So the BBC, itching to say some really nasty things about George Bush’s Iraq ‘adventure’ and Saddam’s trial, daren’t say it themselves but instead outsource the job to one of our admirable academic fraternity.
Imagine though: would the BBC even consider the same approach to calling Saddam an evil and criminal dictator, in the circumstances? I think not; they would never allow it to be said, let alone themselves say such a thing.
Yet here the reassuringly educated-sounding tranzi-commentator (whose job naturally depends on convincing people of the benefits of international legal procedures) says, quite brazenly, ‘Regardless of specific American influences, though, the whole trial is tainted in some eyes by the illegality of the initial invasion.’
Don’t the Beeb geddit; ever? That’s Saddam’s argument in a nutshell, and the Beeb are making it for him via this academic cipher. Just to underscore this point, it isn’t, in this article’s view, that some people think the Iraq invasion was illegal, it’s that because the Iraq war was illegal some people think the trial is tainted. If it really were they’d be right to, because illegality implies that the status quo ante was more just than the status quo post invasion, ergo Saddam’s innocent in this court at this time. As I said, Saddam’s argument: and the BBC is broadcasting it.
Dont worry, Saddam has provided them with a lifeline : the Sunnis are predictably challenging the legitimacy of the ballot count, so it won’t be long before the BBC and the rest of the anti-US/anti-west crowd start to question the election.
Of course, they will fail to mention the fact that the Sunnis are Hussein’s people and that they have a real interest in maintaining instability to increase their leverage in Iraq. Or that they know that democratic votes work against them in Iraq. Or that 15 million people voted in a free election.
I could go on, but want to see how the BBC spin this.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again!
Lefties “heart” Dictators
o/t observation
has anyone else noticed how the bbc ‘freeze’ their fully moderated ‘have your say’ threads when they get comments posted that conform their worldview. i.e looking at this debate on ‘was blair a good eu president’ we have a german and a pole who (suprise suprise) thought blair had a Marvelous presidency. these two comments are placed right at the top of the page under ‘most recent’. these comments were posted at 11:44 and 11:46 and it’s now 14:11. being the first few posts of course more people will see these pro-blair comments and therefore ‘recommend’ them. underneath this we have the BRITISH people’s comments, and you can guess their views on the topic. it could just be a fluke that we get the thread locked when pro-labour comments are posted so i will be keeping tabs on this.
and of the 51 comments posted on that thread only 4 have anything good to say about blair.
Apparently an Iraqi trial would lack the “legitimating force of international law”. I imagine that people all across the world die happy in the knowledge that the legitimating force of international law will eventually catch up with their murders and give them a good dose of jail time. I imagine anyone who has a real reason to hate Slobodan Milosevic – “whose defence submissions are far too long” – must feel a warm glow of pure love as he takes the stand, year after year, on his slow and comfortably way to a comfortable imprisonment in a comfortable custom-built jail. I imagine the people of Rwanda are thrilled that pure fear of the legitimating etc prevented any unrest in their country. And I imagine anyone who has real reason to hate Saddam Hussein would, right now, be wailing and crying at the omission of the legitimating force of international law in his trial.
If I was a rabid dictator – and I am not, but I can imagine – I would have no fear whatsoever of an international court. I would however be frightened at the possibility of my own countrymen dragging my body through the streets and then hanging me from a lampost a la Mussolini. I imagine heads of state look out for each other.
If there had been an international trial of Saddam Hussein, which nations would have had to drop out? Presumably Russia and France would not be thrilled with the idea. Iraqi’s air force flew Dassault Mirage jets and its tanks and so forth were Russian; I know this from my expert knowledge of (cough) computer games (cough). And this is notwithstanding any other deals that might have been going on. Obviously Britain and America and the little countries that supported them would have to recuse themselves on account of their illegal invasion etc. Kuwait and Iran are probably still a bit miffed with Iraq.
stephen sackur’s hard talk with chris patten turned into a squishy soft talk.
chris patten confessed his hatred for rumsfeld and cheyne. music to sackur’s ears.
more like a fan club then hard talk.
instead of his bellowing harsh tones sackur squeaked like a 16 year old virgin.
at the end sackur fauns at the fat man with the statement:
“that was great.”
he usually asks his victims “are you happy?”which is hilarious enough.
Almost as bad as AL Kennedy’s “Who runs Britain?” effort on the Today programme this morning, which was just an excuse for a bit of liberal self-loathing and a lot of anti-Iraq war bile. No mention of last week’s elections, of course.
And have you seen this? Even Bloggers4Labour can’t see the point of the picture as there’s no mention of slavery in the article.
Ashley Pomeroy,
I also have your “identification skills”, but I’m guessing the general population and BBC propaganda presenters don’t. That’s probably why they get away with lying or can’t see the truth when they say the US armed Iraq and then we see pictures of T-55s and other statist (e.g. Fwench) hardware.
Hard Left Talk?
AL Kennedy’s line was pretty much the same piece she’s stuck in The Guardian for the past year or so. The great thing about hearing her read it was that for the first time one got a sense of how pleased she is with herself. She doesn’t doubt at all. Quite an eye, or rather ear-opener.
I know novels are based on an audience’s willing suspension of disbelief, but this woman assumes it as of right – I’d always thought it had to be earned first.
How much of my money was she paid for her farrago, I wonder? And when did I ask for her to be commissioned?
Phil – I notice from Kennedy’s website that she’s expanding into stand-up comedy! It’s only a matter of time before she joins all those oh-so-funny agitprop dinosaurs like Jeremy Hardy and Mark Steel on The News Quiz.
O/T – Sorry all, been away and you might have noticed this before. But I was disgusted by its tone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4530000/newsid_4534700/4534752.stm
“…as it allows for transparently even-handed presentation of the argument on both sides.”
Yeh, right.
Back to the point – my prediction now is that the BBC will say the election was legitimate but has produced a victory for a fundamentalist religious group. This means they can say Bush has scored an own goal.
Difficult to see how they will spin it, but you can be sure that Bush will be portrayed negatively.
The US marine who decided not to shoot the dishevelled figure
The US Marine in question (and shown in the picture) was not actually a US Marine at all but an Iraqi exile doing quite well for himself as a mechanic in St Louis and who volunteered to be an interpreter for US Forces liberating his homeland.
Bang on the money, Ed Thomas!
The BBC uses experts the way an ordinary person uses a swiss army knife.
Want to peddle a point of view?
Get an expert(doesn’t matter what the pov is; there’s an expert out there who’s willing to push it).
And if you can’t get an expert then get an activist; somebody who sounds like a salt-of-the-earth type, speaking from experience.
DFH,
“And have you seen this? Even Bloggers4Labour can’t see the point of the picture as there’s no mention of slavery in the article.”
Interestingly, the last time the BBC did an African slavery article was in June, six months ago. (BBC Search ‘slave.’ http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=slave&scope=newsukfs&tab=news&x=19&y=11 )
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4104420.stm
Since then, they have given us these stories
Priscilla: The story of an African slave
Using a rare and unbroken document trail, scholars have succeeded in tracing a 10-year old girl from her kidnap in Sierra Leone 249 years ago to her life on the plantation in the United States. 23/11/2005
Plans revealed for slavery museum
Liverpool is to have a museum dedicated to its role in the transatlantic slave trade.
14/11/2005
Slavery sculpture to be unveiled
A sculpture developed by a Manchester-based artist to commemorate Lancaster’s role in the slave trade is being unveiled 10/10/2005
Liverpool remembers slave trade
People in Liverpool mark the city’s darker past with a Slavery Remembrance service.
22/08/2005
Korean WWII sex slaves fight on
A bitter dispute over the campaign to win justice for former sex slaves of the Japanese army in World War II is poisoning relations between Japan and South Korea.
09/08/2005
10 things about British slavery
The story of British slavery is one of the greatest untold stories in UK history. It’s a subject people don’t talk about, but a new series sheds some light on the subject.
03/08/2005
Gotta laugh. ‘The story of British slavery is one of the greatest untold stories,’ Oh, yeah? Not according to the BBC’s search function. I would humbly submit that it is current African slavery that is the untold story. At least in the last six months.
And of course, don’t mention the Arabs • they are untold too.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=Arab+slavery&btnG=Search&meta=
And lastly….
Long walk to freedom of former MP
A journey from a ‘slave’ farm during WWII to the House of Commons is told in a former Cardiff MP’s autobiography.
28/07/2005
As you can see, there seems to be more interest in self-flagellation for the ‘British’ slave trade, but not so much enthusiasm for reporting on current slavery – or the history of Arab slavery, for that matter.
I had to try …..
BBC search ……Arab slavery • 21 results.
http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=american+slavery&scope=newsukfs&tab=news&x=25&y=12
BBC search…….American slavery • 51 results.
http://newssearch.bbc.co.uk/cgi-bin/search/results.pl?q=arab+slavery&scope=newsukfs&tab=news&x=33&y=7
Where do the BBC’s priorities lie?
I’m sorry, that was a rhetorical question.
OT
I don’t know if anyone has posted about it, but John Simpson offers his take on the Iraqi elections.
And I take Simpson apart here:
http://ussneverdock.blogspot.com/2005/12/iraq-bbcs-john-simpson-crying-in.html
In an article about the hero Chavez giving big oil a good kicking, it states
Venezuela, which has the world’s largest petroleum reserves
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4544390.stm
“Petroleum”?
Venezuela has far from the largest oil reserves or production. So what statistic are the BBC using?
An article on “Honour Killings”:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4546992.stm
Guess which word is missing. It begins with ‘M’. Instead, the BBC describes the perpetrators as “deeply conservative”, as in
“The MPs believe their main task is education, especially here in the deeply conservative, mainly Kurdish south-east.”
So, not M_____ then (I won’t give it away). If 60 people a year were murdered in this way in the SE of America, you can bet your last dollar that a certain religion beginning with ‘Ch’ would get many, many mentions.
Was this person a Plumber? This member of the UK public needs to know whether there is a conspiracy of plumbers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4545374.stm
jx,
Yes, I’ve also noticed that HYS tends to engineer the comments so that those that favour the BBC worldview end up being the first to be read when one accesses the topic.
I’m also watching HYS. The ‘moderators’ can be quite devious.
OT suggestion:
An editorial scrubbing brush and soapy water would be useful equipment to take on a trip down to the bottom of the comments on Toby’s 15/12 post titled ‘Google Forever’.
Good post, TomL.