when too much of the real stuff has been tragically split in our capital, Marc, at USS Neverdock, makes a legitimate point on behalf of all those people who might have lowered their guard as a result of the undermining of the notion of a War on Terror by some BBC journalism. ‘The Power of Nightmares’ assured us there was no real organised Islamic movement bent on our destruction, yet the massive organisation behind the London bombings – the syncronisation, the planning – suggest quite the opposite. It suggests the BBC’s flagship programme of the last year, its main publicised recent claim to excellence, was in fact highly flawed. And as forewarned is forearmed, the BBC has in this regard, and others less well-known, certainly been unconducive to the public good.
‘“The BBC had the courage to put the series out and this shows they were right”‘, said the maker of the film… as it showed at Cannes. Though we salute freedom of speech – metaphorically – we tend to reserve our actual salutes for those who show they are right.
The BBC has been corrupted, in part, by faux management doctrines that have broken down its obligation to Britain into a whole new set of ‘obligations’ that have completely swamped its original (and true) remit.
There is a Black Broadcasting Corporation (ever more prominent), a Green BC, a Womans BC (now dominant), an Asian BC, a Muslim BC, a European BC, a BC for Foreigners, and of course the oldest obsession of all the Red Broadcasting Corporation with its instinctive sympathy for trade unionists, socialists, public ‘servants’ of all kind, and marxist dictators.
All this pretentious and dishonest superstructure and culture needs to be blown away and the BBC reduced to a smaller, truly British, organisation.
I`m beginning to think we intervened on the wrong side in kosovo and bosnia.
Bit far down the thread, but the reasoning on the original post is diametrically wrong. Yesterday’s attacks are a confirmation, not a refutation of the Power of Nightmares thesis (broadly, that there is no organised AQ network, but that AQ is a poisonous and evil ideology).
(I’ve posted more here)
Thinking all Muslims are evil…
is as foolish as thinking all right-wingers are as dim-witted as some of the people on here
Lord Haw Haw lives on (in the form of Paul Al-Reynolds, World Affairs Correspondent, BBC News Website)…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4663255.stm
“Bombers turn screw on UK government”
“They (the British voters) have taken their decision and must accept the consequences.”
“The British government policy towards the IRA has changed hugely over the years as both sides fought each other to a standstill.”
“Even the Israelis are withdrawing from Gaza – not because they want to, but because they feel they have to.”
“The London bombings seem to signal, too, a failure of the British government’s hope that it could divert attention from Iraq by concentrating, for example, on helping the Palestinians achieve an independent state.”
!!!?**!*!?!!
Rod Bishop
calling posters to this blog “dim-witted” is your right. For them to call Muslims “evil” is thiers.
all that you will find here is a cross section of the population reacting to events within thier communities, what may be dim witted would be to ignore or disregard honestly expressed feelings.
What, so if someone reacted by saying “we should kill all the Jews” then it would be dimwitted to ignore their opinion?
” Not that I want to see it happen, but I believe that France, Germany and Canada are in for a similar attack in the future”.
These nations – well, certainly the first two, are de facto allies of Middle East tyrants and Al Qa’eda. While France and Germany lead the anti-American Coalition of weasel democracies Al Qa’eda will not bomb a gift horse in the mouth.
Even so, on reflection Joerg, I would guess you regret your comment about wanting to see your country Germany hit? As repelled as I am by Schroeder, I most certainly do not. One hopes that Angela Merkel will succeed where Stoiber just failed in persuading the German people that Germany will only truly break with its Hitlerian past when it chooses to act as an ally of the United States against evil and not its enemy.
G8 leaders decide on $50bn aid.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4662297.stm
$3 billion to be given to Palestinian Authority.
Obviously part of the Make Israel History campaign.
john b
full discosure please.
you have called for assasination of actual persons on your blog.
Hmm…that fiver for defending Tony Benn could come in handy. What about when told off Ali G for referring to women as ‘bitches’? It’s the best I could do.
Seriously though I feel I must back the point made above defending the ‘Power of Nightmares’ doc. The attack seems (at this point) to have co-ordinated by individuals acting with no contact with other terrorist groups which would support the idea that there is no mass organisation infrastructure to Al Qaeda. These people (I suspect) were probably British nationals acting independently.
Mini ha ha – yes. I’ve also eaten a sandwich, been to Berlin, swum 1500 metres and bought a soft toy on eBay. These are equally salient to the discussion at hand (this piece may prove helpful should you wish to appear less of an idiot in future).
and by calling me an idiot you have just proved that you have failed to understand your own article.
ha ha and ha
Who’s called for “killing all Muslims”, john b? Joerg basically said he hoped some of his countrymen buy it in a future terrorist attack; that was it for expressions of violence posted here in response to this atrocity.
Very sorry to see the death toll rise again to over 50. As for everything else, I refuse to visit the Website from Hell or Al-‘Tardian’s website, as I know they are just dusting off the same old scripts they’ve been using for four years:
“It’s all Bush’s fault, Blair’s fault, global warming’s fault, US’s fault, Israel’s fault, Sharon’s fault, the victims’ fault, everybody’s fault except the poverty stricken, oppressed Islamofreaks who actully did it. They are blameless.”
F*ck ’em.
From the power of nightmares:
“And the greatest danger of all is international terrorism. A powerful and sinister network, with sleeper cells in countries across the world. A threat that needs to be fought by a war on terror. But much of this threat is a fantasy, which has been exaggerated and distorted by politicians. It’s a dark illusion that has spread unquestioned through governments around the world, the security services, and the international media.”
Well one of you ought to tell the relatives of those killed that they were killed by a fictitous group and perhaps tell the head of the UN Inspection body, Mohamad Al Baredi, who has claimed that Al- Whatsit are trying to acquire Nuclear Weapons.
The Power Of Nightmares is not even backed up by its own “sources” in particular, Jason Burke,
Burke says on the Power of Nightmares: “The idea…that bin Laden ran a coherent organization with operatives and cells all around the world of which you could be a member is a myth. There is no Al Qaeda organization. There is no international network with a leader; with cadres who will unquestioningly obey orders, with tentacles that stretch out to sleeper cells in America, in Africa, in Europe.”
However, in his 2003 book, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, Burke is less dismissive of the idea that Al Qaeda was an organization than this soundbite suggests. Burke wrote that while the “al-Qaeda hardcore” consisted of relatively few people, “by late 2001, bin Laden and the men around him had access to huge resources, both symbolic and material, which they could use to project their power and influence internationally”–that sounds suspiciously like a “coherent organization” to me.
Another reason, I personally believe the Power Of Nightmares is malevolent is that it plays into the hands of anti- semites. Though The Power of Nightmares did not mention the fact that the majority of “Neocons” are jewish, it is well known and was explicitly stated on a previous BBC Panorama program that all the Neocons were jews. It was also made clear, in a BBC Panorama program, that of course all the “Neocons” are “jewish”. i.e “Iraq is Israels war” and do not the jews want to take over the world? You may think that this is far fetched, but all I ask you to do is log onto Al Jazeera, and look at the review of the Power of Nightmares, and look at the “Conspiracy theory” page.
I would suggest that anyone who buys “nightmares” has been taken in by a modern day “Protocols Of The Elders Of Zion”. It played to the oldest conspiracy theory in the world and added Ronald Reagan. The hate figure of the left. What a bunch of suckers.
Think about it: Those evil neocons have caused the downfall of the evil communist regimes (Stalin killed 30 million of his own people), they have overthrown a medieval theocracy (The Taliban) and they have overthrown Sadam Hussein. Oh yes, and they have overthrown these evil regimes with democracies, were the people can vote for their leaders. Whereas these Islamic fundamentalists kill barbers for shaving beards, they ban music and alcohol (and drugs)
I am sure Jeorg was writing after being infuriated by his countrymens response to the bombings. I do not know which blogs he was reading, but I have seen the blogs from “The Democratic Underground” in the US. It is difficult not to wish harm on some stupid anhillist people.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102×1609906
I would certainly be punching them if I was in the same room and if they were considerably smaller than me.
More from Marc at USSNeverdock fisking Paul ‘surrender-monkey’ Reynold’s so-called “analysis” of the London bombing.
Britain – BBC: London Attacks Our Fault
http://haloscan.com/tb/wd5hme/112082359600748626
sorry link above should be:
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2005/07/britain-bbc-london-attacks-our-fault.html
It can be said that ‘Al Qaeda’ as it was around the time of 9/11 no longer exists, its leadership was killed/captured and its training programs destroyed by the US invasion of Afghanistan. It’s more a franchise of ‘values’, that numerous terrorist groups ‘sign up to’. The idea that it was never organised is a fantasy of the author of ‘The Power of Nightmares’ however, he clearly came to the writing table with an agenda and then assembled sufficient resources around it to pass it off as a serious analysis.
Rod Bishop
” Thinking all Muslims are evil…
is as foolish as thinking all right-wingers are as dim-witted as some of the people on here”
Thinking of Islam, an ideology that openly calls for the murder of anyone wishing to leave it, as being a peaceful, tolerant religion compatible with modern western democratic thought is also foolish.
Thinking of Islam, an ideology that openly calls for the murder of anyone wishing to leave it, as being a peaceful, tolerant religion compatible with modern western democratic thought is also foolish.
I agree boy blue. If it were the Scientologists or the Moonies running around openly saying that people who leave their cults should be killed, we’d clap ’em in the pokey and subject their cults to heaps of media scorn.
We have our own version of Adam Curtis in the US: he wrote a pooh-poohing book called “The Islamic Threat: Myth or Reality?”, that was published the same year as the first attempt to bring down the World Trade Center (1993). This creep makes Adam Curtis look like Daniel Pipes; the creep was actually invited to work for the State Dept. by Pres. Clinton as an “Islamic expert”. That book is in part responsible for the US taking its eye off the ball and letting 9-11 happen.
“What, so if someone reacted by saying “we should kill all the Jews” then it would be dimwitted to ignore their opinion?”
Unfortunately ‘kill all the Jews’ is exactly the solution of choice for the Palestinian problem in the Arab world – and nobody seems to care at all.
Least of all john b, Roxana.
I am glad to know that a few people left in my old country still have their balls and are angry enough to want to hit back.
It depressed me to read so many other blogs where the reaction to anyone daring to speak out (even posters from New York expressing solidarity in time of war) was abuse, branding the commenter ‘racist’, islamophobe’ and ‘wanker’ etc. This was an armed attack on innocent civilians, not a freak thunder or hail storm for crying out loud!!
The BBC (it’s a power surge, honest) and PC Plod’s pathetic attempt to put the blame anywhere else but on Islamic terror would be laughable if it were not so serious.
How many more deaths will it take for the rest of Brits to wake up to the danger they are harboring in their midst? Even jellyfish can pack a powerful sting.
Palis just got $3 billion more from the G-8 to put into Swiss banks for their terror-mongering billionaire “freedom fighters”.
Hope Suha Arafat is enjoying her millions on the Riviera.
I’ve e-mailed the BBC about Paul Reynolds, and I think everyone should do the same.
Driving home from work I heard a 5 Live presenter say “One of the most worrying aspects of what happened yesterday, is what will happen to muslims…etc”
Is it fuck. Already I am sick of the BBC interviewing muslims to give their side of the story. Would they have given the nazis that opportunity in WWII? Of course not. They still want to portray this ‘religion of peace’ shite, despite the fact that their precious muslim council of britain refused to take part in the commemoration of the liberation of the nazi death camps earlier this year. They’re the moderate ones as well, so it shows what we’re up against – although not to the BBC.
Wasn’t it an Egyptian academic who got it right last year when he said ‘Whilst it is true that the vast majority of muslims are not terrorists, the vast majority of terrorists are muslims’?
Apologies if someone has linked to this already. The BBC doing what the BBC does best:
UK MUSLIMS PRAY FOR PEACE (personally, I’d rather they got off of their arses and did some practical work against the jihadies)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4663749.stm
At the end we are treated to the concerns of Tohel Miah, 28:
But I believe everyone in Britain will stand by us, I just hope the media do their job and don’t inflame the situation.
Bwahahahaha! No chance of that happening, sunshine.
The BBC will pull all the stops out to divert people’s anger away from islam and onto those reliable old scapegoats: America and Israel. The last thing the BBC and all the institutionalize left wants is ordinary plebs in the street having non-perfect PC thoughts about the religion of peace.
But even then, surely there must be some people who are just a little teeny weenie bit curious as to why the name of one ideology keeps cropping up time after time after time all across the world in relation to wars, bombings and insurrections.
Pete: From your link, this is priceless:
“Whenever something like this happens, I know we’re going to get targeted. Last time [Madrid train bombings] I got pointed at in the street.”
She got pointed at in the street! Bar the door Mabel, this is an outrage! Someone pointed at this poor woman in the street.
Is there no end to the atrocities perpetrated by the perfidious infidels?
I broke my vow not to visit the Website from Hell today, now I’m in danger of losing my breakfast. Curses on you Pete, why did you have to tempt me like that :)?
52 innocent people blown to bits on their way to work (perhaps some of them children — haven’t heard?) and they’re worried about veiled women being pointed at in the street! Glad to see the Beeb has its priorities straight.
The lunatics are truly at the helm of our collective asylum.
Thanks for the pointer to the Paul Reynolds piece Otis.
Amazingly enough, and I’m sure this will all come as a shock to everyone, according to Melanie Phillips Paul Reynolds will be the next BBC Israel Bureau chief.
Are the Israel’s really going to permit this next to open supporter of Islamic terrorism into their country?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4663255.stm
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/
From your Melanie Phillips link Hal:
“It is impossible to overstate the pernicious influence of the viciously anti-American, defeatist, appeasement-minded media and intellectual class, which has quite simply shifted the centre of moral gravity and subjected the country to a remorseless diet of distortions, lies and illogicality.”
Amen.
Harry reveals that the BBC are in busy MinTruth mode obliterating any reference to the T word that may have been uttered in the heat of yesterday’s events.
I noticed last night that BBC World Service were using “militant”.
http://hurryupharry.bloghouse.net/
You preface your post with the assertion that this is “no time to draw political blood”, and then proceed to beat your own drum. This is obviously all grist to your rather unpleasant (and weird) mill…
Following the mewling and puking over the G8, it seems that as well as throwing more UK taxpayer money into the forsaken sinkhole that is Africa we are also to educate thier children.
Will we teach them to be good Christians? Muslims? Relativists?. Will we teach that discipline in class is tyranny? Will young Africans become enthusiastic “happy slappers”? Will we teach them to disregard and disrespect thier proud histories? Will it be an Anglo Saxon or European Social Model that we teach? Certainly “The Great Satan” wont feature as a beacon of hope, light and freedom. If I were an African, I`d be afraid, very afraid.
Run for cover brothers, the do gooders are coming……….
As the BBC could previously find the time and effort to do a whole documentary series telling us how there is no terrorism and it’s all in our heads, will the BBC now be doing a proper undercover exposé documentary on the groups that have supposedly hijacked islam within Britain. Sort of like the documentary piece on the BNP they did a while back?
Wouldn’t the BBC be doing muslims a favour exposing the tiny minority of extremists, that have nothing to do with islam, that have hi-jacked their religion?
I still stand by my comment… a terrorist attack in Germany would maybe help open the eyes of these dangerous lefties (and muslim apologists, if not sympathisers) in Germany and on here (you know who I am talking about). I don’t want to see innocent people get blown to bits. A loud bang would probably do the trick (the Germans are so dhimmified they actually think muslims don’t want them any harm so if a terrorist attacked happened they’d be shocked no end).
As some neo-communist moron put it on a German forum: “The decision to let London host the Olympics in 2012 hasn’t taken the political situation into consideration. France as being a “refuse to follow the US” country would have been a safer decision.”
What an asshole.
One of the previous contributors remarked that he believes the perpetrators to be British nationals acting independently. If it were so, would they consider themselves to be British? I doubt it and I would agree with them. Such people are not and can never be British regardless of what the Home Office may say.
For supporters of such deeds, the proper punishment is expulsion and exile.
Personally Allan, I believe their should be a death sentence for members of a genocidal terrorist organisation. One that could be commuted in exchange for information. Imagine: 5 shackled Al Qa’eda terrorists on their knees, lined up to face execution from a US soldier, service revolver cocked and in hand. “Sentenced of death has been duly passed on you all”. To first in line, revolver held to temple, finger on trigger: “Are you going to give us information? No?” KA-BAM. On to the next, and so on … This is how you deal with genocidal terrorists.
The BBC is giving lots of time to quote “man-in-the-street” Muslims and professional ranters like Benn, Galloway and now Tariq Ali to say that these Islamic terrorists are justified by the Iraq war – that is, it is all the fault of Britain itself, or at least Blair. I have not heard a single presenter or interviewer other than Paxman try to shove these claims back down their throat because they are FALSE – we have had this strain of Islamic terrorism committing atrocities since at least 1993 and the first WTC attack. Nor have the interviewers said that nothing the Government has done justifies the deliberate murder of commuters.
These creeps would never have got near a BBC microphone in the “old days”. And any interviewer behaving the way people have been doing on Today, the PM programme etc would have been sacked instantly.
“These creeps would never have got near a BBC microphone in the “old days”.
Ah, the old days John. Tell me about them …
On Paul Reynolds latest piece – words fail me. The BBC sinks lower and lower.
Thanx to Hal for this link. Read the text. Study the photo of an ill at ease Blair with a blurred Bush looming in the background. I think we are witnessing the opening shots of the BBC/Guardian campaign to remove Teflon Tony from the premiership. Over the next few weeks expect interviews from critics to explain why he should go. (All the usual suspects – we know who they are.) Supporters will be described as ‘defending’ him. By the time the conference season arrives ‘Will he survive?’ will have become the big talking point.
I would be the last person to be described as a Blairite. Personally, I wouldn’t cross the road to piss on him if he was alight.
But I don’t want to live in a country governed by left wing journalists.
Do you?
That’s odd. Everything but the link. Here it is: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4663255.stm
The BBC gives space to polemicists like Benn, Tariq Ali and Galloway. But they don’t let rip with more logical polemicists from the right side – like Christopher Hitchens :
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=15713152&method=full&siteid=94762&headline=07-07–war-on-britain–we-cannot-surrender–name_page.html
http://www.slate.com/id/2122186/
Hal
Thank you for your robust views on how to deal with the murderers. But surely the key point here is that we don’t behave like that. This country is a decent and civilised place, and this is why those sly and vindictive lefties like Galloway, Benn and Livingstone (let’s not even start on the BBC journos) appear so ridiculous. The depraved, self-serving state that they describe when talking about Britain (or the USA or Israel) is unrecognisable as the real thing.
The way to deal with the terrorists is to capture them, give them a fair trial and imprison them. We should not behave like them.
Seen Newsnight? Two against one interviewees that the war on terror is at fault-the BBC never changes.
Take a look at the MPACUK site for a not too subtle piece of anti-semitism; the Muslim Council of Britain was sensible and statesmanlike by contrast.
Look IF YOU ARE PISSED OFF WITH THE BBC CANCEL YOUR DIRECT DEBIT AND REFUSE ANY CORRESPONDANCE.
Hit extortion for entertainment where it hurts. In their robbing pockets.