Posted on 01/10/2006 8:37:50 PM PST by DurtySanches
Two men who leaked a document suggesting U.S. President George W. Bush considered bombing Al-Jazeera television have to stand trial.
David Keogh, a British civil servant, is accused of passing a memo to Leo O'Connor, a former parliamentary researcher. The memo was then leaked to a British newspaper last November. It alleged that Bush spoke of targeting Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Qatar in a meeting he had with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the White House in 2004.
Keogh has been accused of "a damaging disclosure" of international information. O'Connor, a former employee of a Labour MP, is accused of receiving and releasing illegally disclosed information.
Both men have been charged with violations of the Official Secrets Act.
The Daily Mirror published a story based on a transcript of the conversation between the two leaders, leaked to it by an unidentified source.
The story said one British government source dismissed Bush's comments as a joke, but another said he was serious.
The United States has viewed the Arab network as hostile to American interests.
The Mirror story said British Prime Minister Tony Blair dissuaded Bush from attacking Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar, when the two leaders met in early 2004.
Keough and O'Connor face a maximum two-year sentence if convicted.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
Liberals, meanwhile, view the Arab network as a vital balance to the conservative-dominated media. < rolls eyes >
It would be nice if the ones that "leaking" over here could get prosecuted...but, instead they are feted by the MSM and the dems...
I wouldn't be surprised to see the leakers in the NSA probe get a ticker-tape parade in New York City!!!
"A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victim, and he wears their face and their garments and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the plague."
Yup, 2-years sure sounds serious.
bflr
.
Our friends from across the Pond seem to take this whole "War on Terror" a bit more seriously than our elected stooges in Congress here in America. God Bless the UK
2 more years than Sandy Burger spent in jail
bump for a great quote.
Wish the USA would prosecute leakers.
So good that I just faxed it to murtha;)
Slimey limeys, those two.
Sure, and I have proof they are real:
I, President George W Bush, confess that the Downing street memo's are real.
Of coarse, I had to destroy the original document.
Another staffer for an ultraliberal MP ends up being the source of the leak of national security documents. Gosh, what a strange notion. I'm sure it would never, ever occur to a staffer to one of the Senate Dimocrats to leak something from the Senate Intelligence Committee to the NY Times.
Qatar is an ally of the U.S. with a friendly government. The U.S. has 2000 servicemen at Al Udeid Air Base, Qatar. Al Udeid is very important in the U.S. war on terror.
Whoever believes that President Bush would bomb a television station (Al-Jazeera) in Qatar, and risk loosing access to this base, is mentally deficient.
fyi
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