Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
Open thread – for comments of general Biased BBC interest:
Bookmark the permalink.
I was interested to see that the Sunday papers and the BBC were full of stories concerning Friday’s tragic rail crash.
After Potter’s Bar we got dozens of articles stressing how the profit motive in Raitrack caused the crash. It seemed that liability for accidents couldn’t possibibly ensure that railways were run safely.
In another compare and contrast, I’ve yet to see a similar story concerning the unsuitability of the state to run anything let alone a rail maintenance company. So far no one has called for the heads of Network Rail to be tried for corporate manslaughter.
Maybe that will come next week?
I expect in depth articles discussing the unsuitability of the state running
Good article in the Sunday Times. I understand this bloke has written a book too.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1433753.ece
The pain of being a Tory at the Beeb
Former Today reporter Robin Aitken tells of a career spent battling the BBC’s pervasive left-wing mindset
Interesting piece by Peter Horricks on Robin Aitkins book – he seems to get himself in a confusing state. I particularly like this comment:
“simon walker wrote:
Peter Horrocks is backing a lost cause if he thinks he can persuade the majority of ‘telly tax’ payers that the beeb is ‘representative’. Sadly the corporation has slid downhill faster than Franz Klammer. If you want a peek inside the goldfish bowl that is the BBC’s tainted view of events then you can do a lot worse than review the blog – http://biased-bbc.blogspot.com/. Compelling reading for those who wish to see how the beeb tries to ‘pull another one’ more often that not.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/trusting_the_bbc.html#commentsanchor
link to above
Was it Peter Horricks – head of BBC News – throwing a hissy fit because the Beeboids News Teams had failed to win anything at the RTS Awards? It’s tempting to email him suggesting that all BBC news should be entered in the ‘Children’s Entertainment’ category next year. Another twelve months of relentless Jackanoryization should guarantee a hatful of prizes.
The BBC apparently thinks that, “Anarcho-syndicalists, Communists, Scottish Nationalists, Anti-racism campaigners and Trades unionists” are ‘unlikely allies’ is a protest against Trident as though this represented somehow the whole range of society. Perhaps it does in their worldview.
For perhaps the smuggest piece on the Today programme for some time, listen to their coverage of the Rory Bremner affair at 8.28 am:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/today/listenagain/
See if you can avoid belly-laughing as one of the guests does an hilarious take-off of Dubya! Honestly, I nearly wet myself.
Yup – AS that Rory Bremner item was just so hilarious I had to turn the radio off. After of course hearing that the most important world event was that Helen Mirren had won an Oscar.
I sent this comment to BBC Peter Horrocks article yesterday, but no sign of it on the site:
We all remember that “diversity” is the holy of holies, and that the BBC was castigated by Greg Dyke for being “hideously white” and therefore unrepresentative of the population, (“the population” in question, incidentally, seems to be the population of London, which is very highly unrepresentative of Britain as a whole). Can Mr Horrocks supply any data to demonstrate that the employees of the BBC are representative of the population of Britain in terms of age and class? If he can, I might be slightly more inclined to trust it.
Abandon….
Such orginal “material” too!!
just a couple of things to add this morning.
My wife got me Cambridge Spy’s from the BBC.
I was really hoping (in vain as it turned out) to be something approaching Tinker,Tailor,Soldier,Spy..
But watching it you wouldn’t think these were Britian’s worst traitors.
More like “Queer as Folk” in the 30’s,oh with a little bit of spying….
BTW-Saw Liam Fox this morning on Brecky,why did the Conservatives knock this guy back,he seems to be on the money?
Yes, AL BEEB hits rock bottom on Islam and Muhammad, with Marr’s grovelling to TARIQ RAMADAN on Radio 4, this morning.
Tariq Ramadin is still banned from USA, but on Al Beeb he gets lots of
free, uncriticised propaganda air-time.
As predicted by me here on this site in my comment last night at 11-15pm, Ramadan tried to deny the reality of violent JIHAD as the driving force in Islamic history. And, of course, Ramadan told us to see Muhammad as a role model.
AL BEEB, including Marr, are intellectually so biased (and ignorant about Islam) that we get no reference to the enormous literature of criticism of Islam that exists.
There was no reference to the brilliant new book by ROBERT SPENCER, ‘THE TRUTH ABOUT MUHAMMAD’.
For a critique of Tariq Ramadan, see:
“Why Revoke Tariq Ramadan’s US Visa?”
http://danielpipes.org/article/2043
For daily critique of Islamic jihad,
which was not even mentioned in Marr’s dhimmi programme, see have rely on such counter-information from
sites such as:
http://www.jihadwatch.org
I sent this comment to BBC Peter Horrocks article yesterday, but no sign of it on the site
Trofim | 26.02.07 – 9:12 am
It’ll probably still appear. They are quite good generally with publishing comments as long as they don’t break the rules. I dunno if they work Sundays.
…and he is “hideously white” to boot:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6396457.stm
Alan | 26.02.07 – 9:50 am
At times it seems as if the BBC is being slowly but surely eaten away from the inside by jihadis and their sympathisers.
But I think there is still hope. Here and there it’s evident that there’s still some resistance to the Islamic agenda:
*Newsnight’s Paxman was quite aggro in his questioning of the headmistress of the Fahd school over the “Jews and Christians are monkeys and pigs” textbooks.
*The teaching assistant who insisted on wearing her veil while teaching was not exactly given sympathetic treatment on the BBC.
*A few months after Hamas won the election, one of their spokesmen was questioned on the World Service over his support for the Islamic Jihad terror attack on the Tel Aviv restaurant.
*One bright spot in the darkness of the BBC coverage of the Israeli-Hezbollah war was the grilling of a Hezbollah spokesman by an incredulous World Service reporter on Hezbollah’s misinformation on its casualties a week or two into the war.
There’s quite a bit more. But sometimes I think that whoever sees light at the end of the BBC tunnel is looking the wrong way.
BBC facing expulsion from Cuba according to the media guardian – http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,,2020521,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=4
Good New of the Day
US ‘plans to bomb Iran’,despite denials
“A Pentagon unit is planning for a bombing attack on Iran which could be carried out “within 24 hours”, according to a report in the United States, issued just as the Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad warned that Tehran’s nuclear programme had “no reverse gear”.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2305501.ece
Trofim: ‘We all remember that “diversity” is the holy of holies, and that the BBC was castigated by Greg Dyke for being “hideously white” and therefore unrepresentative of the population, (“the population” in question, incidentally, seems to be the population of London, which is very highly unrepresentative of Britain as a whole).’
To be ‘representative’ 90% have to be white, 3.5% from India/Pakistan, 2% black and there should be three times as many atheists than Muslims.
It would be interesting to look at the BBC output and see how close they get to those figures.
How odd that Greg Dyke could get away with saying “hideously white.” Do you think it would be ok for someone to describe any organization as being “hideously black” or “hideously brown”? There is plenty of rhetoric from the left about minorities being properly represented in the police, armed forces, fire service etc. I have never heard the same people complain that minorities are over-represented in the NHS.
This is a bit late but I did have a chuckle last week when I heard an R4 newscaster say that the japanese had refused help for one of their whalers from a Greenpeace ship as they considered that favourite of Al Beeb to be a terrorist organization.
from the great euref
http://eureferendum2.blogspot.com/2007/02/did-left-lose-its-way.html
How the BBC reinvents the past in which to promote its Left wing stance.
30 years of the future
It was once for children, now it’s much loved by adults but the authors of legendary British comic 2000AD are shocked how many of their predictions have come to pass.
…………….
Alan Grant, a long-term writer for both Judge Dredd and Batman, said that the comic was shaped by the cauldron of politics in Thatcherite Britain.
………………..
“There were genuine social problems, particularly from the Thatcher days. It was obvious to us that Britain and the whole world was turning into a right-wing society.
……………….
“We were trying to have a laugh rather than make people shiver. I sometimes feel guilty about presenting fascism as entertainment.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6390731.stm
Well BBC seeing as I bought and read 200AD for at least the first 10 years of its life I’m somewhat surprised at how you say that Thag was really Maggie. You see BBC as much as you can try and reinvent the past in which to shout out “Maggies fault” There is a slight problem with your TARDIS. 2000AD came to life on the 26th of Feb 1977. Maggie came to power on the 4th of May 1979. A good two years after Thag brought 2000 to the masses. Oh yes the story lines which you say were shaped by the cauldron of Politics of Thatcherite Britain (Are you saying she was a witch?) Lets see.
Judge Dread Had 2 years of saving Meg City One (and Two) before the Tories showed him how to save the UK. (Which was called Brit City )
Robo-Hunter was a story about a private detective based on Humphrey Bogart. (Don’t know where Walter came in)
M.A.C.H 1 was based on Steve Austin the 6 million dollar man
The VCs was based on the Vietnam War. (Orson Scott Card eat your heart out)
Flesh was a story about how the Future earth used time travel in which cull the dinosaurs for fresh meat.
Dan Dare was still Dan Dare and his nemesis was still the Mekon.
Harlem Heroes was a story based on Rollerball the film.
The Stainless Steel Rat was based on the novels by Harry Harrison. (which I also enjoyed)
Rogue Trooper was the sole survivor of a future Bravo Two Zero. (But in this case his dead buddies had micro chips in their brains which could be reinserted in a new body. However until then they were affixed in his helmet, gun and backpack where they helped him)
Strontium Dog was a mutant bounty hunter
Ro-Busters was a robot Thunderbirds type wreaking company which had the forunner of Bender (from Futurama) in the form of Ro-jaws.
Invasion a series where the Russians invade and conquer Europe and where Bill Savage fights a one man resistance campaign.
All in all BBC the stories which the 2000AD team wrote about were just stories. If anything they looked to the past in which to base their stories of the future on. There was no hidden Fascist (read Tory) Line. I know I read every issue up to around the 500 mark. It was a comic for children (and young adults) nothing more nothing less.
P.S
Maybe your ill-informed writer would care to visit the Forbidden Planet Book store in London and read the story of the Cursed Earth. (I own a copy) He would love the storylines about how vampire robots keep alive the last president of the US of A. or the story of how Burger king and McDonalds fight a clan war. In fact the story itself is based on the film ‘Damnation Alley,’
Once again the BBC pushing its leftwing mantra in which to re-write the past.
Interesting discrepancy in the reported figures of attendance at the ‘Nuke Israel’ (oops – anti war demo) this Saturday:
Compare and contrast:
According to the Independent and the Observer: “The Metropolitan Police estimated about 2,000-3,000 took part”The Socialist Worker puts the number of attendees at 100,000.
And according to the BBC:
Organisers from the Stop the War coalition said 60,000 people turned out in London’s Trafalgar Square, but police put the figure at 10,000.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6392095.stm
Pounce.
Right on the money there!!!
I’ve always thought that Judge Dredd was based on Det Harry Callaghan…..
Oscar.
I wonder how many people turned up to go celeb watching?
pounce – the quotation marks show the views to be the authors’ not the BBC’s.
I guess you must have forgotten about Torquemada 🙂
The BBC have been giving a blow by blow account of the Virgin Media tantrum over BSkyB.
A featured business story today is
Virgin spat may hit BSkyB profit
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/default.stm
Oh Lordy sell them BSkyB shares – too late bottom already dropped out? No the share price is unmoved. Big story!
Andy Tedd (exBBC):
pounce – the quotation marks show the views to be the authors’ not the BBC’s
Bullsh*t!
The BBC has a long and inglorious history of the use of ‘scare quotes’, often using them to attribute views which were never expressed by other than the BBC’s headline writers.
Pat Mills, co-founder of the comic and the writer of many of the early Judge Dredds, says staff were used to writing on two levels.
Celtic hero Slaine marked a departure from future-gazing
“As newspapers become more like comics so comics become more like newspapers.
“There are no happy glossy futures in 2000AD. If you look on the back of the very first Judge Dredd prog [issue] there is a wonderful view of Mega City One and there are all these spy cameras everywhere. It shows in some area the present has caught up with it.”
Alan Grant, a long-term writer for both Judge Dredd and Batman, said that the comic was shaped by the cauldron of politics in Thatcherite Britain.
“Many of the stories we wrote were taken from the headlines of the newspapers. We just put a futuristic spin on them.
“There were genuine social problems, particularly from the Thatcher days. It was obvious to us that Britain and the whole world was turning into a right-wing society.
Rampant crime
“We were trying to have a laugh rather than make people shiver. I sometimes feel guilty about presenting fascism as entertainment.”
Those are direct quotations. And directly attributed to the writers. Maybe you missed them, on are unaware of the difference between so-called ‘scare quotes’ and quotation marks which indicate a direct quotation.
Like you were unaware of the Criminal Justice Act.
I notice the beeb has missed a couple of good stories from yesterday’s Times, one on Tom Wise being investigated for fraud (Ok its a rerun but a good laugh nevertheless) and one on US Generals threatening to resign if the US invades Iran.
Clear evidence of right wing bias.
18 doughty street has a campaign against the telly tax. They want ideas for a TV-style advert attacking the tax or the BBC or both. Feel free to pitch in …
This is quite funny. We get the usual dog bites man story • ie left wing think tank advocates left wing policy, shock horror.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6390891.stm
State schools should not control their own admissions because it increases the risk of cherry-picking of bright pupils, says an influential think-tank.
The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) says allowing some schools to run admissions increases social segregation.
Once again, Auntie declines to mention that the IPPR is a left wing think tank. Except that it sneaks in accidentally at the bottom in a comment from the Lib Dems !
“It’s extremely embarrassing for a New Labour think tank to criticise the prime minister’s flagship policy in this way,” she said
So we have a story constituted by a press release from a left wing think tank, being passed off by Auntie as “influential” rather than “left wing”, criticising the New Labour government (from the left obviously) with comments provided by a New Labour minister and a spokesperson from a party to the left of New Labour, the Lib Dems. The furthest right participant in the discussion ? The New Labour Minister, obviously. Absolutely par for the course • another bog standard Monday at the BBC.
Andy Todd wrote;
“I guess you must have forgotten about Torquemada”
Well seeing as the series was called “Nemesis the warlock” It appears you not only forgot the title but the fact he started off in 1980 after Maggie came to power. (The stories I listed all aired before May 1979)
My point?
2000AD was one of the best selling comic books well before Maggie came to power in 1979 which runs counter to the claims that it was based on the polices of her government.
Returning to Torquemada, tell me which faith in the world has a hankering for purity, for killing the unclean and for insisting that not to belong to the faith means you must be made to repent. Ironically they patrolled the underground ensuring that everybody had paid for travel not that far from how the BBC patrols the airwaves ensuring everybody has paid £135.
The BBC claim that 2000AD was based on actual events (which had yet to transpire seeing as Labour was in Power) is a silly one seeing as I can use the same analogy in any book of fiction.
Dune; Islam
Radix, Global warming. (The best book I have ever read)
Enders Game, History as seen by the victor.
Shiva Option, Pearl Harbour and the war on Japan.
What next from the BBC that Islam is a magnanimous faith. I’m sure apostates like me would gladly enter a mosque because the BBC says its safe to do so. But lastly if the article isn’t the work of the BBC surely they should ensure the reader is informed of such.
As JDK says. You wouldn’t expect the BBC to be using this crash as an excuse to wonder whether Railtrack mightn’t have been quite so bad after all. Instead, you would expect the BBC to be using every opportunity of milking it as an example of the follies of privatisation (for as we all know, no trains ever crashed before privatisation.) And that’s what we get.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6394451.stm
And which DHYS comment is highlighted, despite the fact that it is almost all the most highly recced comments basically say “get a grip – the railways are still very safe” ?
Why, this virtually unrecced one :
“This accident does seem to be yet another symptom of the fragmentation of the railways from the publicly owned unified system we used to have, to what we now have
Noel Staples, Peterborough”
BBC Politics Editor Nick Robinson ‘couldn’t spot a single newsworthy story’ in the Bremner/Brown and Hewitt conversation.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2007/02/gossiping_polit.html
Perhaps they should give him lighter duties.
pounce the article couldnt be clearer whose the views are. They are Grant and Moore’s. If you dont read what is written, then the article will say whatever you want it to.
If an author says ‘X’ about their work and the BBC says ‘the author says “X”‘ and you attribute view X to the BBC, well, there’s not much to be said about it…
Andy Tedd (exBBC) | 26.02.07 – 5:24 pm
How right you are. False attribution is one of Pounce’s commonly employed tricks.
Not once, but on no fewer than 3 occasions, Pounce sought to attribute this statement to ‘the BBC’:
“It was just very, very exciting to be in that room with those men with their huge white teeth.”
As you’ll see from reading the story, the words were, in fact, those of a giddy beauty queen called Snowflake – arm candy of a US Congressman.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4915692.stm
Andy Tedd thank you for you informative reply about whose point of view is actually on display here. Yet the salient point which you appear to have overlooked is that the BBC news service is a first of all a news service and an impartial news reporting service at that. (That isn’t my mission statement it is the BBCs) So when the BBC starts airing the views of every Tom Dick and Mohammed as gospel then I for one begin to become somewhat concerned. If I wish to follow a far left prospective then I purchase the Guardian (something I do on a regular basis) However purchasing the Guardian is my prerogative and nobody knocks on my door demanding to see if I have bought it.
The whole issue of this board is to expose the bias that the BBC promulgates into its news coverage. Now like a number of the posters on this board I am starting to go grey, fatter round the middle and am sprouting more hair out of my ear, nose and eyebrows than I am on my head. In other words I am old enough to make a valid judgement on what I hear over the news by looking to the past. However it appears the BBC is hell bent on re-writing history for the those who are not as long in the tooth as I in which to colour the world in their shade of red.
Not only is that wrong it is illegal. However the BBC seems to presume that it can get away with defending those who wish to kill me and my family and our way of life.
Andy Tedd I contrasted what the BBC published against hard facts. If you wish to take offence then do so, however trying to defend the re-writing of history by the BBC as an issue of how I perceived it makes it very clear (to me)that the BBC appears to be taking this board a lot more seriously than it used to.
P.S.
Out to Mr Reith.
Oh dear Mr Reith it appears that gobby JNCO has got up your nose yet again. Must be a bummer how I always prove you wrong with facts.”
And how the BBC re-writes the past to suits its masters at the MCB.
Burnley’s radical schools plan
Burnley is rebuilding all its secondary schools in a reorganisation aimed at raising achievement but also creating community cohesion in the wake of the 2001 riots which drew attention to the poor relations between the white and Asian communities.
……………….
In Burnley more than £1m worth of damage was caused and scores of people injured as white and Asian youths went on the rampage over the weekend of 23-25 June 2001.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6390467.stm
White and Asian youths BBC? Silly me and there I was presuming it was only the Muslims. (Yes BBC, Muslims not Hindu, not Sikhs, not Tamils but Muslims) So why the inclusion of whites? I mean its not as if the BBC didn’t report the news 6 years ago;
“Stones were thrown at police lines during a second night of clashes with gangs of Asian youths in Lancashire. Officers were called to the Stoneyholme district of Burnley on Saturday night after residents reported large groups of Asian youths gathering.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1405317.stm
Yet again the BBC re-writing History
AL BEEB: DHIMMIS OF ISLAM.
What with John Humphrys’ appeasing dhimmi interview with Islamist Tariq Ramadan, ‘Humphrys in search of God’ ( Radio 4, 14 Nov. 2006), and Andrew Marr’s equally appeasing, dhimmi interview with the same Islamist (who is banned from the USA) today, Al Beeb’s Islamic propaganda continues apace.
And tonight we have another dhimmi, superficial approach to Islam
in ‘The Retreat’, BBC 2, (the first of three hours! of Islam).
It’s as though the Islamic jihadi bombings of New York, Bali, Madrid and London (among
other bombings),never happened. Or, if they did (and they did) that the so-called ‘religion of peace’ which inspire the jihadi bombers is a benign religion!
So we get Tariq Ramadan, being unchallenged and uncriticised by Al Beeb’s most informed and fearless interviewers. There is no reference to Robert Spencer’s fundamental critique of Ramadan. (Spencer’s new book ,’The Truth about Muhammad’ gets no air-time.) And Humphrys and Marr are unwilling to air the critique of Islam and jihad to be found daily at the excellent counter- Al Beeb sites:
http://www.jihadwatch.org
and
http://www.jihadwatch/dhimmiwatch.org
Being a long time Judge Dredd reader, I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve seen a news item that I’ve thought has been pulled straight out of Mega City One !
John Wagner should be hailed as a futurist, not just a great writer.
And I agree with whoever said that Judge Dredd was based upon Dirty Harry. I’ve read that many times. He even looks like Clint Eastwood in the early stories. ( as much as you can see anyway.)
There is an elderly female Judge who is the spitting image of Mrs Thatcher !
I can’t remember her name in the series ?
Pounce ?
BBCs fact and fiction time.
Three BBC facts about Jerusalem and 3 different faiths;
Fact 1
JERUSALEM HOLY SITE
SACRED TO MUSLIMS: Site of Prophet Muhammad’s first prayers and ascent into Heaven, home to al-Aqsa mosque and Dome of the Rock
Fact 2
SACRED TO JEWS: Site of first and second Temples and the rock on which Abraham offered his son as a sacrifice. Western Wall is the holiest site in Judaism
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6334307.stm
Fact 3
The film-makers used this finding to claim that the coffin marked “Judah son of Jesua” contains the son of Jesus and Mary. They say the discovery of the tomb does not mean that Jesus was not resurrected three days after his death – a key Christian belief.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6397373.stm
Only one of the above is a known fact. Yet a dream by one man is promoted as hard evidence. The other is rightly addressed as a key Christian belief. Which means the Jewish stance is the only legitimate one there. Yet for numerous articles the BBC ensured that only the view that Temple mount was an Islamic holyplace was aired.
BBCs fact and fiction time.
The entire media is obsesed by the tragic rail accident.
Why does the national news media toatally ignore the fact that on average, 10 people are killed EVERY DAY on our roads?
Why no in-depth analysis of those road deaths?
Why no highlighting of the fact that a high % of these deaths are of young, mainly male, people often travelling in the same small car?
Bryan said (re BBC Peter Horrocks’ article yesterday and non appearence of Trofim’s comment on BBC “comments”).
“It’ll probably still appear. They are quite good generally with publishing comments as long as they don’t break the rules. I dunno if they work Sundays.”
Bryan | 26.02.07 – 9:56 am | #
– My own comment wasn’t published until Monday. By then the link from the MAIN BBC news front page had ended. Thus Horrocks’ views potentaily received wide publicity.
My (and many other negative comments) are now left almost unread in the world wide ether.
The BBC and how it is destroying the planet
Fed up as I was with the constant bleating about man-made global warming we get on the BBC, I thought I would find out just what they are doing to help the planet. So I put in a FOI request asking about the air miles the BBC fly, the carbon that this produces, and how the BBC offsets this. Get ready for some amazing numbers (all relate to the last reporting year):
Total UK domestic flights:
17 million miles
Total European flights:
14 million miles
Other flights:
94 million miles
Total air miles: 125 million
Total cost: £15,147,000
TOTAL CO2 EMISSIONS:
25,676,000 Kgs
TOTAL CO2 OFFSET:
0 kgs
Yes, 0 Kg. Next time you see/hear an eco-fascist Beeboid berating some poor individual/company for their environmental impact, just quote these figures.
Link to full FOI reply (with name removed). Its got some great tosh about their ‘comprehensive environmental policy’. Hypocrites.
http://www.supload.us/free/bbc_carbon.jpg/view/
We wouldn’t want those nice Taliban chaps to come to any harm would we?
A report from Afghanistan shown on BBC1 News (see video linked from
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6396001.stm
has the BBC reporter saying of our troops
“They are firing in on those Taliban positions to get them to withdraw safely“
If it is their safety the troops were concerned about, how about seeing them across the road?
I note that Al Beeb’s Islamic tv series ‘The Retreat’ includes visits to Andalucia, Spain (which Muslim invaders conquered, and which present-day Islamic jihadists intend to re-conquer).
In this fantasy series we are to see a smiley faux ‘personal’ Islam; but, there’s the real side of jihadist Islam, epitomised by the current trial of the Madrid bombings of 11 March, 2004, see:
“Monitoring the Jihad in Spain”
http://frontpagemagazine.com (26 Feb.)
Nice one JG.
Andy Tedd (exBBC):
pounce the article couldnt be clearer whose the views are. They are Grant and Moore’s. If you dont read what is written, then the article will say whatever you want it to.
Total boll*cks! The BBC hands the mike to anyone who spouts the views of ….. the BBC! That is exactly why, for example, a terrorist motivator such as Tariq Ramadan gets an easy time from Andrew Marr. Listen to Naughtie on Radio 4 in the morning – the hushed, respectful tones when some far-out, senile American lefty utters the crap so beloved of the BBC – that’s the way it is, and it’s infuriating.
The BBC fails to get its Islamist propaganda straight – US warship tackles Somali pirates:
Piracy was rampant in Somalia, but stopped during recent Islamist rule.
However, further in the same article…
In October, Kenya jailed a group of Somali pirates after they were captured by the by the US Navy off the Somali coast.
Who ruled Somalia in October? The Islamists.
And the repetition of “by the” in the above quote comes from the original article.
More on the BBC’s Somali pirate article at Newsbusters –
http://newsbusters.org/node/11058
Re the pirates imprisoned in Kenya. They were jailed in October but had been captured in January. My bad.
However, Somali piracy did continue under Islamist rule. This story is from November 2006:
Reports from Mogadishu said Saturday the United Arab Emirates- flagged MV Veesham carrying charcoal with 12-member crew on board was seized near Adale, 95 km northeast of Mogadishu on Thursday night.
Abduarhman Olow, a businessman in Mogadishu who chartered the ship, said the vessel was traveling to Dubai after leaving El Maan natural harbor in northern Mogadishu with a 12-member crew from India.
He said that the captain had contacted them and told them that Somali gunmen have hijacked the ship.
http://english.people.com.cn/200611/05/eng20061105_318455.html