MONDAY MORNING LINKS

Saddam's trucks were for balloons, not germs

The intelligence agency MI6, British defence officers and technical experts from the Porton Down microbiological research establishment have been ordered to conduct an urgent review of the mobile facilities, following US analysis which casts serious doubt on whether they really are germ labs.

The British review comes amid widespread doubts expressed by scientists on both sides of the Atlantic that the trucks could have been used to make biological weapons.

Instead The Observer has established that it is increasingly likely that the units were designed to be used for hydrogen production to fill artillery balloons, part of a system originally sold to Saddam by Britain in 1987.

Further discrediting the "WMD smoking gun." Click here.

Thanks to This Modern World.

Vanity Fair: Spanking good journalism

And speaking of This Modern World, Tom Tomorrow's blogging sidekick, Bob Harris, has a cool meditation on neo-con hawk statements made in a recent Vanity Fair interview:

Recapping -- and regular readers know the key points, but they bear repeating until we make a damn full-blown federal case out of it -- Bush's own advisors consider him a tool, and are stunningly clear on the point. Iraq was on the drawing board for these people at least five years before 9/11. And that the WMD rationale was exaggerated "for bureaucratic reasons," in Wolfowitz's already-notorious words, leading Powell to present the U.N. with documents later shown to be plagiarized and forged, is now public record.

Bush's own statements on matters essential to our national security (e.g. the alleged proof of Saddam's involvement in WMDs and 9/11) are no better, contradicting all current evidence with soul-numbing constance.

Click here.

Time To Slay Militant Business

Turning a bit further to the left, ZNet offers this Andrew Leedham essay on corporate power:

The triumph of the new right has been to institutionalise the dogma that (big) business is good and anything that 'burdens' business, unions, taxes, regulation or a decent wage for your workers is bad. To question the wisdom of this approach, to argue that these 'burdens' are in fact valuable checks and balances on corporate power is to invite McCarthy-like opprobrium.

Corporate greed and excess has, until recently, been routinely overlooked because of the inherent, unquestionable belief that society should submit to the will of market forces. Responsibility for mass redundancies, fat cat pay, golden goodbyes and even dubious ethics is externalised to market pressures, rather than being part and parcel of the corporate decision making process. The free market imperative has over-ridden all other concerns, brooking no argument that economic growth should go hand in hand with social responsibility.

Click here.

"The victor is not asked if he tells the truth"

Finally, my favorite source for links, J. Orlin Grabbe, points the way to a brilliantly edited, very funny, very poignant anti-war video.

WHATEVER YOU DO, YOU MUST WATCH THIS COOL VIDEO!!!!!

Click here.

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