45 min from Doom

I was going to write something about the fact that the infamous Iraq/45 min from doom claim has been shown to be simply made up by a taxi driver.

At the moment, there doesn't appear to be any coverage on the Sun's website (I'm sure it's currently being written up and will be splashed over the front page tomorrow...)

However, you might as well read the coverage on A Tiny Revolution.

Comedy interlude.

Sometimes, you simply don't have to add anything to the bilge the Sun bangs out. Today's leader column on the end of operations in Basra is one such example. Enjoy:

BRITAIN is leaving Iraq with its head held high.

Our 4,100 remaining troops ended combat operations in Basra yesterday six years after helping oust Saddam Hussein.

The moving ceremony handing over our duties to America captured the pride and pain of the long campaign.

History will judge that this has been a glorious chapter in our military history.

We went to war for the right reason: to free an enslaved people from a tyrant who threatened world peace.

We fought that war with courage and honour.

We leave Iraq a better place.

The Lions of Basra endured hell to do their duty in an operation that lasted longer than WW2.

More than 100,000 Servicemen and women served in the furnace of Southern Iraq.

In all, 179 of our troops laid down their lives. Their names will be remembered for ever with all the gratitude and pride we feel for the fallen of previous conflicts.

And now, the troops can start coming home.

Mission accomplished, lads and lasses. Well done. And thank you.

Brutal hypocrisy.

The Sun, after its complete unwavering support for the Iraq war, has no credibility whatsoever when commenting on other countries' "wars of aggression", but that certainly doesn't stop it from doing so:

"This brutal military invasion of an independent sovereign state is a blatant breach of international law."

Indeed, it probably is. While we'll gloss over the fact that the Sun doesn't deign to mention that it was the Georgians that broke a ceasefire they had just arranged to launch an all-out assault on the capital of South Ossetia, the Sun ought to know about wars in blatant breach of international law: it supported one, in the words of Rupert Murdoch, not because of the suffering of the Iraqi people, but because of the benefits that a $20 barrel of oil would bring.

"Even if Mr Putin could claim provocation, the vicious reprisals which have left thousands of civilians dead, wounded and homeless are grotesquely disproportionate."

A word which the Sun certainly didn't use to describe Israel's similar assault on Lebanon two years previous.

Here though is the Sun's real thoughts on what should have happened:

"America might have stopped Russia by swiftly flying troops into Georgia and calling Mr Putin’s bluff."

Ah yes, troops that America doesn't have to spare, fighting two wars which the Sun backs to the hilt, in order to start quite possibly World War 3. Less talks, more missiles and more deaths please!

"But why should they, when Europe has been so unwilling to help itself — or its greatest ally?"

And so we're back to Europe-bashing, when Europe has undoubtedly been right to refuse Georgia entry to NATO which would be the equivalent of a red rag to a bull, or in this case, a bear.