Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:


Please use this thread, and this thread alone, for off-topic comments, preferably BBC related. Please keep comments on other threads on the topic of that particular post. N.B. this is not an invitation for off-topic comments – the idea is to maintain order and clarity. Thank you.

This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.

Bookmark the permalink.

703 Responses to Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:

  1. Roxana says:

    Isn’t it interesting how the price of oil dropped when al-Zarqawi did?

    Am I the only one who’s noticed that the more you whump Islamists the tamer they get? But the minute you start making concessions watch out!

       0 likes

  2. dumbcisco says:

    archduke

    The insurgents of Al Anbar – the local Sunnis – kicked him out of their province. That is why he was eventually terminated.

       0 likes

  3. dumbcisco says:

    reith popped off again ?

       0 likes

  4. anonymous says:

    I listen to R5 all day.
    Today I listened to the accounts of the death of Abu Moussaib al Zarqawi.
    From the first Reuters reports at about 8:20 Not once, not a single time did the BBC call this man a terrorist. BBC News readers? No. Correspondent in Iraq? No. John (I’ve been to Iraq 5 times now ) Simpson? No. Frank (I’m a Moslem, help me) Gardiner? No. The presenters, Derbyshire and Mayo, no way jose!
    A man who had himself videoed, personally sawing the head off one of his bound and helpless hostages. A man who masterminded the Hotel bombings in Jordan. A man who kidnapped, bombed, shot and hacked his way through Iraq. A man who Frank Gardiner says got Terrorist training!!

    But still this man is not a terrorist to the BBC.
    He has been a ‘militant’.
    ‘The leader of Al-Qa’Ida in Iraq’
    ‘A leader of the Jihadist group in Iraq’
    ‘Believed to be a leader of al-Qa’Ida in Iraq’
    ‘One of the leaders of the insurgency’.
    ‘A key figure in the Insurgency’
    ‘An important figure in al-Qa’Ida in Iraq’
    ‘The man thought to be the al-Qa’Ida leader in Iraq’ (this one after ******* al-Qa’Ida had just issued a statement calling him the leader and welcoming the ‘martyrdom’ of the ‘warrior Sheik’!)
    ‘The alleged leader of Al-Qa’Ida in Iraq’
    ‘The self-proclaimed leader of Al-Qa’Ida in Iraq’

    (I added this at 11.45):
    By the end of the day I believe Zarqawi will be ‘Some guy in Iraq brutally murdered by American Forces’
    By 1:15 Simon Mayo was already airing e-mails claiming Z’s death was an American act of assassination, and some BBC apparatchik running BBC website said the appointment of the 3 remaining Iraqi government posts was far more significant than the death of Z.
    By 1:31 what had been referred to as ‘the death of al Z’ was now being called ‘the killing of al Z’
    By 2.00 News reports talk of US spokesmen displaying photographs ‘apparently’ showing the dead body of al Z

    Sure Zarqawi was called a terrorist; but not by the BBC. The Prime Minister of Iraq, the US ambassador to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock (former UK ambassador to theUN and former UK ambassador to Iraq), Tony Blair (self-styled British PM) all referred to this mass murderer as a terrorist. (I cannot say if Ann Clwyd (special envoy to Iraq) can be included in this group as the BBC transmitter went down for the two minute period of the interview)

    What I don’t understand is why the BBC chose to play a recording of the words
    of aZ exhorting Moslems to World Wide action against the west. A clear recording in Arabic with the translation in the background. Not just a translation with some faint mumbling in the background as the speaker’s native language proves to be less concise than English
    Oh pardon me I just remembered part of a poem
    “Les sanglots longs des violins de l’automne
    Blessent mon cœur d’une langueur monotone” (The long sobs of autumn violins wound my heart with a montonous langour)

    And al-Qa’Ida gets the same treatment. Is al-Qa’Ida referred to as a terrorist organisation? Not a chance.
    This seems to be part of an ongoing ‘wash, rinse, spin’ cycle. Osama bin Laden is a Robin Hood figure, dodging the evil Coalition Forces. Al-Qa’Ida itself is an oppressed association of, well, nothing really…….

    This is of course logical and fits in with the BBC reality.
    There are no terrorists.
    Two brothers held in a raid by Anti-Terrorist Police.
    Are the police heavy handed?
    Obviously: there are no terrorists.
    Their neighbours protest outside the hospital where one of the brothers is being treated: perfectly understandable, the brothers are innocent because there are no terrorists

    Just two days ago BBC R5 wanted to talk about the two brothers held by the police.
    They talked to Bill Durodie, Senior Lecturer in Risk and Corporate Security Cranfield University.
    Bill Durodie, asserted quite plainly, there is no World-Wide conspiracy against the West. It exists only in the heads of the Security Services.
    ‘The Ricin Plot in Manchester? There was no Ricin found.’

    http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CA9A0.htm

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4433459.stm
    There are no terrorists.
    There are only isolated, alienated individuals carrying out acts of desperation against society, like the Columbine High School massacre.’

    Oh yeah?
    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2215988,00.html

       0 likes

  5. archduke says:

    “The insurgents of Al Anbar – the local Sunnis – kicked him out of their province. That is why he was eventually terminated.”

    ah yes – thats correct. didnt the U.S. marines there report on the remarkable spectacle of two gangs of insurgents/terrorists shooting at each other!

       0 likes

  6. archduke says:

    ITN , 6.30 news – they pull no punches

    “butcher of baghdad” is the headline.
    no problems using the “terror” word.

    “how significant is this victory over terror?” asks the news presenter.

       0 likes

  7. archduke says:

    ITN

    “the Iraq PM made the announcement to the nation that he had terrorised

       0 likes

  8. archduke says:

    ITN news presenter:

    “he was a terrorist for the modern age, who used the internet to broadcast his medieval murders”

    good lord. are ITN turning into the Fox News of the UK?

    I swear, after hearing the hang-wringing ,wimpish, apologetic BBC, this straightforwardness is refreshing.

       0 likes

  9. dumbcisco says:

    Will Channel 4 News go alongside ITN and Sky in using the T word ?

    That would leave the BBC more exposed to criticism – to a pasting.

       0 likes

  10. archduke says:

    dumbcisco -> good point. i’ll be switching over when its on and make a note of it here…

    when even THE GUARDIAN are using the T word, then the BBC really doesnt have a leg to stand on.

    if anything, this T word fiasco is a good case for a severe complaint.

       0 likes

  11. archduke says:

    just got Jon Snow’s “snowmail”

    no T word unfortunately. but he go one further – more severe than “terrorist” – he uses the word “psychopath”:

    QUOTE:

    “He’s been responsible for the beheading and slaughter of untold numbers of people. He was certainly a Godfather of the Sunni insurgency and specifically of targeted sectarian killings.

    In short, one has to conclude that few people will mourn this psychopath’s passing.”

       0 likes

  12. dumbcisco says:

    Yes, the BBC might be left absolutely alone in avoiding the T word while every UK TV channel or newspaper uses it.

    This is in spite of the fact that the recent panel on Israeli/Palestinian affairs recommended the use of the T word for acts clearly targetting civilians. Which is pretty well all that Zarqawi did. Targetting THOUSANDS of civilians.

    Frank Gardner, John Simpson and lots of others at the BBC need to get some history into the heads. Drop that clown Juan Cole – go to the most eminent commentator in the world on Islam :

    http://hughhewitt.com/archives/2006/06/04-week/index.php#a002359

    A man who remembers appeasement back in the 1930s and can smell it now.

       0 likes

  13. archduke says:

    c4 news
    john snow

    “….psychopathic leader of al qaeda in iraq…”

    “He was the face of terror in Iraq…”

       0 likes

  14. dumbcisco says:

    On the Channel 4 website is a headline “Terror chief “terminated” over a report by Alan Thomson.

    http://www.channel4.com/news/special-reports/special-reports-storypage.jsp?id=2526

    People are reporting that 7 of Zarqawi’s senior aides were also killed. So it is NOT just a hit on one man who can easily be replaced, as the BBC has been half-suggesting today.

       0 likes

  15. Roxana says:

    “By 1:15 Simon Mayo was already airing e-mails claiming Z’s death was an American act of assassination”

    And the problem with that is? Since when is the leader of a terrorist ring not a legitimate target. If we deliberately set out to get Z and succeeded good on us!!

       0 likes

  16. Gary Powell says:

    Roxana
    Yes; In my opinion the reason may be partly this.

    Ehere is a problem with your followers believing that what they are doing is in a large part THE WILL OF GOD,. When the ordinary people find that you are a loser or are indead loseing the illusion can quickly evaporate.

    This is why in the past real overwhelming power has, for a fair while at least, always WORKED. People have a genuine instinct to follow the winning side. Being “sucessfull” in all religions I know, only happens by the will of god.

    Remember the French resistance. We only started to hear much from these guys when they were sure the “yanks were coming.”

    Propergander had a lot to do with this in 1943/44.

    Just imagine how much encouragement our enemies get from watching BBC and US MSM news coverage. The enemy can use the BBC etc, to justify saying to their followers that the American and British public are almost on the brink of a revolution.

    The BBC has more blood on its hands, possibly than even Zarqawi himself.

    I dont expect the BBC or any one else to report on what seems to me an obvious fact.

       0 likes

  17. dave t says:

    Remember we started today with ‘iraqi boy killed by british troops’ on the Beeb as they tried to bring the story back to the nasty vicious colonisers?

    No proof, no boy in hospital, BBC back pedalling like mad…..

    By the way – go to dailykos and see the grief on display there….so sad. First comment ‘justice is a bomb out of the sky’? You can’t make it up with some of these funny people!

    Oh and the BBC STILL don’t have anything on the Americas part of their site about the REPUBLICAN wins in California…they have stuff from days ago but nothing from yesterday about the Democrat losses…..

       0 likes

  18. anonymous says:

    By 1:15 Simon Mayo was already airing e-mails claiming Z’s death was an American act of assassination”

    And the problem with that is? Since when is the leader of a terrorist ring not a legitimate target. If we deliberately set out to get Z and succeeded good on us!!
    Roxana | 08.06.06 – 7:27 pm | #

    ——————————————————————————–
    Assassination is a political act and as ‘War is a continuation of Politics by other means’ the ‘double tap’ with 500lb bombs is legitimate.

    But as the adjective ‘American’ is a pejorative in the BBC’s Lexicon,
    ‘an American act of assassination’ acquires a different meaning when broadcast by MinTruth

       0 likes

  19. hippiepooter says:

    Zarqawi:

    This time round, one hopes The Sun carries the headline ‘Gotcha!’

    Simon Mayo is a serial BBC leftie (and unlike a number of BBC Broadcasters who have the talent to justify their jobs but not the professional integrity) Mayo would barely justify a place on a school radio.

    I wonder what made the likes of Simon Mayo feel more anguish, the beheadings of western hostages in Iraq or the whacking of the monster who did them?

       0 likes

  20. archduke says:

    “This time round, one hopes The Sun carries the headline ‘Gotcha'”

    we should place bets on it.

    my guess is that it’ll be

    “Rot in Hell”

    the Sun headline writers will be doing some serious overtime tonight.

       0 likes

  21. Market Participant says:

    @archduke

    Z may have been the “Godfather” of the insurgency. He may have been a merciless thug, a shadowy figure, or a psychopath. He may have been associated with bombings, assassinations and the beheading of foreign hostages.”

    But he was not a terrorist. Why does BBC have a wierd sense of auto-mutism. Is it too much to ask that people not kill each other? And they when they do, that it be reported fairly and honestly.

       0 likes

  22. korova says:

    ‘Just imagine how much encouragement our enemies get from watching BBC and US MSM news coverage. The enemy can use the BBC etc, to justify saying to their followers that the American and British public are almost on the brink of a revolution.

    The BBC has more blood on its hands, possibly than even Zarqawi himself.’

    No Gary, the US and UK governments actions make the enemy think we are on the brink of revolution. The very fact that they are dismantling our liberties piece by piece while the ‘MSM’ say nothing and do nothing (including the BBC) to highlight the very fact that the ‘War on Terror’ is nothing more than a ploy to keep us scared and allow governments to control us now more than ever.

    The sad thing is that the majority of you guys on here feed the same lies as the ‘MSM’. You are as much a part of the problem as the BBC and every other media outlet.

    The truth is that governments (in conjunction with the media) have always found a new ‘enemy’ to control the population. Whether it be Bolshevist revolution in the 1920s, Fascism in the 1930s, Communism from the 1950s to the 1990s. Then we had a little lull while governments and the mainstream media sought new enemies. But thank god for the ‘MSM’ and some bloggers, we have a new enemy……….ISLAM.

    Keep preaching the lies Biased BBC, your government needs you.

       0 likes

  23. AntiCitizenOne says:

    “That Paul Pillar?”

    You missed the fact he totally missed the ismalofascist attack on Sept 11 2001.

    middle east expert? My F**king arse.

       0 likes

  24. Anonymous says:

    korova

    Many commentators here didn’t vote for Blair’s Government.

    And you don’t think Fascism was an enemy ? Or then Stalinism ?

    Nice tinfoil hat you have there.

    Time you went and did your homework.

       0 likes

  25. archduke says:

    “The truth is that governments (in conjunction with the media) have always found a new ‘enemy’ to control the population. Whether it be Bolshevist revolution in the 1920s, Fascism in the 1930s”

    so those Luftwaffe planes over London were really controlled by Churchill so, eh?

    are you one of these people that believe in a worldwide Zionist conspiracy?

       0 likes

  26. archduke says:

    “the very fact that the ‘War on Terror’ is nothing more than a ploy to keep us scared and allow governments to control us now more than ever.”

    you can be in favour of the war on terror, and be against Blair’s liberty destroying laws.

    its not that hard.

       0 likes

  27. lurker says:

    korova
    thanks for putting us straight.
    now you can go back to planet moonbat.

       0 likes

  28. AntiCitizenOne says:

    korova,

    Have a shave with occams razor and stop beleiveing conspiracy theories.

    I frequently walk past a mosque and I know what’s going on and what the ‘b’BC is covering up.

       0 likes

  29. archduke says:

    interesting article on Times Online

    http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,20411-2214663,00.html

    “An Internet trail left by a British computer expert has led investigators to an intricate terror network spreading from the backstreets of Baghdad through cells of young militants living in European capitals to Islamic extremists plotting car-bomb attacks in North America.”

       0 likes

  30. Umbongo says:

    And to get a disinterested and informed comment on Z’s demise BBC 24 interviews James Zogby of the American Arab Institute http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/304 , a spokesman from one of the 212,572 Muslim organisations in the UK and a representative from (the notoriously Arabist) Chatham House (see http://oliverkamm.typepad.com/blog/2005/02/the_chatham_hou.html )

    Is this bias? No just a talk among old friends.

       0 likes

  31. archduke says:

    QT on now.

    galloway.. hmmm.. he’s growing a beard.

       0 likes

  32. archduke says:

    galloway – in full moral equivalence mode…

    “bush and blair are biggest killers on the globe”… big applause.

       0 likes

  33. dumbcisco says:

    But Paul Pillar is the sort of discredited “expert” that reith and the BBC just love.

    Because he bashes Bush.

       0 likes

  34. dumbcisco says:

    Kirsty Wark on Newsnight was criticising the fact that some civilians were killed in the Zarqawi raid.

    Why aren’t Yvonne Ridley’s words being shoved down Galloway’s throat.

       0 likes

  35. dumbcisco says:

    Max Hastings has always been negative on Iraq. The LibDem is, well, LibDem.

    Nice balance BBC.

       0 likes

  36. joc says:

    Yes – Gorgeous George in fine form.

    Looks like a well spiked audience.

       0 likes

  37. archduke says:

    to be honest – it looks like he’s really losing it.

       0 likes

  38. korova says:

    I didn’t say that the fascists were not a threat. Perhaps you guys should improve your reading skills. I said that the governments always have an enemy to focus the mind, whether real or imaginary. That is how they control the population.

    For me, the ‘moonbats’ are the ones who believe everything their governments and the MSM tell them. Like the fact there is a shadowy terrorist organisation waiting to strike against the west. The reality is an ideology that radicalises individuals. The idea that there is an organised group is far easier for the public to comprehend than a bunch of loose cannons following some bizarre ideology. A group can be controlled and monitored. A single mad individual cannot for obvious reasons.

       0 likes

  39. Ralph says:

    It’s Ranting Time.

    It’s fascinating how Dimblebore always buts in with other guests but not Galloway.

    I love it when Galloway asks a new MP if he said anything Parliament in the 1980s.

       0 likes

  40. Grimer says:

    Galloway looks depressed. Anything to do with Zarqawi?

       0 likes

  41. pete says:

    Roger Mosey, head of BBC sport tells us he is pleased that the BBC has kept the right to screen Premiership highlights. On Ceefax he says that all the ‘main action’ will be ‘free to people’ until 2010.

    Free? Can I watch football on BBC without a licence fee?

    Do the BBC staff know how their station is financed?

       0 likes

  42. archduke says:

    Grimer -> i’m thinking the same thing too.

       0 likes

  43. Grimer says:

    Galloway once again peddled out the lie that we armed Saddam. Why doesn’t anybody ever take him to task and point out the facts?

    His Socialist heroes armed Saddam (France, Russia and China). Germany provided the chemical weapons factory.

    I don’t understand why people just sit there and let him trot these lies out.

       0 likes

  44. Grimer says:

    I’m recording it on my PC. If anybody wants clips made available on You Tube, jot down the times and I’ll try and get them online in the next couple of days.

       0 likes

  45. archduke says:

    “I didn’t say that the fascists were not a threat. Perhaps you guys should improve your reading skills. I said that the governments always have an enemy to focus the mind, whether real or imaginary. That is how they control the population.”

    so churchill stayed up all night thinking

    “hmmm.. how can i control the population this week.. hmmm”

    sorry mate. you can take your paranoid fantasies elsewhere – i’d suggest MPAC UK, they’d love you.

       0 likes

  46. archduke says:

    grimer -> thanks.

    galloway ranting has happened pretty much all the way through.

    its 23:02 right now, and we’re onto a question about yvonne ridley.

       0 likes

  47. archduke says:

    he’s having a rant about the police in forest gate.

       0 likes

  48. Ralph says:

    Rants are his default status.

       0 likes