Revealed, the letters that many might wish to forget (MORE IRAQI DOCUMENTS)

The Daily Telegraph ^ | April 22, 2003 | David Blair

[MadIvan]

As it turns out the people we always thought were scum, turned out to BE scum.

Regards, Ivan

[MadIvan]

Bump!

[PokeyJoe]

Has anybody found anything from Jesse Jackson yet?

[TopQuark]

Contrary to popular opinion, paper does not burn.

[MEG33]

There is a report that the forces have found enough medical supplies to furnish hospitals for 6 months in Iraq. You don't think Saddam in his Oil for Palaces program was withholding for propaganda purposes..surely not!

[fooman]

God bless you brit. You posted the smoking cannon!

[prognostigaator]

bttt

[faithincowboys]

I hope Robin Cook's name is on some more documents-- he is a self righteous toad and beneath the facade there is without doubt a lot of dirt.

Please add me to your ping list, you've been magnificent on this and much else.

Thank you!

[redbaiter]

Please add me to ping list. This is great stuff. Another day, another email to my socialist anti-war friends. Bwa ha ha ha!

[Howlin]

LOL!

Wait till you see the stuff Fox News is reportng about the items Saddam got in his Oil for Food program.

[Prince Charles]

According to a Russian foreign ministry official, named as Vladimir Titorenko, Mr Cook offered to end Britain's role in enforcing the no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq if Saddam's regime would guarantee that it would not use air power against its own population.

I never did like Kook. Soon he'll be a tired, old sot.

[fooman]

What DID Saddam get?

[expatpat]

Have we heard anything from John Pilger recently?

[dighton]

Have we heard anything from John Pilger recently?

Yes. He's his usual loathsome self, only more so.

[reformedliberal]

Most predictable is a stream of approving correspondence about John Pilger's ITV documentary on the effects of sanctions in Iraq in 2000. The foreign ministry and information ministry bombarded Mr Amin with requests for videotapes of the programme.

---------------------------------

May this be another nail in this obnoxious, so-called journo's coffin.

[Howlin]

I'm still looking for an article on it!

They've been talking about it all day long. It was like a Christmas wish list for every good despot and his sons.

Uday asked for a new sports stadium -- that's one I remember.

And something about equipment to make CARTOONS with....

All the while, the people lived on 2,500 calories a day!

[pushforbush]

Ivan, do you know if the Telegraph reporter was able to get the boxes of U.S. documents from the Foreign Ministry as well?

[MadIvan]

Doesn't say, sorry.

Regards, Ivan

[expatpat]

Biy, you're right. What's this fellow's problem?

[dighton]

[Auberon Waugh] invented the wonderful verb “to pilger”, from which can be formed the noun “pilgerism”, which so neatly sums up the nature of much of the earnest, well-meaning and smugly self-basting writing beloved of lefty journalists all over the world. The great charm of pilgerism is that it saves a hell of a lot of research, as well as any thought. The real mystery of this kind of thing is how there seems to be a kind of telepathic transmission of orthodoxy, such that all pilgerising journalists appear to think much the same thing and to wheel and stampede like a mob of sheep without apparent prompting but all in the same direction. The precise definition of pilgerism does not matter, and anyhow, given the litigious nature of Mr Pilger, is impossible. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary does not even try, contenting itself with the obscure metallurgical use of the word.

The origin of Waugh’s coinage of “to pilger” dates back to a piece Pilger wrote in which, in his habitual lugubrious and accusatory style, he recounted the theft from her parents and selling into prostitution of a young Thai girl in Bangkok. Waugh, who used to delight in shocking his primmer readers with his boasts of his prowess with Thai prostitutes (he was in fact notoriously faithful to his wife of many years) smelt a rat, and, with the help of friends from the Far Eastern Economic Review and others, dug around and soon discovered that poor Pilger had been deceived by a Thai con man, and that the transaction had never taken place. Pilger could only counter, lamely, that there are lots of young prostitutes in Bangkok. But everybody knew that already. It hardly needed a field trip and large sums belonging to his employer paid to a con man to discover it.

-- Padraic P. McGuinness, in the Sydney Morning Herald.