Flap, flap, flap

It's the sound of chickens coming home to roost. Text of a letter from 52 former senior British diplomats to Tony Blair, objecting to his government's foreign policy moves. Bush faced similar criticism from diplomatic circles some months ago but it was more low-key, largely ignored by the press, and not taken very seriously by American pundits. They do take this sort of thing seriously here, though, despite the government's attempts to pin it all on "understandable frustration".

More coverage on Katharine Gun

The New York Times ran an op-ed by Bob Herbert on the story called A Single Conscience v. the State. This has been picked up by Common Dreams, via the Institute for Public Accuracy. A substantive update appeared briefly in several outlets, including the Scotsman, saying that a date was set for the trial on 16 February.

Iraqi war whistleblower Katharine Gun follow-up

Tristero and Juan Cole of Informed Comment have both picked up the story mentioned below. If anyone sees any other blogs mentioning it, could you let me know?

Their Master's Voice

Uri Avnery, Israeli peace activist and writer, in Counterpunch, has an article about Bush, Blair, their intelligence services and the great political difference of the UK. He points out why the behaviour of the intelligence services in the US and the UK, and indeed in all modern states, whether democracies or not, is essentially the same. But the significant thing is in the degree and nature of fallout in thetwo countries after the deception/mistakes/lies are uncovered:

"Did the Americans get upset when the lie was discovered? Not at all. So the President lied. Big deal. And the CIA helped him to lie. Big deal again. The important thing is that the sons of Saddam have been killed in a "targeted elimination", Israeli-style. How wonderful!

"But in the UK, things work differently. There you have a political class and clear standards of what's 'done' and what's 'not done'."