. Got to have balance, haven’t we? Six to one and half a dozen of the other, tit for tat, a fair crack of the whip, everyone’s human etc. That’s maybe why the Beeb put two reports out with apparent simultaneity showing the US as critic (of Iran) and the US as criticised (by Human Rights Watch).
Now for the differences. The headlines are written in such a way that the US’ is seen expressing a viewpoint, whereas HRW have their headline in the form of a statement marred only by the slight matter of quotemarks around ‘erodes’ (a word with fairly unincendiary connotations, except when you place it next to the explosive term ‘global human rights’).
While the Iran-alert article focusses narrowly on an item of news- the fate of a female Iranian human rights campaigner- the HRW article (for it really belongs to them) gets a wide ranging remit, and double-takes on the simple thesis that all schoolchildren (and D.U. contributors) know, that ‘ when a country as dominant as the US openly defies the law, it invites others to do the same.’
You have to say this is pretty lame in a news article, and risible in an opinion one. Like the ‘world’ actually cares about ‘human rights’!
But whether the world really cares about human rights or that’s just some liberal fantasy, Aunty Beeb is determined to bring us up as if it did.
The emphasis placed on the terminology “human rights” needs further examination. What are human rights? One could say then, that I have the Human right to own a car but I also have responsibilies attached to that right. Point one I cannot afford a car on my pension so it could be my human right to borrow the money and that would be an irresponsible act because I could not afford to repay the loan. So, what I am trying to say is that if we have Human rights, we also have inextricably attached, human responsibilities with those rights.It would appear that there should be an International Court of Human Responsibilities to balance out the International Court of Human Rights. This the other side of six of one and half a dozen of the other.
Yes – an interesting piece of structural bias.
Did you notice under the magazine section on BBC News Online that they have a strange “interview” with Adam Curtis. I imagine this must be because they received so many complaints (though the magazine makes it sound like another case of “balance”). They obviously want to show they take complaints seriously (LARF).
Second question of the bogus interview is as follows!
“OK, so al-Qaeda does not exist as a highly organised and structured group. But it is a terrifically powerful ideology, which makes it even more dangerous. ”
No debate. (continued…)
(..continued)
No debate – Mr. Curtis has obviously won the argument hands down. Bollocks!
Curtis’s argument in the programme is that Al Queda has NEVER been a highly organised and centralised conspiracy with global reach. It is true that its structure has been ripped to shreds by effective action, principally in Afghanistan but also elsewhere.
It used to run training camps that involved people giving up their true names and being assigned new ones. They had centres for forged documentation. The recruits swore allegiance to the Sheikh Osama. They were then sent out to all parts of the world with instructions about how they would be contacted. It was an organisation that was funded to the tune of tens of millions of pounds every year. It has made concerted efforts to acquire WMD. It organised the embassy bombings and 9/11.
Mr. Curtis tells us this is all fantasy. Let him enter into a true debate with someone who knows how to argue not give him dummy questions.
What?! You mean al-Qaeda wasn’t a creation of the Bush-Cheney-Halliburton-neocon-military-industrial-complex? Shocked, I tell you. I’m shocked.
I heard that item you were talking about. Oddly enough, they didn’t cary it on the programming distibuted to US national public radio stations in the prime hours – it may have run on stations which carry BBC world service as an overnight service.
Amusing as it was, the presenter posed questions which made the interviewee look foolish and like a nitpicker.
Pete, my ol’ pal, now you are going to say that al-Qaeda was in Iraq too? But, if we disagree about them being any kind of organized force prior to the war, do we agree they might have a presence there now? Certainly, we can now agree there are no WMD(s).
“Does the world care about human rights?”. Well, most of the world signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Nevertheless, ruthless dictators, despots and bloodthirsty kings and generals may not care very much, but I harldy think it is in doubt that most of the rest of the six billion of us cherish or desire the right to life, home, family, freedom of expression and so on.
I take it from your tone that you don’t believe in human rights?
Misanthrope, me ol’china, we disagree again. As for al-Qaeda not being in Iraq prior to the war it is almost certain that ‘head-hacker’ Zarqawi was in Baghdad for some time prior to the war. Second, ansar al-Islam (that’s a terrorist group, BTW) were busy killing Kurds with Saddam’s blessing prior to the war. That’s a stone cold fact and they are fully paid up memebers of al-Qaeda. There were many contacts between Saddam’s regime and al-Qaeda prior to the war – stone cold fact and all laid out for Congress last year.
Believe it or not, we cannot agree that there were/are no WMDs. I concede none have been found. I concede Bush and Blair stated WMDs were there and none have been found. But while you liberals are stamping your feet demanding that Bush and Blair account for this incredible balls up I should remind you that prior to the war the UN Security Council demanded that Saddam give up or account for his WMDs and weapons programmes.
cont’d …
Yes, the Heads of State of France, Russia and Germany (and let’s not forget Syria and Saudia Arabia) all stated that Iraq had WMDs. There was no disagreement on this. FACT! The disagreement was over how to deal with Iraq, not the existence of WMDs. Take your stamping feet to those other nations too and demand answers. If you don’t remand the same answers from them you are being hypocritical.
Second, prior to the expulsion of the UN inspectors 10,000 litres of anthrax were discovered. They were tagged by the inspectors. Before they were destroyed Saddam threw out the inspectors. That stockpile has never been accounted for since.
Finally, early last year a truck with two tonnes of biological agent was discovered on a truck in Amman. The Iraqi driver was arrested. He said he was recruited in Iraq, the stockpile was moved to Syria from Iraq prior to the war and the intention was to detonate it in Amman after he drove it from Syria. The case is yet to come to court.
cont’d …
Forgive me for being very brief on this. This is a BBC-centered blog and I hate taking up bandwidth on something off-topic. Let me know if you can be bothered and I’ll fish out references for all of the above.
Pete, where are you getting your stone cold facts? Just curious.
Hannah
(Andrew – I really do hate taking up bandwidth on this stuff and promise to try and resist the temptation to respond in future.)
Well I certainly don’t believe in ‘human rights’. You see, a ‘right’ in this sense is conferred on an individual by the state. But just as something may be conferred, so it can be revoked. Of infinitesimally greater value is ‘freedom’. You see, I am free to enjoy my life, home, family and I am free to express myself as I see fit because I am a free-born man. No-one may deny me that; it is mine by birth. I recognise that freedom inherent in every other human being, just as I recognise that no person or state may deny them their birthright.
That’s the difference between you caring liberals and us evil fascists.
Misanthrope.
Be sure that I know what I know from various sources, most of which are freely available on the net. Be sure also that I did not learn any of that from the BBC or Guardian.
The great Charlie Wolf is on the radio and needs must when the devil has to go book a holiday. I’ll give you references via your site.
Pete–
There is one huge difference, Germany, Russia and France did not attack Iraq, so demanding the same answers from them makes no sense.
I apologize to the site for getting the comments off target, but I am sure the activity of readers is encouraged. We are pleased when people comment on our postings — Pete you are even invited to stir things up.
I think this guy’s comments are right on target.
Aiding and Abetting the Enemy: the Media in Iraq
Papa Ray
West Texas
OT Glorious update on N non-efforts to help tsunami victims – 2nd or thrird item :
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/
which also had funny stuff earlier on Rathergate.
diplomadic.blogspot.com continues to give local reports of tsunami relief and UN nonsense
“Well, most of the world signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”
Hannah • signing up to any UN sponsored body doesn’t cut much ice. Sudan, currently the World’s worst human rights violator, was elected to the UN Commission of Human Rights on May 4th 2004!
The genocide and ethnic cleansing in Darfur by their Janjaweed proxies, their decades-long civil war with their southern citizens and their sponsorship of terrorism appears not to have disqualified them. Oh, and if you want to find a slave in the 21st century your best chance of finding one (or a few thousand) is in Sudan:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/2942964.stm
Beyond parody!
I would appreciate it if at sometime the BBC mentioned the incongruity of Sudan being elected to such a UN body when it disregards the human rights of its non-Arab and non-Muslim citizens to such a degree. That might make a change from the BBC’s wall-to-wall coverage of the rights of a few individuals in Guantanamo.
OT :
For all those who have raised doubts about the liberal bias in US media and the pernicious way that bias is always denied, this majestic article from the early days of Rathergate gives the skinny :
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/679xorjg.asp
It includes some details to back the claim that 85% or so of US journalists are libs.
and this article by the same author explains what lies behind the continuing but failing whitewash by CBS :
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/146gicrb.asp
Hannah, I was wondering if you could provide me a link to a post on your site?
The link to the post I am interested in used to be here:
http://bayman.blogspot.com/2004/11/vote-usa-only-hours-to-go-before-land.html
Wherein you had this to say on your blog:
“There is only one question in this election: do you want Bush in or out of the White House?
Let’s hope the US chooses a candidate who stands for international relationships, abortion rights, medical research, secular values and taxes on the richest…
…instead of a warmongering, oil-grubbing, vote-rigging, drink-driving – haven’t you seen Fahrenheit 9/11? – weapons-of-mass-destruction-buying, Kyoto-smashing, bible-bashing, chimp.”
And
“Tune in to Clive Anderson’s hilarious new show this evening at 10pm on BBC Radio Two and you will hear the delightful former royal correspondent Jenny Bond describe Bush as “looking like a chimp and talking like a baboon”.
Hannah -cont-
I’m doing research on biased BBC writers and would appreciate the link to where the post may have been moved to.
Thank you.
Pete _ London: (Andrew – I really do hate taking up bandwidth on this stuff and promise to try and resist the temptation to respond in future.)
Do feel free to range OT and to respond to OT comments too – most of this sort of thing is relevant, after a fashion, to the Beeb and to the search for truth anyway – so long as the debate remains civilised and of interest to our fellow readers!
Marc: You’ll be able to find a complete and unabridged version of Hannah’s post, to which you refer, in the Biased BBC archives – even if it’s no longer on Hannah’s blog for whatever reason – I’m sure you’ll remember the date – November 2nd, wasn’t it?
Hannah, if you’ve managed to lose the text of the post in question please feel free to cut and paste it from the archive here – but watch out in case you think you’re libelling yourself by merely repeating your own words 😉
Can I place a bet that Hannah (Moi ??? Biassed???) will refuse to replace that page ? Any takers ?
JohninLondon, it’s been over 24 hours and not a peep from, “what, me biased?”, Hannah.
The BBC recently did a puff piece on bloggers in which they pointed out how people can be “doouced”, lose their jobs, because of things they wrote on their blog.
Maybe Hannah decided to delete the post out of fear for her job. She needn’t, the whole organization is as biased as she is.
Thanks to the power of the blogs, many of us have a copy of your post Hannah, should decide you want to repost it.
Speaking of “human rights” the beeb is always quick to slag off the US because of suspects banged up in Gitmo. But they forget and don’t bother to explain to licence payers the sorry fact of the Anti-Terrorism Crime and Security Act which became law in the UK on December 14, 2001. It allows for indefinite detention of terror suspects.
Burt
not quite on topic (at all), but the diplomad is doing a ‘happy dance’ at the expense of Auntie Beeb today. quite amusing!