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Jul. 22nd, 2003 06:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liadnanDecidedly more cheerful today. I worked at home on a case all morning: I must do this more often, working at home is not only quite a lot more pleasant than doing so here, I actually manage to do quite a lot.
I won this afternoon, which is a lot better than losing. I'm also feeling slightly less shattered than I was when I got back to London last night. I was having a blast of wondering whether I'm physically cut out for this job, equally whether I'm really any good at it, but I think it's passed. That of course doesn't mean I am, but confidence is everything. Isn't it?
I didn't have enough energy last night to do more than watch TV and look at old photos. I have one of my dog (and he was mine), a beautiful Irish Setter, taken in the days when I used to wake up very early in the morning, and take him for an hour long walk over the fields. I remember so vividly, walking on the downs, in the early sumer mornings, no one but me around, walking a track that was there before the Romans and pretending that I was too. I miss those days, sometimes.
Watched the last episode of the West Wing series, Bartlett ordering an assasination... a fairly interesting step for them to take I thought, particularly since they left the whole justification question so open.
Meanwhile, back in what we innocently call the real world.. the Campbell row and Dr Kelly.
I don't know what to think. I was rather surprised that Kelly did indeed turn out to be the main source. I was sure the BBC had someone more significant up their sleeve.
I've been following the story quite carefully, ever since being frankly shocked when I heard the original Gilligan report on Today. I should note that I supported the war, purely on the basis of the "humanitarian argument". I said, in various places, that my gut feeling was, to borrow my friend and fellow Culturnik Martin's terminology, that Iraq probably didn't have Very Nasty Weapons (nukes) (but wanted them), probably did have Fairly Nasty Weapons (assorted gases and the like), and didn't seem to have delivery mechanisms that were a threat to anyone but Israel.
But I did believe that the government believed differently. Gilligan actually made a distinction in his original report between them believing they were in the right and "sexing up" the dossier in over-confidence they were right; and simply doing it because they wanted to win the vote. Which is a real difference. The point is, it's important to know whether or not Parliament was lied to, equally it's important to know if our intelligence services are, frankly, any good. That is, to my mind, a distinct argument from whether or not going to war against Iraq was in fact, on the knowledge at the time, either moral or sensible.
It seems Gilligan is actually not too highly regarded in some quarters. There are some negative stories about him, for which see the current edition of Private Eye. But frankly, I am always going to need some convincing not to be on the other side to that scumbag Campbell.
It's also more than a little irritating that the questions that matter, to my mind, have been lost somewhere: a) were there weapons? and b) did the governments involved believe there were weapons? Instead we're now lost in this horrible mess of a story, which somehow or other has led to another death.
I won this afternoon, which is a lot better than losing. I'm also feeling slightly less shattered than I was when I got back to London last night. I was having a blast of wondering whether I'm physically cut out for this job, equally whether I'm really any good at it, but I think it's passed. That of course doesn't mean I am, but confidence is everything. Isn't it?
I didn't have enough energy last night to do more than watch TV and look at old photos. I have one of my dog (and he was mine), a beautiful Irish Setter, taken in the days when I used to wake up very early in the morning, and take him for an hour long walk over the fields. I remember so vividly, walking on the downs, in the early sumer mornings, no one but me around, walking a track that was there before the Romans and pretending that I was too. I miss those days, sometimes.
Watched the last episode of the West Wing series, Bartlett ordering an assasination... a fairly interesting step for them to take I thought, particularly since they left the whole justification question so open.
Meanwhile, back in what we innocently call the real world.. the Campbell row and Dr Kelly.
I don't know what to think. I was rather surprised that Kelly did indeed turn out to be the main source. I was sure the BBC had someone more significant up their sleeve.
I've been following the story quite carefully, ever since being frankly shocked when I heard the original Gilligan report on Today. I should note that I supported the war, purely on the basis of the "humanitarian argument". I said, in various places, that my gut feeling was, to borrow my friend and fellow Culturnik Martin's terminology, that Iraq probably didn't have Very Nasty Weapons (nukes) (but wanted them), probably did have Fairly Nasty Weapons (assorted gases and the like), and didn't seem to have delivery mechanisms that were a threat to anyone but Israel.
But I did believe that the government believed differently. Gilligan actually made a distinction in his original report between them believing they were in the right and "sexing up" the dossier in over-confidence they were right; and simply doing it because they wanted to win the vote. Which is a real difference. The point is, it's important to know whether or not Parliament was lied to, equally it's important to know if our intelligence services are, frankly, any good. That is, to my mind, a distinct argument from whether or not going to war against Iraq was in fact, on the knowledge at the time, either moral or sensible.
It seems Gilligan is actually not too highly regarded in some quarters. There are some negative stories about him, for which see the current edition of Private Eye. But frankly, I am always going to need some convincing not to be on the other side to that scumbag Campbell.
It's also more than a little irritating that the questions that matter, to my mind, have been lost somewhere: a) were there weapons? and b) did the governments involved believe there were weapons? Instead we're now lost in this horrible mess of a story, which somehow or other has led to another death.
