. Gavin Esler has the scoop!
There is trouble ahead for Uncle Sam in his own backyard. Big trouble.
It is one of the most important and yet largely untold stories of our world in 2006. George W Bush has lost Latin America.
Fortunately Mr Esler has found it down the back of his sofa. He dropped it there in the 1980s while having a little cry after the Sandinistas lost an election. And elections are the point here – as “Dumcisco” observes,
“Gavin Esler’s view that Nicaragua sums up what has been wrong with US policy for 20 years is simply ridiculous. What has happened is that democracy has replaced dictatorships”
What Mr Esler appears to mean by George Bush “losing” Latin America seems to be that, the US having in his administration consciously dropped the more “realist” traditional American policy that might be summed up by Roosevelt’s words, “Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch”, some elections are giving results that cause George Bush distress. Well, that’s democracy for you. There is considerable evidence, starting with his own words, that Dubya is rather a fan of democracy. Amazing as it may sound, it may even be the case that he he has noticed that sometimes the party you don’t like wins, and yet remains a fan anyway.
Concerning the same BBC article, Will found and commented on a nice little example of BBC terminology concerning the Peruvian left-wing presidential candidate, Mr Humala:
The presidential frontrunner is Ollanta Humala, a retired army commander who led a failed military uprising in October 2000 and who is now ahead in the opinion polls.
Will asks,
Would that be a coup if carried out by nasty right wing military types?
Many of the comments on Mr Esler’s post are similar to those made by Alvaro Ruiz-Navajas, the author of this post on Off Topic (a blog dealing with Latin American affairs). He writes:
The BBC on Latin America: Peru and Venezuela
Yesterday, the BBC started a series of reports about what they call “one of the world’s most under-reported big stories”. They are referring to Latin Ameica’s shift to the left. Yesterday’s report was about the forthcoming Peruvian elections -read Ollanta Humala- and Chavez. You can see the report here (about 1hr. long).However, I must say I was dissapointed with the report. The report’s hypothesis is very simplistic: the root of the current political situation in Latin America is the US’s war on terrorism. Because of the war on terrorism, the US has neglected its backyard and is about to lose it. The report goes on to say that the US has undermined more than 40 Latin American governments and, basically, is the cause of widespread poverty in the region.
And
Also, besides Puerto Rico, all countries in the region are independent, which means that their success or failure does not depend on the US. So, the current situation cannot be fully attributed to what the US does or does not do. The root of Latin America’s political situation -to the extent things can be generalized- lies in the countries themselves. Widespread corruption, weak institutions, decades of interventionist and populist dictatorships/governments and lack of incentives to private investment did the trick.
Ironically, one of the effects of Esler’s blather about George W Bush having “lost” Latin America is to give the impression that Esler thinks Latin America was Bush’s to lose. Bush himself doesn’t seem to think so. Let us hope Elser catches up.
Nice little story on the size of prisons used by the immigration staff in which to hold illegal immigrants for around 4 hours.(but one bod did manage 17 hours)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4877394.stm
So how does the BBC lead on this report;
‘Immigration cells ‘like kennels’
Anybody at the Beeb wish to show me a dog which has a kennel which is 13ft by 10ft and whom is kept in their for 4 hours?
Just because the staff refer to it as a dog kennel doesn’t mean it is one. I mean the BBC has no problem referring to Terrorists well as Militants or even Plumbers.
I did like this little snippet from the caring Beeb
“”There was little evidence of individual care within the immigration removal system itself,” she said.”
Right a system which cannot remove more than 10,000 people a year from our shores is pillared for not being more compassionate But hang on the story is about cells in France. The people arrested there are released into the wild to try their luck again, and again and again. So why bring up the British Immigration system as a whole. Silly me it’s the famous BBC bias.
Supposedly “it will be a huge embarrassment for George Bush junior” if Daniel Ortega’s government returns to power in Nicaragua, according to Mr. Esler.
An embarassment how? No Americans care about Nicaragua. Most of us probably could not find it on a map. George Bush himself probably couldnt find it on a map. How exactly this will be an embarassment I can’t figure out.
He then, rather unwisely, went on to describe UKIP as a bunch of “fruitcakes, loonies and closet racists mostly”. It may have got Cameron publicity as the BBC, which has finally found a Conservative leader it likes (i.e. he is not really a Conservative) gleefully pointed out, but it got UKIP much more
more here http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/
The BBC need something to be true and so it is true in their sad, mega-funded non-world. When you’ve no money worries you you can make everything up to suit your own prejudices.
Will Kirsty (Socialismo o muerte) Wark tell us about this http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12138831/
probably she wont,never mind I will, and it wont cost you a packet. And you wont be going to jail if you dont want to know.
Don’t know why Helen is obsessed with East Lothian when I thought Dalyell#s point was West Lothian.
The easy way to solve that is to expel Scottish and Welsh MPs from the House of Commons – each Assembly has its own representative – the Secretary of State for Scotland and for Wales in The Cabinet………………the Assemblies should nominate this individual and then they are represented in Government and Parliament not over-represented as at present.
Cameron really should get out of LOndon more…….LBC ? Is that some kind of parochial radio station near his home ? Does he understand that if Clarke’s Gleichschaltung takes place with policing in Yorkshire the Chief Constable there will have 6 million “constituents” over 6000 square miles and make MPs in Yorkshire look a little unimportant like councillors as power is concentrated in The Home Office ?
Thanks SiN:
“The Boy-King may well know somewhere deep down beneath that fatuous mask of the caring modern conservative that too close an examination of what makes up UKIP and its voters will entail a genuine analysis of what his own party should be based on.”
On BBC R5 the analysis has already begun.
Pots and kettles, pots and kettles.
Drag in a few ‘experts’.
It’s all too easy.
I discovered the answer to an age-old question yesterday:
How many ‘anti-war’ protesters have to gather outside a local BBC Radio staion before a reporter is sent out to interview them?
A thousand? A hundred? Ten, perhaps?
No. ONE!!!!!
[BBC Radio Solent, Tuesday PM bulletins]
For a most un-BBC side to the stories surrounding Hugo Chavez and Venezuala visit http://www.VCrisis.com.
Like BBC-Bias Blogspot, VCrisis.com is run by a passionate individual, Aleksander Boyd, using his own meagre funds.
The stories he has surrounding Chavez and how he wrested power on the back of a whelther of lies, intimidation, and media control are positively terrifying – that the BBC could give this monster any credence whatsoever says about as much about the BBC as it’s possible to say.
er, “welter” of lies, that is
Meanwhile, in “old” Europe, the BBC continues to cover the French “riots”. As a Frenchman, George Pompidou, once said, ” The trouble with student riots is that adults (and the BBC) take them seriously.
It makes you ache to want to see a gang of old age pensioners giving a teenager a good kicking on the ground, finished off by an 80 year old granny driving over the body on her mobility tricycle; or a blind octogenarian giving some gobby little git a good thwacking with his white stick.
That would bring tears to the eyes of the BBC.
The trouble with South America is summed up with one word, “corruption”.
Prospective MP’s promise to make the poor rich, or to build a bridge to enable peasants to get to market. Sure the bridge gets built, but so does the MP and his construction cronies get a handsome financial reward, while a great big bridge in the middle of the jungle has a dirt track either side.
One Brazilian city was given sufficient funding to build the equivalent of the underground circle line. Half way round, with 10 out of 20 stations finished they ran out of money. It’s a crescent line.
The Latin temperament prevails, handmade shoes, flashy watches, and sharp suits to do business. Endless coffee drinking sessions. Endless being made to wait to see the big cheese, the higher up you go, the longer the wait, the bigger the payoff.
Every business deal with kickback expenses factored in. Everyone, down to the dishwasher wanting a fee. The Brazilians have a saying, with a shrug of the shoulders and upturned hands, they smile and shrug, “It’s the way it is”.
You want telephone in your apartment? Don’t ask the telephone company to fit it, it will never happen. Go out on the street and collar a telephone engineer, he might do it for a fee, or a deal, such as, “I’ll put your phone on if you pay for ten phone lines to be put on in my neighbourhood favella”.
It’s the way it is.
The Latin way of doing business:
Resort council banned over £1.7bn corruption
From Graham Keeley in Barcelona
THE Spanish Government dissolved the city council of Marbella yesterday as part of a €2.4 billion (£1.7 billion) corruption investigation that has led to the arrests of 23 people — one the town’s mayor.
Señor Roca, 53, faces charges of corruption and money laundering and is one of 11 suspects being held in prison awaiting trial. He is accused of heading a gang that obtained at least €2.4 billion in cash, valuables and property as bribes for permitting thousands of illegal property developments and granting municipal contracts.
It is also claimed that he regularly turned down developers’ planning applications then bought the land himself, changed the rules and built his own developments.
During his 15 years in office, it is alleged that Señor Roca approved some 600 developments, receiving in return at least 10 per cent of the villas, flats or land involved.
Police have seized are 340 works of art, including paintings by Joan Miró, a live tiger, a helicopter, 14 luxury cars, 133 thoroughbred horses and two palatial homes in Madrid.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2119232,00.html
You didn’t hear this on BBC News.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4877944.stm
yet another suspicious murder, yet another british agent/ soldier..very worrying.
remember only a recently a former SAS sniper was killed in similar circumstances..
I say this: to whoever is releasing classified/ confidential information on former british personnel, you are in breach of the official secrets act, let alone the fact that you are a traitor..
More importantly, someone, somewhere in Govt is releasing information, these instances are becoming far too frequent and far too coincidental..
There is no way the IRA can know this kind of thing without being tipped off…as with the listening devices found in their cars/ offices..someone somewhere is passing information on..
and the smoke screen Real Estate find by police in the UK was no doubt also a setup to try and passify the protestants..
No doubt there are certain parties in the UK who know exactly what is going on. Question is, who’s side are they on?
Ian,
It was an Irish journalist that tracked him down and did a ‘secret camera’ job on him.
Two weeks later he is dead.
I notice the BBC report didn’t mention that.
“The murder shocked locals, who were unaware that Mr Donaldson had been living in their midst until it was revealed by a Sunday newspaper last month.”
http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=178333482&p=y78334y88
http://www.itv.com/news/britain_2043266.html
“Mr Donaldson was recently tracked down by journalist Hugh Jordan, who said: “He looked like a hunted animal. He was extremely depressed. The nerves in his eyes were trembling.
“He seemed like a man who didn’t think he would come to any harm. He did not see his life to be in any danger, but felt the only future he had was where he was, living in that dreadfully squalid situation.”
On its home page, BBC News online is listing as a “top news story” that Amnesty International is demanding an enquiry into rendition flights.
A top news story ?
How about “Bear does poo-poos in wood”. Why isn’t that headlined ?
The story itself has endless links to other stories about the rendition flights about which most Brits couldn’t give a damn – or would say “Right on”. Plus stuff on Gitmo, torture, all the usual bash-Bush stuff.
The BBC just acts as a news amplifier for press handouts from its favoured pressure groups. Jack Straw made detailed comments on the rendition issue the other day – but those comments are not included in the story.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4878106.stm
The story has comments from a BBC security correspondent, Gordon Corera – indeed the whole story might have been written by Corera.
He has written and broadcast earlier on rendition for the BBC :
http://newswww.bbc.net.uk/2/hi/europe/4822374.stm
This guy is banging on about it, methinks. Hmmmmm. Let’s try googling Gordon Corera. It turns out he worked on Clinton’s re-election campaign in 1996. Which of course then made him an ideal appointment as a BBC US correspondent.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/about/meet/reps.shtml?corera
I didn’t know that the BBC had any “security correspondent” other than Frank Gardner. But apparently covering “security” in Mr Corera’s book consists of attacking the US over rendition flights, or having the leftie New York Times distribute his article criticising Gitmo :
http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/exec/view.cgi/44/24715
Why does the BBC spend so much time and effort focussing on Gitmo, on rendition, on what the CIA is doing ? The SECURITY question I want reported on is what is going on in backstreets of Britain that threatens my security ? What recruiting to terrorist dogma is going on in Britain’s prisons ? What is the BBC doing with its vast reporting and research resources to find out what and where the security threats are RIGHT HERE ? What nutjobs are there plotting attacks right here in Britain ? Why no undercover reporting ?
Or do we just sit around and wait for the next terrorist bombs and murders while the BBC swans off chasing the CIA ?
Like other BBC reporters, Gordon Corera seems to manage about one story a month. How much does it cost us to keep him on the road ?
David Cameron adopts the metro-elite view of immigration in calling 2.7 million UKIP voters “mostly racists”.
In the hot debate on immigration in the US, even the leftie intellectuals are recognising excessive illegal immigration as a matter that needs much stronger remedy :
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-oppin044689142apr04,0,3121530.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlines
David Cameron adopts the metro-elite view of immigration in calling 2.7 million UKIP voters “mostly racists”.
Hey he’s got Shaun Woodward’s seat and Shaun hasn’t defected back………so maybe Dave will defect to Labour before the next election ?
Today on that whingeing programme “You & Yours” they were talking of “zebra mussels” and the presenter called them non-native….or as the scientists call them alien
Later she noted so-called alien mussels
Is the word alien now a taboo one at the BBC that needs legalling before it can be uttered on-air ?
Dean Godson writes a guest column in The Times on the good grounds for expediting the proscription of Hizb-ut-Tahrir.
He notes how the anti-democratic, male supremacist organisation is kindly treated by the Today programme
Don’t expect balance from the BBC, either. When three Britons imprisoned in Egypt on charges of HuT membership were recently released, Today gave two of the detainees almost five minutes to spew out loathing of Mr Blair with only a nugatory challenge from James Naughtie.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,172-2119201,00.html
Why does the BBC spend so much time and effort focussing on Gitmo, on rendition, on what the CIA is doing ? The SECURITY question I want reported on is what is going on in backstreets of Britain that threatens my security ? What recruiting to terrorist dogma is going on in Britain’s prisons ? What is the BBC doing with its vast reporting and research resources to find out what and where the security threats are RIGHT HERE ? What nutjobs are there plotting attacks right here in Britain ? Why no undercover reporting ?
Or do we just sit around and wait for the next terrorist bombs and murders while the BBC swans off chasing the CIA ?
dumbcisco | 05.04.06 – 10:31 am | #
You’ve hit the nail on the head. What are the BBC playing at?
‘See no evil, hear no evil’, by the looks of things. God forbid, they should do an investigation and uncover the truth……
I was just thinking about Esler and his On the subject of this post, I had a bit of a thought last night. Esler is used to large, left-wing power-blocs exerting control over their “satellite” alient states; the EU, for instance, asserting control over quite far-flung countries purely to maintain its economic strangle-hold, for example; or the soviet union, which used to have power over a huge number of client states. And witness Venezuela attempting to exert control over its smaller neighbours. Is it possible that Esler can’t concieve of a large country not holding sway over itsnsmaller neightbours? IN his assumption that the United States somehow once “had” latin america, he seems to be looking back at the soviet union and sideways at china, who act or acted exactly how he thinks the US should be behaving.
Another case of projection, methinks.
dumbcisco,
Wow… great job dissecting the AI news story/press release.
Have you ever seen President Bush embarrassed? Sometimes I think he should be embarrassed, and I am regularly embarrassed for him, but he is never embarrassed about anything. Despite this obvious fact a week does not go by without the BBC reporting “President Bush Embarrassed” by some international development. It’s such an obvious example of bias.
I don’t think the US has lost Latin America as much as the BBC has found it. (Found it to be a fresh source of Anti-American opinions.) Only the BBC could report the continent wide success of democracy over dictatorship, combined with increasing free market prosperity, as a US loss and embarrassment for President Bush.
No wonder we are “losing” the war in Iraq. If the successful establishment of everything the US worked for, during the cold war, is an “Embarrassing loss” what could ever constitute victory?
I used to know Andrew Neil a little bit, when he was at the Economist and then at the Sunday Times. Whatever people may think about his politics, he seemed a hard-driving manager of journalists, with a generally good sense of the direction for the journal/paper.
I would love to see someone like him take over the whole BBC news division with a free rein. Lots of heads would roll, I bet – and the BBC would stop insulting so much of its audience.
That was me commenting on the need for a really solid Editor-in-Chief like Andrew Neil at the BBC
G Wiz
Thanks – but it only took about half an hour of googling the name of the BBC journalist.
He seems to get a time allowance of one month per article.
At long last, a TV station and a bookshop in Portland are fighting back against the fatwa on publication of the Danish cartoons :
http://plusultrablog.com/blog/?p=1142
I doubt if the spineless dhimmi BBC will rush to follow.
While the BBC bleats on about overcrowded prisons we have this gentleman imprisoned for 6 months for saying almost the exactly the same thing Ken Livingstone recently said.
More on the evil imams of Denmark and the way they terrorise their own people:
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/04/those-violent-imams-are-at-it-again.html
The sting is in the tail. When Condi Rice and Jack Straw met a bunch of imams in Blackburn, a lot of them were too scared to have their names released in case of trouble with their flocks. The BBC were out in strength for the visit – they must have known this story – but they suppressed it.
Any comments from the BBC folk who visit this site ? Why is the BBC so spineless ?
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2006/04/british-muslim-leaders-admit-they-are.html
Remember the stunt where a Muslim with a beard was sent to ride on London tubes, be chippy with london police ? NBC in the US has been trying to mount a similar “sting” operation at Nascar races.
Here are some ideas for hidden-camera stuff the BBC could try :
http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004929.htm
Start Smoking The Easy Way;
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/03/AR2006040301879.html
(off topic!)
Being ‘the enemy within’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/newswatch/ukfs/hi/newsid_4820000/newsid_4828400/4828446.stm
BBC Tehran correspondent and all round good dhimmi Frances Harrison
informs us of the difficulties of working in Iran – without mentioning either the M or the I word even once.
Incredible.
Just heard Radio 4 PM quoting one of my comments on Conservativehome.blog – : Rick | April 04, 2006 at 13:40 but they omitted my analogy of Cameron doing for Conservatives what Rowan Williams has done for Anglicanism…………….wonder why ?
Greg Palast’s brown-nosing of Hugo Chavez on the Tonight prog. meant that the BBC has overlooked the increasing censorship/control of the media in Venezuela :
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20060405/news_lz1ed5bottom.html
Rick – a shame about the BBC omitting your comparison of Cameron with that wierd churchman. It was surely too funny to omit
You can bet if Bush had done thing to ‘keep’ Latin America the BBC would be accusing him of being all imperialist.
Rick
I dont know about you but I`m finished with the Cosevatives for good. There are any number of Socialists to vote for and Cameron just isn`t the best of `em.
Simply put, if you (Cameron) are a Conservative then a good place to start is by saying Conservative things.
-privatize the BBC
-champion small government
-low taxes
-encourage family unit
-grammar schools
-etc etc etc.
OT
Just as a matter of interest, the 6:00 pm BBC Radio 4 News tells us about the Labour press conference to start the local election campaign. The main thrust of this event was that no questions were allowed. Could somebody tell me why any professional journalist bothers to turn up to such an event since, I assume, there was a handout of the statements made by Blair and Brown?
Anonymous: Re: Greg Palast,
Greg Palast, you might remember, is the discredited U.S. oik whom The Guardian drafted in from the States specifically to stitch up lobbyist Derek Draper and No. 10 adviser Roger Liddle in The Observer’s highly-disputed so-called “cash for access” affair of 1998 (which took place, interestingly, when The Observer’s then editor Will “stakeholder” Hutton just happened to be out of the country in Brazil — we never did find out why Hutton subsequently resigned — a dislike of being forced to run invented stories in his newspaper on The Guardian’s orders, maybe?).
If memory serves me correctly, the undercover Palast quoted Liddle as having promised access to various ministers • an allegation that Roger Liddle vehemently denied and was going to sue over but for the insistence by Tony Blair that he didn’t.
Liddle’s claims of innocence were supported by the fact that Palast’s supposed quotation of him recorded him using oh-so-American vernacular that a Brit simply wouldn’t have used.
Interestingly, despite the cheapness of Dictaphone-style tape-recorders (about £15 from Staples) and the severity of the allegations, Palast’s only record of Roger Liddle’s comments was in his journalist’s notebook, Andrew Gilligan-style. Yeah, right!
Palast is in fact just another embittered lying leftwing trooper posing as a journalist • perfect employment material for the oh-so impartial BBC!!!
Here’s an example of Greg Palast – arguing that Iraq was all about oil. In the Guardian, of course :
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=483&row=0
Here he is declaring that John Kerry won the last US election :
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/kerry_won_.php
And here is his website. The man is a moonbat of the first order, but slick and slippery. Fits well in with the BBC crowd.
http://www.gregpalast.com/
It is so sad that Newsnight, the BBC’s prime news review prog, stoops as low as loosing this polemicist on us. And at what cost ?
And here is Greg Palast on-stage with Moonbat Mother Cindy Sheehan :
http://www.gregpalast.com/gpinwashsept05.html
And here is his entirely-balanced view of the last UK elction :
http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=425&row=1
The man is RAVING !
Rick
I dont know about you but I`m finished with the Cosevatives for good. There are any number of Socialists to vote for and Cameron just isn`t the best of `em.
Can’t disagree
I found Elser’s comment about the US “losing Latin America” bizarre, since the that logically means that the US is minding it’s own business, which is surely good?
Funny, isn’t it, how China’s involvement in the region was portrayed in a rather more friendly light than the US’s.
Chinese corporations are actually far more capitalist than Western ones. US Companies look socialist by comparison.
China is of course well known for promoting democracy and human rights in places such as Zimbabwe and Sudan.
“George W Bush has lost Latin America”
Whoever said this is either lying or suffering from wishful thinking. The socialists in South America would like the yanks to go home but it ain’t gonna happen.
South or Latin America is in the USA’s sphere of influence. There are oil interests shared with the UK and European companies.
Every where you look the F-16 flies over it.
During the course of a year, reports indicate that about 50,000 U.S. military personnel rotate through Latin America. While some personnel are stationed in the region for longer periods, the majority of troops are there on a short-term basis as part of U.S. military exercises, humanitarian assistance programmes, training programmes or counter-narcotics efforts…..
The new school is called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation and is once again a training facility focused on Latin America, providing courses in Spanish”
If Esler said such a thing the only conclusion we can draw is that it is confirmed he has an orifice where the sun don’t shine, because that’s what he is speaking through.
Through the Foreign Military Financing program, military aid has drastically increased during the Bush administration. In 2000, U.S. military aid to Latin America was $3.4 million, a tiny share of worldwide FMF spending of $4.7 billion. By 2006, overall spending on Foreign Military Financing actually decreased to $4.5 billion, after peaking at $6 billion in 2003. But military aid to Latin America increased to over 34 times its year 2000 levels, to $122 million.
This is not to say that SOUTHCOM
is not watching worrying developments;
“We see more and more that military commanders, officers and noncommissioned officers are going to China for education and training,” he said. “We see more and more Chinese non-lethal equipment showing up in the region, more representation, more Chinese military, so it is a growing phenomena.”
http://www.defesanet.com.br/intel/crise_al_66.htm
Subject: U.S. Support Critical to
Latin American Stability, Commander Says
Esler also misquoted the 200-year Monroe Doctrine to suggest that it stated that the US had to dominate South America.
It did not. It stated that the European powers should butt out of any further intereference in the Western Hemisphere.