…
Take a look at this fascinating exchange between the American Expat and Paul Reynolds of the BBC. I think Scott nails him with the logic of saying that either you report a claim of 100,000 civilian deaths (or more) in Iraq, and examine the methodology critically for the reader’s sake, or you don’t report it at all. Reynolds’ response?
‘It was simply a figure. I reported it. . What’s the problem?’
Yeah, no big deal.
Update 02/04: thanks to commenters, a challenge for Paul Reynolds (who added his comment too)- how about quoting this site’s analysis, which highlights the vital fact that 80% of the IBC civilian death count is male?
I seem to have missed the BBC reporting that Coalition deaths in Iraq have dropped for the fifth successive month.
Maybe they are waiting for a quote from Bruce Kent or George Galloway.
Umbongo
Further evidence on how this paradox of the left, with fry their minds.
If reform came and was generally inspired by the people, not radical politicians. These problems would hardly ever happen, in the world.
Islam fought atheist communism to the death. Their form of National Socialism is Islam. Our form of National Socialism is the EU, and its fanatics. The only reason it trys so hard not to show its nazi credentials, is because it has to.
Europe has been playing a very dangerous covert game in the middle east against western interests. This culminated in 9/11. So the yanks, could not just keep hopeing the whole problem, would just go away.
So far it seems this rift between Europe and America has been contained. However forces to divide us are getting inscreasingly desperate and vocal.( note the stile of interview the BBC has now with Republican politicians )
It is clear to me this is the desire of our enemies like Bin-Larden the BBC and George Gallaway. If you stop and think about the last 4 years. It is difficult not to come to the same conclution.
Sturing up shit with America has become the BBCs and lefts full time occupation. They have been doing it for 90 years, why stop how? Nothing IS more important to them than this….nothing at all. Not feminism homophobia freedom of speach standards of living…… nothing. Socialism has no pricipals or believes that are more important, than the distruction of free market capitalism. Represented by the USA.
The truth is socialism never did have any binding pricipals in freedom at all, anyway. It was just the way they obtain power. By corrupting the minds of western youth.
THEIR IS NOTHING AT ALL CONNECTING SOCIALISM WITH LIBERTY. In fact they are political opposites.
Whatever the BBC may indicate or lie about.
Americas influence/control of Britain is the one threat left to the entire nazification of all the states/countries of Europe.
That means they will not nead to such up to minority groups anymore, and their true colours can and will emerge.
Hitler must be sitting in his Hellhole having a great laugh, right now.
Even the likes of A lurker might one day understand his history and the real world, so there is still hope.
Even George Orwell had to get a bullet in the neck, before he came to his senses.
Good to hear the BBC at its hateful, blatantly biased best this lunchtime, as Radio 4 continues its compaign to help the Eurocreep, Romano Prodi, get elected in Italy.
His opponent, Silvio Berlusconi, is one of the Left’s international hate objects, so the lads pulled out all the stops out to rubbish Berlusconi and make Prodi look anything other than the statist stooge he is.
Perhaps they think their duty to be impartial (in so far as they are even aware they have one) ends at other country’s politics?
This really was a disgraceful piece of work.
huh?
There is was, happily using my numerous HYS BBC memberships to boost the recommendation scores for the non-lefty moonbat comments on the Hosepipe Ban, then suddenly they close the “debate”.
Was I doing too well?
BTW, the Condi’s visit HYS is still open.
Paranoid,
Was that “non-lefty moonbat” comments, or “non-lefty-moonbat” comments? 😉
Can anyone remember if they’ve ever done a TV licence “discussion” on HYS? Or is that a phenomenally stupid question?
It must never be the job of the west, however much it might grieve us, to directly force Muslim democratic goverments to change domestic law. America has done its best not to do this in Iraq and Afganistan. Thank your god for that.
Free trade, our own security and the potection of vital world oil supplies was and is and should be the wests primary goals.
Democracy has started in stranger ways and for lesser reasons than Iraqs. History will show how much benifit befalls the ordinary people.
Socialists show their contempt for ordinary people and democracy, because they dont even want to give it a chance.
A highly intelligent free thinking honest American Black Women thinks this is a good idear. Because she believes in the power of democracy, elected by free people.
Socialism, European and Islamic, believes in nothing, other than the distruction of everything she represents.
O/T – I have just started a thread on “Funding the BBC” on the “Points of View” message board at http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbpointsofview/F1951574?thread=2630264
Have fun.
BTW
One of the reasons why the British lost control of India too soon, was when we started interfering with Hindu customs.
The British Empire was as succesfull as it was because we did not try to mess up foreign cultures as much as the French still do.
Bryan,
Thanks for the point, I was on my way out when I did the post,
Which mistake……”unbelieveably” instead of “unbelievably” ?????
Rick, the mistake by the Brutish Briadcasting Carparation was “decent” in stead of “descent”
Da BBC reads “Youssef Fofana, a Frenchman of Ivorian decent, arrived at Roissy airport near Paris aboard a military plane.”
You see? a decent french ivorian. and don’t ask me any more silly qiestions.
Dr Rice is not following the practice of our female culturally aware journalists – Haw-Haw, Hilsum et al. She has failed to veil up when meeting the Iraqi ayatollas.
Consequently on the news footage that I’ve seen, the 2 beturbaned imans in the Iraqi PM’s entourage failed to offer her their hand upon meeting. Later pics showed them shaking hands with Mr Straw.
Dr Rice obviously doesn’t realise that the Muslims must be shown respect, under their terms, at all times.
Rick
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4774000.stm
The last 2 paras of the BBC report also helpfully publicise his defence to a racist murder, something a decent French Ivorian would not stoop to.
“A convicted petty criminal, Mr Fofana has allegedly admitted the kidnap, but denied murder.
He has also allegedly told Ivorian authorities Mr Halimi’s religion was not a factor.”
The BBC are slow to pick up on this story that fits their agenda
SPY chiefs have warned Tony Blair that the war in Iraq has made Britain the target of a terror campaign by Al-Qaeda that will last “for many years to come.”
A leaked top-secret memo from the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) says the war in Iraq has “exacerbated” the threat by radicalising British Muslims and attracting new recruits to anti-western terror attacks. The four-page memo, entitled International Terrorism: Impact of Iraq, contradicts Blair’s public assurances by concluding that the invasion of Iraq has fomented a jihad or holy war against Britain.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-2114502,00.html
It couldn’t be because the BBC line previously has been that the JIC know jack (WMD dossier) so they can’t now regard the JIC as omniscient, can it?
No, they must still be out to lunch.
“Mr Halimi’s religion was not a factor.”
That’s not what the French Jews think:
French Jews: Leave France
Posted on February 25th, 2006 at 11:10 am by Meryl Yourish.
Filed under: Anti-Semitism
French Jews are beginning to think that perhaps the French are not reliable protectors of Jews. Babelfish translated the last paragraph of this article about Jewish reaction to the horrible torture/murder of Ilan Halimi:
The shock wave is such as, always on midgal. COM, certain Net surfers insist on the urgency to leave France which would have become hostile with the Jews: “It is necessary to very seriously think of making your alya (“rise “towards Israel, note)”, advises a Net surfer. “Only one watchword should guide us: to leave France, to leave Europe, cursed grounds soaked with Jewish blood “, recommends another. At the exit of the synagogue, Thursday evening, in front of a group of old people, a woman declared: “France it is finished.”
France has never protected its Jews. The souls of the accusers of Dreyfus live on. I am more than ever convinced that the decrease in French anti-Semitic attacks was due to the authorities lying about anti-Semitic attacks.
March 30, 2006 NEW YORK SUN
Danish Muslims Sue Newspaper
“A group of 27 Danish Muslim organizations have filed a defamation lawsuit against the newspaper that first published the carricatures of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, their lawyer said Thursday,” the AP reports.
http://www.shinesforall.com/archives/europe/index.html
French papers in cartoon lawsuit
The magazine Charlie Hebdo has also published its own cartoons
France’s top Muslim organisation has decided to take legal action against French newspapers that printed cartoons satirising the Prophet Muhammad.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4702702.stm
Three times in the last month or two Bill Clinton — when not busy with his Clinton World Initiative (not to be confused with any Initiatives by Jeffery Sachs, or Jimmy Carter, or others intent on Saving All of Humanity All the Time, with themselves at the helm) has displayed a remarkable willingness to stand up for Arab and Muslim interests. He deplored, in front of and for his Arab hosts, those Danish cartoons. He said neither a word about the need to uphold freedom of speech by practicing it,
http://jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/
Theodore Dlarymple predicted the trouble in Paris a long time ago in his article “Barbarians at the Gates of Paris” :
http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_4_the_barbarians.html
And if they are in Paris, they are 2 hours from London
dumbcisco
2 hours? On Eurostar? If only!
We’ll fight them in the Departure Lounges, in the Business First compartments. We will never surrender.
rob
OK – very close to Britain. An embedded Muslim community with large numbers utterly hostile to assimilation, aggressively hostile to the police, rampantly aggressive in the streets and towards anyone they don’t like, deeply anti-semitic – all acting as an encouragement to similarly-inclined youths in Britain. Those rioters in Paris are lighting a blue touch-paper here.
There has been a lot of fuss about me quoting the Lancet. In fact, in a third anniversary of the invasion piece, this is all I said about casualties:
“Thousands of people have died. The true number of Iraqi deaths is not known and even the Iraqi Body Count figure — compiled largely from news reports — of somewhere in the mid 30,000s is criticised as a possible underestimate and admitted by IBC to be a baseline. The British medical journal The Lancet suggested a figure of about 100,000 back in October 2004.”
AS you can see, rather simple.
On the back of this, Scott Callahan the ‘American Expatriate’ appears to think I should have either dwelt at length on the arguments about the Lancet (which are well known by now) or ignored it entirely. Presumably in the same spirit I should have dwelt at length on the IBC controversy as well or ignored it.
I tried to explain this in some e-mails with SC.
Your companion blog on the left, MediaLens in incidentally waging a campaign from the other direction and complaining that the BBC does not mention the Lancet enough.
As for Juan Cole,I recall what Bill Casey, CIA Director under Reagan said: “Show me a man who was never wrong and you will be showing me a man who was never right.”
Paul Reynolds
BBC Online
Mr Reynolds
I am truly amazed that you continue to defend Juan Cole. Please refer to my long list of his errors at 12.13am this morning. The true list is far longer. I spent just half an hour finding a bunch of links there showing Cole has made a lot of egregious errors – can you refute any of them ? Doesn’t anyone at the BBC check him out ? If not, how can you treat him as an “expert” who should be repeatedly trotted out by the BBC ?
And at the very least, you and the BBC must surely recognise that he is vehemently anti-war, always has been. Why does the BBC not describe him as an anti-war commentator, a polemicist ? BBC licence-payers mostly know that George Galloway is trenchantly anti-war, so such a description is maybe unnecessary. But as they do not know the reputation of Juan Cole, he should not be brought into BBC pieces without some sort of label. The BBC throws “right-wing” around like confetti. But it seldom uses “anti-war” or “left-wing”. That is dishonest. Please call a spade a spade. Juan Cole is utterly anti-war and should be described as such.
As for Juan Cole,I recall what Bill Casey, CIA Director under Reagan said: “Show me a man who was never wrong and you will be showing me a man who was never right.”
I met Bill Casey – his brother was Al Casey head of American Airlines – but Bill Casey had a brain tumour and it is not clear what he was saying……………..then again if that is Juan Cole’s character reference……..
Mr Reynolds
Thank you for commenting – but while you are here, could we please ask for another element of honesty and transparency from the BBC. The Stop the War Coalition is once again in the news. It should be accurately described by the BBC as an amalgam of self-declared Communists and proven terrorism-apologists (cf John Ware’s Panorama expose). But perhaps that would be hoping for too much honesty from the BBC.
Mr Reynolds
Perhaps you could circulate this piece among your colleagues – another refutation of the Lancet statistics. Some of the comments on this piece seem authoritative :
http://www.logictimes.com/civilian.htm
And apropos Juan Cole – how come BBC reporters keep quoting just that one US blogger, utterly anti-war, but seem to never quote US bloggers who defend the US/UK policy ? Have you quoted any of them ? Do you or John Simpson read any of them ? If so – which ?
I keep seeing BBC reporters sidestepping the fact that Hamas is committed to the total elimination of Israel. They witter on about “maybe there will be some discussions, some area of compromise”. Wishy-washy reporting at best – if not a bias to accepting Hamas as some sort of decent entity.
This is an acid test of the BBC’s honesty. To dissemble on this issue is to tell outright lies to the BBC’s public, here and abroad.
Why hasn’t the BBC reported that the new Palestinian Foreign Minister has just stated – in terms – “there is no place for the state of Israel on this land”.
If that is not a stark declaration, what is ? Will the BBC report it ? They know about it, their monitoring service will have seen the statement and should have flashed it to the BBC news staff. But where has the BBC reported it ? Why isn’t it headlined on the BBC’s Middle east page on their website ? There is not even a mention of it there.
Is this yet another FACT that we amateurs can see but which the BBC will conceal ?
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2006-04/02/content_4373348.htm
http://www.logictimes.com/civilian.htm
That was an interesting analysis, arriving at a figure of a little under 8,000 civilian casualties, derived from the IBC’s own figures (the others being the excess of young adult males in the IBC’s figures – ie perhaps not civilians at all.) It’s “just a number”, of course, as Paul Reynolds described the Lancet’s ludicrous 100,000, but not a number that made it into Paul’s report. Presumably he hadn’t seen it before. But now he’s had it drawn to his attention perhaps in later reports he’ll mention that civiian casualty estimates range from as low as 8,000 up to 100,000. (I thought his obit of Caspar Weinburger was exemplary by the way. Mentioned Iran-Contra of course, but didn’t imply it was the essence of his life’s work, as the Guardian did.)
re the use of Juan Cole:
I think that not all those who criticise my quoting of Juan Cole have had the opportunity of reading my article.
I did not in fact quote him alone. I FIRST used a former US army officer Ralph Peters who gave a very different assessment of events in Iraq:
“During a recent visit to Baghdad, I saw an enormous failure. On the part of our media. The reality in the streets, day after day, bore little resemblance to the sensational claims of civil war and disaster in the headlines.”
There were several other sentences from Peters before I quoted Cole.
The dual quotes were simply designed to show the differing opinions of where things stand in Iraq. The impression is being given that I ( and the BBC) endorsed Cole’s always gloomy view by quoting him. Not so.
Paul Reynolds
BBC News Online
Paul Reynolds makes a fair point above. His article balances Ralph Peters with Juan Cole, and makes clear where each is coming from. I think the American Expat is having a kick at Paul Reynolds for the sins of his BBC colleagues.
The BBC’s own search engine being perhaps the crappest search engine in the world, I have had to resort to Google. A swift unscientific search shows Ralph Peters as having appeared on a BBC webpage once. In Paul Reynolds article. Juan Cole appears rather more often, but that isn’t Paul Reynolds fault, it’s down to his colleagues, like the caricature formerly known as John Simpson (doesn’t he get more like Percy Alleline every time you come across him ?) :
“One of the shrewdest and best-informed commentators on Iraq is Professor Juan Cole of Michigan University.”
Juan Cole himself claims to be a regular contributor to the BBC :
http://www.agenceglobal.com/author.asp?type=2&id=3
In short, one article mentioning the views of a “pro” blogger and an “anti” blogger is a poor example of BBC bias. The problem is that the organization as a whole gives a substantial amount of space to left wing polemicists like Cole, almost never returns the favour to right wing polemicists, and often portrays left wing polemicists as if they were neutral experts. None of those criticisms can reasonably be leveled at Paul Reynolds’ article.
Lee Moore
Yes, I think that is fair to Mr Reynolds. In fact Mr Reynolds mentioned the Ralph Peters piece soon AFTER it had been referenced here. Maybe Mr Reynolds will mention where he first saw it ? And what US blogs dealing with Iraq he reviews other than Juan Cole ?
Your point about Cole and other critics being frequently mentioned by the BBC including John Simpson, without any mention that they are polemicists extremely hostile to the Coalition, is the key one.
Incidentally, the Percy Alleline comparison was a beaut !!!
Apropos of nothing and wildly off-topic.
I recently read BBC political reporter James Landale’s book, Duel. It was very enjoyable. He is a very bright and articulate political hack, and an engaging writer too.
But I saw him on this evening’s news and he was waving his hands like a lunatic, a la Andrew Marr. So frantic were his gesticulations that I could barely concentrate on what he was saying.
Why do broadcast journalists use these rather bizarre and often inappropriate hand gestures? They resemble Thunderbirds puppets on speed.
Who is Percy Alleline?
Why do broadcast journalists use these rather bizarre and often inappropriate hand gestures?
John Birt Diktat – it is supposed to help you “emotionally bond” with the presenter so you do not sit there in stupfied awe of the pearls of wisdom oozing from your TV set (probably nothing more than melting solder !)
Susan
Percy Alleline is the sometime Head of Intelligence in John le Carre novels.
Sarge uncensored,
You might be interested to know that typing unbelieveably into Google search yields 347 000 results while unbelievably yields 16 000 000.
Also, searching for unbelieveably yields the question, “Did you mean unbelievably” but not vice versa.
So while I think we can conclude from this that unbelievably is correct, there are still hundreds of thousands of entries that validate your spelling!
I once came across the word unbelief in a text book.
I found that unbeliefable.
dumbcisco
Yes, Paul Reynolds does sometimes respond. But he then has a tendency to stop responding.
Yes, he’s a stop-and-start respondent. But, after all, he’s in start mode again now – unlike the other part time BBC guy, whatshisname Ian Betteridge, or something, who asserted that he would be sticking around for a while and then promptly vanished.
I was getting a bit annoyed with Ian because, although he was doing an honest job at least of answering people’s queries, before vanishing he appeared to stubbornly refuse to respond to a point I put to him a number of times:
If the Iraqis themselves feel that it’s so terrible that the coalition is currently in their country they have the power and the absolute right to ask them to leave, a right fully acknowledged by the US. Why don’t they? (Or am I missing something here?)
Bryan
As you say, the US and Britain have said they will withdraw when they are asked to by the constitutional authorities in Iraq.
But according to the BBC it is not up to the constitional authorities to decide whether coalition troops should leave. It is up to John Humphrys and James Nauchtie. Surely you knew that ?
Well we must recall that the BBC is now an integral part of the British Constitution. Governments are elected for 5 years but rarely last four; the BBC gets a 10-Year Charter.
The Hegelian Doctrine was “The State is permanent; The Indidivial is transient.”
This seems to be the view the BBC has of all other institutions.
Paul Reynolds,
If you are still with us, I think the point about Juan Cole is that the BBC has its favourites, which it conveniently displays to an unsuspecting public whenever it wants to push its agenda.
This goes to the root of BBC bias. As an example, last night on the World Service Lyse Doucet hosted the topic of a nuclear Iran. Who did she have as her guest? An Iranian professor of political science who claimed to be a friend of president Ah!I’monaJihad. When the point about wiping Israel off the map was brought up by a caller, the prof established his credentials as being as loathsome a racist as his president, taking the opportunity to rant on irrelevantly about “Apartheid Israel” and so on, the subtext to his rant being that Israel deserves whatever is coming to it.
Who did Lyse have on to balance her charming guest and present the Western point of view?
Nobody.
Another example. The BBC has it in its collective head that the newspaper Ha’aretz is the one to approach for commentators on the Israeli side of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Why? Because the paper is on the left, perhaps even far left.
I don’t see BBC journalists flocking for comment to the Jerusalem Post, even though it has some superb analytical writers. Why? Because they perceive it as right wing. So set in concrete are their preconceptions, that it’s apparently escaped their notice that the Jerusalem Post has moved to to the centre and is perhaps even edging over to the left.
But perhaps even more revealing of implacable BBC bias is the way the ‘moderators’ on ‘Have Your Say’ try to force fit the public’s comments to the BBC agenda, employing a number of underhand tactics. They cannot bring themselves to allow a free flow of comments from the public.
This begs the question: What are they so afraid of?
What, indeed, is the BBC as a whole so afraid of? The truth that the majority of the public does not follow the BBC’s agenda?
dumbcisco
Surely you knew that ?
Damn! [Hits self on head to wake self up.]
Susan
As David says Percy Alleline is a John le Carre character. But I was thinking of the TV version of him played (wonderfully) by Michael Aldridge in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – a very good BBC adaptation of the novel. Percy Alleline is the head of British intelligence that is put in place, maintained in office and relentlessly duped by a Soviet spy. His essential characteristics are that he is pompous, bombastic, patronising and above all, wrong about everything. In short a splendid fool. There’s even a slight physical resemblance to John Simpson (plenty of jowl.) You should get the DVD, it’s well worth it. Even if it does give money to the enemy.
TTSS was a swipe at the FCO culture of nonchalant incompetence
Susan
Tinker Tailor….was a moody, clever series on BBC TV – in the good old days ! It spanned about 5 hours. You can still get the boxed DVD set on Amazon – or much cheaper on eBay.
Thanks for the info re: Percy Alleline. Now I get the reference.
I can probably order the Tinker Tailor DVD’s on Netflix as part of my regular $20 per month subscription. That way I’m not really directly funding the enemy!
You could of course be terribly old-fashioned Susan and read the book………………
Now Susan you’ve made me visit Amazon and buy both TTSS and Smiley’s People……….brings back memories. TTSS is one where you must watch/read very carefully or you will get lost. It was reportedly a favourite with the late and not-lamented Yuri Andropov of the KGB and Mikhail Gorbachev.
The voice at the beginning is Aled Jones if I remember and the scene is the dear old Radcliffe Camera near Le Carre’s alma mater Lincoln College.
Smiley is supposedly modelled on Maurice Oldfield save that Oldfield was gay and Smiley is merely cuckolded
You should readc Stephen Dorril’s book “MI6” to get a flavour but as I recall Smiley was in SIS but with the ancien regime and not part of the new team at Cambridge Circus
In Smiley’s days his HQ was “sarf of the river”, near South Lambeth tube station, I believe.
Susan
The series of le Carre’s George Smiley books is very engrossing. TTSS made suberb TV – haunting intro music, complex and dark characters. It was not issued as a film so may not be available on rental. On eBay it is about $40 in new DVD format. But the books are better !
Actually dumbcisco, I checked Netflix’s database and both TTSS and Smiley’s People are available for rental. I put them on my queue — but with 250+ discs in front of them it’ll be awhile before I get to them! (I already have the discs of the Lord Peter Wimsey series from both the 70s and the later 80s on my queue.)
You can get a lot of stuff from Netflix that you can’t get from an average US video store which is why I’m a subscriber (tons of my beloved Asian crime and horror thrillers, for example.)
On eBay it is about $40 in new DVD format.
On Amazon it is £9-97
You say the author of the River Bend blog is:
“My guess would be she’s the wife or daughter (or both, more likely) of a Baathist.”
You say this without any proof. In fact, the blog suggests otherwise.
Is this bias?