Given that eighteen of a two thousand strong Italian deployment died in Nasiriya as a result of the truck bomb on Wednesday, and since nine thousand Poles are running a segment of Iraq, it’s interesting to note that as of ten days ago, this was the BBC correspondent’s analysis, with ‘credit’ too to the Democrats:
‘Outside help suggested.
… Missouri Representative Dick Gephardt called for outside help.
“We cannot solve this problem alone,” he said.
He added that the US should talk to foreign leaders, “treat them with respect and … get the help that we should get from our friends.”
Easier said than done, of course, given the reluctance of anyone else to get involved at this stage. ‘- Paul Reynolds
Now, the fact that there were already almost as many Polish soldiers as British soldiers in Iraq seems to have ‘passed him by’. We’ve heard next to no analysis of these participants until now when the press is a bad one, because the British Press, and especially the BBC, felt that GWB ignored a large body of international opinion (trans: theirs and the EU big players) by going to war, and should be depicted as isolated. I don’t think we (the British civilian population, represented by the media we support) are qualified to call ourselves ‘allies’ anymore.
(btw- sorry to highlight the same article twice, but there seemed to be too many issues to be coverable in one post- or even one analysis. This one seemed germaine just now).
Update
Nicholas Vance has more on the BBC’s comparisons of the Iraq situation to Vietnam and their perception of US ‘isolation’
Update 2: My Factual Error I’d just like to acknowledge that the Poles are running the nine thousand strong contingent in central Iraq. They contributed 2000 or so troops themselves. In the excitement of their stream of news from Iraq the Beeb has preferred to forget about their peaceful activities until the bomb on Wednesday.
OT:
The Jeremy Vine show is back to its old tricks. Today’s (13 Nov)first item was a discussion of Iraq. The two speakers were Col. Mike Dewar (Ret), a counter-terrorism expert and Alan Simpson, MP for Moonbatia South. So, right from the off there’s an imbalance, with a technocrat on one side and an ideologue on the other. The Colonel’s role was simply to give a (necessarily dry) military assessment of the ‘What’ in Iraq, so no counterpoint was available to Simpson’s ranting about the Why, the How and the What Next. Surely someone like Melanie Phillips would have provided genuine balance to the program ?
Such was the theoretical problem, but the reality was even worse. Simpson was permitted to drivel through the whole set of Guardianista talking points without once being challenged, or even asked for any evidence. Apparently all of the following are uncontroversial truths: “We [the hard-left] predicted this kind of terrorist activity” (yes, but they also predicted 500K civilian casualties, millions of refugees and a Stalingrad-type battle for Baghdad), “the terrorism arises because Iraqis are upset about the US plundering their country “(how come so many of the Tangos are foreign then ? And what plunder anyway ?) and the UN could bring order to the country (just as soon as it rebuilds it’s HQ).
Not uncommonly with this show, I felt that the guest was there merely to provide plausible deniability. Biased ? the Beeb ? No, just the guest they gave a large amount of airtime to to rant unchallenged. No bias there!
Off topic:
Quote from the Saturday, November 01, 2003 update:
“UPDATE 4 November: The BBC, all too willing to parrott the party line, should have a look at Professor Daniel Drezner’s dismantling of the ‘study’ by the Center for Public Integrity in Slate. Someone needs to go back to school.”
I’m new to this surrounding’s and I’m trying to find an anchor that will allow me to understand the perceived bias of the BBC.
My question is the following: what is the party line that the BBC is parrotting as stated by the above quote?
Thanks and CHEERS@@@!!!
Mr_Jojo–Thanks for you comments.
Regarding your query about “the party line” I plead guilty to using the phrase in two separate posts (see 01 Nov and 13 Nov) that I’m aware of. It is not so much a “parroting” of a set of talking points as it is assuming a particular view of the world held as having legitimacy in and of itself. Those who to this view seem to dismiss without serious consideration views which directly contradict or challenge their way of seeing the world.
DEFINITION: 1. party line — (the policy of a political group; “He won in a vote along party lines”)http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stage=1&word=party+line
The BBC claims to be a professional and objective newsgathering organisation which simply reports the news. Often they succeed at this. However, there are many cases in which bias oozes from the pores of a story. Often the bias is due to assumptions made by the on-site journalist but more seriously, it is a result of a corporate culture which does not consider the views of those outside its elitist worldview as having credibility or legitimacy.
For example: I heard Alex Brody on Newshour (11 Nov, World Service) interviewing two ‘experts’ regarding Iraq and the Bush administration policy. One was Charles Glass who was described as a “Middle East expert and journalist.” To anyone familiar with Mr. Glass, it would become clear that this man is a leftist of the Noam Chomsky variety. Was this explained? No. An unbiased presenter would have pointed this out. The other guest was Paul Krugman described by Brody as a “trenchant Bush critic and New York Times columnist.” Krugman, who is an economist, is given a free hand to bash the Bush administration. This is all done with an above-the-fray sort of detachment, but to say it is ‘unbiased’ is to overlook the fact that no attempt is made to have an opposing opinion since Brody lobs soft setup questions to these guys so they can say what they were brought on the programme to say: i.e. “the party line” of the BBC (which is pretty much equal to the anti-war, anti-Bush elitist left).
I speak of a culture which has enveloped the BBC like like ivy entwines a tree. Having been there such a long time, it’s hard to imagine what the pre-ivy tree looked like and it’s quite a job to remove without doing serous damage to the tree.
Kind regards.
Has anyone noticed how whenever the Today programme has an American commentator on, they always seem to be “Mr or Mrs XYZ, a former advisor to/member of the CLINTON administration”?
Anyone listening would think that Bush is a medieval prince ruling over the restless natives.
TOTALLY OFF TOPIC
Oops – cut of in my prime!
On the tedious Ican ‘Campaign’ website on the BBC there are a couple of ‘Abolish the BBC’ campaigns.
Ican seems to be dying a slow death – no wonder with painful navigation like that. I wonder how much it cost, or if it is suitable for an organisation like to BBC to be facilitating political campaigns?