a perceptible shift in attitude. War was now seen as inevitable.”

A perceptible shift in attitude? I should certainly hope so.

Just ten months after September 11 Americans were still raw with the realization that far away terrorist regimes could indeed strike the United States. Those who kept abreast of the subject knew that Iraq played a role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing by being a refuge for the bomb-builder, and Iraq had put into motions plans to assassinate President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait.

Despite continued diplomatic pressure in the form of international sanctions, two regional wars, and a violently crushed rebellion, Saddam was still firmly in power. With little hope of a coup arising, and Saddam a continued threat to U.S. interests in the region, war was indeed inevitable at some point. The only question was, “when?”

After September 11 and the still unsolved anthrax attacks, taking out a rouge nation with a previous and flaunted history of using WMDs against both its own people and foreign nations became not just a matter of “when,” but “how soon?” in many people's estimations.

Another failure point of the memo, as pointed out by liberal Michael Kinsey, is that the memo is hardly a smoking gun impeachment document liberals have been slobbering for. Liberals harp on the claim that Bush was lying over his position about the war. But the Memo doesn't come close to supporting that assertion:

But even on its face, the memo is not proof that Bush had decided on war. It says that war is "now seen as inevitable" by "Washington." That is, people other than Bush had concluded, based on observation, that he was determined to go to war. There is no claim of even fourth-hand knowledge that he had actually declared this intention. Even if "Washington" meant actual administration decision makers, rather than the usual freelance chatterboxes, C is saying only that these people believe that war is how events will play out.

Once again, liberal hysteria is borne out only in their “reality-based” fantasy world, not in actual reality. It is quite possible, that Bush, in preparing for war, was hoping for peace, following Sun Tsu's time-honored advice. The memo simply does not address the assertion of a pre-determined war made by the left.

So the far left shrieks"cover-up!" and the rest of the world yawns.

One would be tempted to think that there is no outrage because there's nothing to hide.

Note: Also read "Downing Street Downer" to understand why the Downing Street Memo isn't the "smoking gun" liberals hope it would be.