>Direct action may become a necessity
>
>The UN is being used as a fig leaf for war in the face of world opinion
>
>Seumas Milne Thursday January 16, 2003 The Guardian
>
>If anyone could sell George Bush's planned war of aggression against Iraq,
>surely it should be Tony Blair, a politician whose career has been built
>on his ability to smoothtalk his way out of a crisis. He has been
>straining every nerve to do just that for the past week. The latest sales
>drive began with the prime minister's attempt to link the alleged ricin
>find above a north London chemist's shop with "weapons of mass
>destruction". And it culminated on Monday with his imaginative effort to
>construct a link between "rogue states" such as Iraq and Islamist terrorism.
>
>But all the signs are that his spin offensive simply isn't working. Such
>tales may find more of an echo in the United States, where half the
>population believes Saddam Hussein was responsible for the September 11
>attacks, according to some polls. But in Britain - and even more so in the
>rest of the world - most people are now convinced that the opposite is the
>case: that the best way to boost support for al-Qaida and Islamist attacks
>on western targets is precisely to launch an Anglo-American crusade to
>invade and occupy Arab, Muslim Iraq.
Worth reading in full:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,875672,00.html
Chris Burford
Lonon