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As the BBC assists in the EU celebrations, this article presents a sobering alternative:
” Former European Mandarin Exposes Intrigue, Illusions and Dangers ”
http://www.brusselsjournal.com
“…the Lebanese Shia movement that fought them to a standstill last summer.”
I think he will find it was the propoganda spewed out by the MSM and especially ther BBC, who influenced the outcome of the conflict. It was the call of “war crime” by the smimey, weasel like, Bowen – at every death of a “millitant”.
Biased Bowen: ‘the exodus of Iraqi refugees, which is the biggest movement of people in the Middle East since the Palestinian refugee crisis after Israel was established in 1948’
Palestinian refugees: 711,000.
Iraqi refugees: 1.6 million.
Jewish refugees from Arab countries: 850,000.
Odd how he only concentrates on Arabs.
If I were in London, I would be on a demonstration outside the Iranian Embassy.
Ralph, in case you missed it, I already commented on that phrase here:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/4233533619707633580/#334101
Note that http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6476907.stm is a different piece by Bowen using the same phrase, more or less. ie: “The [Iraq] war has already produced the biggest movement of people in the Middle East since the Palestinian refugee crisis after the establishment of Israel in 1948.”
Cut ‘n’ paste – it’s what we do :-/
This article isn’t from Al Beeb:
“Casus Belli” (25 Mar.)
http://pedestrianinfidel.blogspot.com
I wonder if the BBc are going to have a week long celebration of the 60th anniversery of the Marshall Plan this year.
“The Marshall Plan (from its enactment, officially the European Recovery Program [ERP]) was the primary plan of the United States for rebuilding the allied countries of Europe and repelling communism after World War II. The initiative was named for United States Secretary of State George Marshall and was largely the creation of State Department officials, especially William L. Clayton and George F. Kennan.
The reconstruction plan was developed at a meeting of the participating European states on July 12 1947. The Marshall Plan offered the same aid to the Soviet Union and its allies, if they would make political reforms and accept certain outside controls. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in July 1947. During that period some $13 billion of economic and technical assistance was given to help the recovery of the European countries that had joined in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan
EU leaders call for more gravy train.. ahem.. cough… errr “rapid reforms”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6493081.stm
berlin declaration text:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6491487.stm
it reads like something out of the Soviet constitution. i hope to god this is not legally binding, and is just a puff piece of meanlingless hot air.
Biodegradable,
Sorry it’s easy to miss things in 450 plus comment threads.
Odd how he never sinces things like the Armenian genocide or Pontus deportations.
“Only one of the French presidential hopefuls, Segolene Royal, has said she would hold a referendum on a new treaty.
The Dutch have not said what they would do.
There would be pressure in Demark for a popular vote.
The British government is nervous of repeating its promise to hold a referendum which it fears could be lost.”
The EU is scarred to death of democracy.
So they try and use “scare tactics”
“From the constitutional point of view, I think that only Ireland needs it, but any country will choose,” Mr Prodi said, adding: “If the UK wants a referendum why not? They will decide whether to stay in or not.”
“When I asked him what he meant by this, he said: “There is a basic rule that is fundamental: with our rules, if you say no, no, no then you are in a moment in which you have to make a decision. It will be the start up of a new discussion”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6481789.stm
The distinguished commentator John Keegan in The Telegraph in April last year reviewed Hugh Bicheno’s Book “Razor’s Edge” about the Falkland’s War. Keegan notes that “[Bicheno] knows exactly where to apportion praise and blame. Thus he views the Foreign Office, and many in the Ministry of Defence, with contempt. He loathes the BBC, which he accuses of losing interest in the war once it could be seen that the Task Force was winning. And he despises many individuals, including named numbers of the Labour Party and the anti-Thatcher wing of the Conservative Party. Unexpectedly, Michael Foot, the leader of the opposition, he exempts from his strictures – but Tony Benn, Ted Heath and Jack Straw he excoriates”
Just a thought about other features of the British chatterati: I seem to remember the then Archbishop of Canterbury Runcie telling the congregation at the Service of Thanksgiving after the Falklands War “not to celebrate the victory”. No surprise then that the present incumbent seeks to demonise white Britons with complete responsibility for the slave trade/slavery while commemorating the abolition of the trade by, oh, white Britons.
Blair (today):” They (Iranian Government) should not be under any doubt at all about how seriously we regard this act.”
BLAIR THEN WRINGS HANDS, AND SITS DOWN.
and
Ah
MAD
dine
JIHAD
smiles as his prediction about dhimmi Blair comes true.
jon
Rest assured, the Marshall Plan will be spun as US financial imperialism through which we were denied true happiness under the benign rule of “Uncle Joe” Stalin and the other democrats of the Soviet Union. Mind you, the money we received under the Plan was soon pissed away: the Germans invested theirs in capital goods leading to the “Wirtschaftswunder”: we spent ours on the NHS (“the envy of the world”) and consumption.
Sorry it’s easy to miss things in 450 plus comment threads.
Ralph | Homepage | 25.03.07 – 4:25 pm
Sure, I wasn’t criticising you, just pointing out again how Bowen writes two separate articles, one ostensibly dealing with Iraq ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6476907.stm ) and another centred on Condie’s latest visit and the situation closer to Israel/Lebanon ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6485947.stm ), yet Bowen manages to use the same phrase, and make the same false comparison in both pieces. It just show that he has set prejudices that he’s willing to exploit and force down our throats at any opportunity.
Muslim Violence — Crime or Jihad?
Although the European Union warns against “,” those who live in the real world know that there has been an explosion of violent infidelophobia in Western Europe staged by Muslim immigrants. This wave of violence especially targets Jews, but the attacks against Christians that are going on in the the Middle East, where there may soon be no Christians left in the cradle of Christianity, are increasingly spreading to Europe as well. In more and more cities across the continent, non-Muslims are being harassed, robbed, mugged, raped, stabbed and even killed by Muslims, yet EU leaders continue their quest to merge Europe and the Arab world by making it easier for Muslims to enter and settle in Europe.
The fact that European leaders and media voice such concern for “Islamophobia” yet do very little to stop attacks against Christian Europeans demonstrates the creeping dhimmitude in Europe which has been accurately predicted by Bat Ye’or. Native Europeans are slowly becoming second-rate citizens in their own countries
Read More
http://globalpolitician.com/articledes.asp?ID=2575&cid=2&sid=2
.
I absolutely detest the term “non-Muslims” – Its saying that if you are not a Muslim you cannot be anything else- it reminds of the term “non-human”
Umbongo writes:
“No surprise then that the present incumbent seeks to demonise white Britons with complete responsibility for the slave trade/slavery while commemorating the abolition of the trade by, oh, white Britons.”
You make no sense at all.
It was hardly the enslaved black Africans who were going to abolish the slave trade – they did not have the power to do so, because they were, uh, enslaved.
You seem to be arguing that if a group of people carry out despicable acts and then they stop doing it we should be grateful for their mercy.
As to white Britons being demonised for the slave trade, well yes, without white Britons the transatlantic slave trade would ont have happened.
The vast majority of the trading wealth of the British in this time was through buying slaves in Africa (and using some European goods in exchange), transporting them to the Americas and using them in plantations with the plantation crops being sold back in Britain.
In true free market style they made a profit on each of these transactions and the much of the wealth of the UK was built upon this despicable trade.
But the narrow minds on B-BBC fails to be able to comprehend this.
And yes, we all know that the slave trade continues today, with human trafficking, far eastern sweatshops exploit children (oh sorry should that be “the free market in operation”) etc. The sort of activities those pesky liberals campaign against rather than accepting that the free market is faultless.
From al-BBC website ..
“Murky waters
Will Iran make political capital from capture of UK troops? ”
Shouldn’t that read..
“Murky waters
Will BBC make political capital from capture of
UK troops?”
I thought Andrew Marr was a bit weak when interviewing Mandleson this morning.Almost as though the BBC felt they had to superficially mention the 50 years celebrations and further happenings in the EU but knew too much coverage would excite a counter reaction.
I had no idea about this.
From today’s Sunday Times Editorial
‘………….although a recent European Union poll surprisingly shows most people favour using all means, including force, to stop Iran getting nuclear weapons.’
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article1563711.ece
Has anyone else seen this elsewhere. Hell would freeze over before BBC ‘News’ reported this.
“As to white Britons being demonised for the slave trade, well yes, without white Britons the transatlantic slave trade would ont have happened.”
What utter rubbish – another generalisation from a non-historian.
“By the 1540, there were several large sugar plantations in Hispaniola and around the Caribbean. Spanish throne imposed trading regulations and licenses on merchants heading to the Caribbean with complex restrictions. In spite of all of Spain’s efforts however; smuggling was rampant. There was a strong demand for slaves, and a guaranteed profit for anyone who would provided them.”
http://library.thinkquest.org/13406/ta/3.htm
“New Spain (the Spanish colony that roughly corresponds to contemporary Mexico) also participated in this mercantilist political economy, and African slave labour was certainly utilized. Particularly in earliest stages of the slave trade–the 16th and early 17th centuries–Mexico played a prominent role. This was a time when the Spanish Empire controlled nearly the entire newly “discovered” hemisphere. Later, the Portuguese would begin to exploit Brazil unencumbered by the Spanish Crown,”
http://condor.depaul.edu/~dialogo/back_issues/issue_5/mexico_slave_trade.htm
The British influence in America was later than this – they too joined in with the trading of slaves.
But to suggest that the trans-Atlantic slave trade would not have happed without “white Britons” is to say the least flying in the face of historic fact.
John Bolton’s response to the ranting swivel-eyed lunatic Benn was perfect. “I’m not even going to respond to that”
Bear it in mind when see the latest offering from A Lurker | 25.03.07 – 5:54 pm |
“Bear it in mind when see the latest offering from A Lurker”
Wise words TPO
TPO
Point well made and well taken.
Jon
Still I’m glad for your correction of his/her tosh.
A quarter of workers paid by the public purse
Almost seven million people say that they work for the state – 900,000 more than when Labour came to power a decade ago, according to a poll accompanying the respected Office for National Statistics’ Labour Force Survey.
However, a Treasury spokesman said yesterday that the Labour Market Survey’s poll was “obviously not scientific. “It should never be used as an accurate measure of public sector employment,” she said.
Well who would you trust and does that figure include the BBC?
If I were in London, I would be on a demonstration outside the Iranian Embassy.
Alan | 25.03.07 – 3:39 pm | #
The sorry logic is such that we will probably see Iranians demonstrating in London supporting Ahminejihad soon. I read this on Atlasshrugs Iran Declares War on England
50 years ago the actions of Iran would have been considered a blatant act of war by the West. Now it will inevitably be blamed on us ignorant Westerners and our failure to understand Muslim culture.
We will simply ask the Iranians nicely to return the British troops. When they refuse we’ll offer them vast sums of money under the demand that they sign some meaningless treaty that will be violated before the ink is even dry. This way, when they launch their next attack against us, they’ll have even less respect for our gov’ts and more funds to fight them with.
I’m sure I heard an interview on BBC News 24 the other day, with an Admiral who was in charge the last time around hostages were taken. BTW has anybody raised the question on the BBC why they surrended again??
He said that we actually sent over somebody to explain to the Iranians how the GPS systems on the naval boats worked, to prove that we were within international law. He also admitted that this would have been very educational for the Iranians, and they would have learnt quite a bit. As to what this might have been the BBC journalist was too dumb to ask.
Did anybody hear Gordon Brown in his Today interview with JH talking about “winning hearts and minds” in the War on Terror. On the same day on BBC TV we saw an American soldier explaining what this meant in the field and how the other soldiers joked about the politicians:
“Two in the heart one in the mind”
I defy anyone not to snigger at this cartoon in the telegraph today.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/Cartoon/OpinionCartoonFrag.jhtml;jsessionidII5UHPMIMWIU5QFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?RangeStartValue=1
Bye to all, a pleasure as always to be able to post here. Must off now and bath little one now.
The DT’s Daniel Hannan on BBC pro EU agenda! Interesting read.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/danielhannan/mar2007/storm.htm
Albeeb is big fan of the EU – might this have something to do with it?
“MEP asks Scotland Yard to investigate BBC relations with EU
The Metropolitan Police have today (13 March) received a bundle of papers from Ashley Mote MEP, Independent, SE England, detailing the tens of millions of euros received by the BBC over recent years.
He has invited Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Yates, Director of Intelligence at Scotland Yard, to review the BBC’s sources and application of funds, excluding the licence fee. The police have been asked to examine the evidence linking the EU as a source of these funds with the BBC’s open support of the EU in its editorial coverage, contrary to its obligations under the Royal Charter…”
http://libertyandlawjournal.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html#1549519323856625431
The BBC and half a story;
Niomi Daley, the British hip-hop star better known as Ms Dynamite, travelled to her ancestral land Jamaica to make a documentary about slaves who fought back, as part of the BBC’s season marking Britain’s abolition of the slave trade.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/6467377.stm
Oh how the BBC loves to use real black people in which to paint this picture of how evil the white man is ..Err BBC Missy Dynamite has a white mother, when her marriage to her black father failed she returned to Scotland in which to bring up her half cast children living with her white Scottish parents.
So when I read of Miss (Look at me I’m so black) Dynamite bitching about how whites oppressed blacks does that include her own blood line?
But it gets better BBC you publish this under that first photo;
“Jamaican Maroons wait to ambush an approaching British military column circa 1795” So is the message you are trying to say is that British soldiers are also nasty evil bastards who hated the blacks. Which is somewhat ironic as Missy (I’m a black victim) Dynamite father was also a British soldier.
But lets hear from the BBC how is allows Miss (I want to be free) Dynamite to promote “There ain’t no black in the union jack” Line
“When I went to school, all we were ever told about black history was “You were slaves, that’s the end of it, it’s over now”.”
And
“I can only speak from a London point of view but basically I feel that although racism isn’t as in your face as it definitely was, it’s still very, very vibrant – it’s still everywhere at all times. I feel in terms of the system and the institutions, it’s as bad as it ever was.”
And
“I definitely think England should make some compensation for descendants of slaves. It’s not amends but it’s holding your hands up and saying, you totally acknowledge what took place.”
And
“I’m not making excuses but the fact that so many, or the majority, of black people in England are born straight into poverty, to me is a direct result of slavery and I do feel that something should be done.”
So on that last note I wonder if Miss (I hate whitey) Dynamite would agree to her white mother and white grandparents to paying reparations towards black people in the UK. Or are they somehow exempt .
The BBC and half a story.
Umbongo@4:45
“Unexpectedly, Michael Foot, the leader of the opposition, he exempts from his strictures ”
Michael Foot fully supported Thatcher in the liberation of the Falklands – one of the very few left wingers to do so.
“Many of the black people living in Bristol in the 18th century married into Bristol families. Over the course of a few generations, their descendants ‘disappeared’ into the population of the city. It has been estimated that one in five Britons has a black ancestor from the 17th or 18th centuries.
After the end of the slave trade in 1807 and of the status of slave in 1834, few black people came to Bristol.”
http://www.discoveringbristol.org.uk/showNarrative.php?sit_id=1&narId=471&nacId=821
Puts a different light on things don’t you think.
has our 48 hour “release our troops or we nuke Tehran” deadline passed yet?
oh wait. maybe not.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article1563877.ece
Iran to try Britons for espionage
“As to white Britons being demonised for the slave trade, well yes, without white Britons the transatlantic slave trade would ont have happened”
Try doing some historical research before coming to this site and smearing us all with your liberal guilt.
Your statement above is rubbish – the muslims and various black nations were already enslaving blacks in Africa. The Dutch, Portugese, French & Spanish were all taking slaves sold to them BY BLACK AFRICAN CHIEFS AND MUSLIM TRADERS and transporting them across the Atlantic.
Slavery was rampant across the whole world at this time – the British were not unique in participating in slavery BUT they were unique in campaigning for it’s ending.
As a white I’m not going to feel guilty about slavery especially when my own working class ancestors were dying in mines and factories (children as young as five) and could be executed for stealing a silk hankerchief.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/25/npraise125.xml
“Of course usually it doesn’t matter. When we had the BBC to film Songs of Praise at the cathedral before Advent and they told us that after we’d done Christmas we would do Easter straightaway – just change the flowers and get bright lights outside to mimic lighter spring evenings – it wasn’t a deliberate deceit but it will give an air of unreality to the Easter programme.”
not so vicar,some would say deceit comes easy to the bbc.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/03/25/nbbc25.xml
nice to see our money’s being spent wisely.
oh dear.. looks like nobody is willing to sign the berlin declaration
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16967465/
Although the declaration is nonbinding and almost devoid of specifics, hardly anyone is willing to sign it. The Poles are upset that the document makes no mention of Europe’s Christian heritage. The British are unhappy that it singles out the euro for praise, ignoring the pound. And while the declaration doesn’t actually contain the word “constitution,” veiled references to the idea led other countries to balk, especially the French and the Dutch, whose voters soundly rejected a proposed European constitution in 2005.
As a result, the declaration — a draft of which includes the phrase “We, the peoples of Europe” — is likely to be signed only by three individuals: Merkel, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Hans-Gert Poettering, president of the European Parliament.
But skepticism still runs deep. In an interview Friday with the BBC, Czech President Vaclav Klaus derided the document as “Orwellian Eurospeak.”
“terry johnson | 25.03.07 – 8:21 pm |”
if you listen to American talk radio, the contrast with the BBC about abolition is stark. unlike the mealy mouthed self-flaggelation of the BBC , the Americans view Wilberforce etc as the percursors to the American dream and modern capitalism. In fact, 1807 is being celebrated as a very important milestone in the history of freedom.
And they also fully acknowledge that it was the British who were way ahead of the curve – for they had to go through a civil war 60 years later to finally get rid of slavery.
The reason why Americans are connecting to Wilberforce and the abolitionists is that they were evangelical Christians – very much like the listeners to right wing talk radio in America.
Meanwhile, the BBC airbrushes out Christianity as being a major influence:
note how Christianity isnt even mentioned in either of these articles:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/abolitionists_gallery_03.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/abolitionists_gallery_01.shtml
They werent abolitionist just because they thought slavery was wrong – they were against slavery because they totally believed that GOD HIMSELF said it was wrong.
kind of crucial to understanding this history, dont you think?
‘As to white Britons being demonised for the slave trade, well yes, without white Britons the transatlantic slave trade would ont have happened.’
Then could you explain how the trans Atlanic slave trade was already in operation for a hundred years before the British even had colonies on the other side of the Atlantic if without the British it wouldn’t have happened?
‘The vast majority of the trading wealth of the British in this time was through buying slaves in Africa (and using some European goods in exchange), transporting them to the Americas and using them in plantations with the plantation crops being sold back in Britain.’
That is simply untrue. The bulk of British trade has always been with Europe.
I note the post way above where the De Gaulle has joined the other four US carrier groups in the Gulf. Meanwhile thanks to NuLabour our contribution to the latest permanent force to be set up out there is two minesweepers which will be permanently based in the Gulf, swapping crews every once in a while.
Will we charge the 300 plus captured Iranian agents held in Iraq with espionage unless our 15 are returned?
Will we start kicking Iranian backsides as we prove again and again that THEY have been the cause of OUR soldiers’ deaths in many cases in Basra etc? Will we hell!
The Iranians are fighting a war against us and the coalition and we won’t acknowledge it. What we should be doing is supporting the regular attempts at overthrowing the mad mullahs. Iran according to a mate who works in Tehran is in fact one of the most pro American countries in the Middle East after Israel. It is the mad mullahs that cause the problems. Get rid of them and we lessen terrorism worldwide at a stroke.
NuLabour – always send in the troops but never support them with the kit or the political backup. In some cases the government should be charged with corporate manslaughter thanks to the way they have betrayed our troops before, during and after the fighting. And the bloody BBC should be in the dock with them!
and there was a white slave trade to the Carribean as well -Irish slaves exported by the British to the Carribean islands.
there’s one island – Montserrat – where there are loads of Afro Carribeans with names like “Murphy” and “O’Leary” because of centuries of interbreeding with the white Irish slaves.
“By 1637 a census showed that 69% of the total population of Montserrat were Irish slaves,”
http://www.kavanaghfamily.com/articles/2003/20030618jfc.htm
(ok the above source is somewhat biased in tone.. comparing Elizabeth 1st to Stalin…but the Irish slave aspect is a fact of history)
and here’s more:
“in the 12 year period during and following the Confederation revolt, from 1641 to 1652, over 550,000 Irish were killed by the English and 300,000 were sold as slaves, as the Irish population of Ireland fell from 1,466,000 to 616,000.”
and
“In 1649, Cromwell landed in Ireland and attacked Drogheda, slaughtering some 30,000 Irish living in the city. Cromwell reported: “I do not think 30 of their whole number escaped with their lives. Those that did are in safe custody in the Barbados.”
the only places in the world besides Ireland that celebrate St Paddys day as a public holiday are Newfoundland – and Montserrat.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Patrick%27s_Day
I visited Jamaica myself a few years ago, and i was struck by how similar the accent on the island was very very similar to the city of Cork’s (in ireland) working class accent.
Curiously, one aspect of Cork working class culture is an utter devotion to reggae music and Bob Marley. Odd , isnt it? These connections over the centuries and these kind of hidden histories. I just find it all fascinating. Not that the BBC would ever inform you of any of this.
may i add – i’m just throwing the Irish slave thing into the mix to show that slavery wasnt “racist” per se. it was purely economic – and also a matter of imposing state/imperial power (as it had been for centuries).
in fact the entire concept of “racism” – as in “my race is better than yours” is a consequence of the theories of social darwinism, that happened AFTER abolition.
of course, the BBC gets it all wrong and back to front, implying that slavery was just a whitey racist thing against people with a better sun tan.
“dave t | Homepage | 25.03.07 – 10:28 pm ”
the iranians are scared stiff of the developments in pro-American Kurdistan – and of course, Iranian youth want a piece of that action.
get rid of the mullahs, and you have a Kurdistan on a vastly bigger scale.
its a difficult situation we are in – provoke a war, and the Mullahs gain even more power – “look at those imperialists!!!”. Do nothing – and the Mullahs can say “we are weak”
SAS squad or highly targetted cruise missiles seems to be the only options right now.
Religion of Peace Update:
Those who want to sow chaos and civil war in Iraq are adopting new horrific tactics to ensure stability does not prevail
Children targeted in Baghdad
“I started looking, and they are shooting the kids,” he said. “Eight of the kids already fell on the ground. The guys kept shooting, they just wanted to make sure everyone was dead.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article1567102.ece
.
The Times today says how the BBC recorded Easter at Christmas for Songs of Praise, and will broadcast it as if it were current. They moved the people around and get them to change their clothes a bit, introduced flowers and so on to give the impression that it was Easter.
Why can’t they simply send a film crew out at Easter? Does 3.3 billion not cover it?
Mention has been made above by dave t and I think by archduke about the French carrier in the Gulf.
Love them or loathe them, most people, I think, will have a secret admiration for the way France conducts its foreign policy. Totally self-serving with never a deviation.
Which is why the movement of the French aircraft carrier Charles de Galle into the Gulf has such significance.
Is this the same carrier that ‘broke down’ before it reached Suez in the first Gulf war in 1991? Being very kind to them one could say that France had an ambivalent attitude to the first Gulf war juggling its interests in the Arab world whilst wanting to be seen on the world stage with the ‘big boys’ in rolling back Iraqi hegemony.
Now they are plonking a carrier squarely off the Iranian coast. My bet is that they’ve calculated the Arab response (not the man on the street) to the clipping of Iranian wings and worked out the advantages of being associated with such a military venture.
Is the destruction of the Iranian nuclear capability going to take place? I think so; however there will be one institution, funded in full by the British taxpayer, which will not represent British interests.
One has to ask why this situation exists and who actually benefits from it. We’ve all seen the ghastly harridans with their strangulated vowels and their ‘rivers of tears’, the partiality of Bowen and Simpson and the more than equal time given to thug regimes that oppose us.
Recall that RN crews in the Gulf in 2003 refused to watch the blatant bias of the BBC and now we have a BBC ‘reporter’ actually on HMS Cornwall (God knows why the RN allowed that) at the time of the illegal seizure of the boarding crew. This so-called ‘reporter’ knows that they were in international waters. All he had to do was skip up onto the bridge and ask to look at the GPS, so why haven’t the BBC trotted him out to say so.
Time for independent oversight of this ugly mess called the British Broadcasting Corporation, because British it surely ain’t.
Futher to the above, this snippet is on the BBC website today written by BBC “security correspondent” Gordon Corera.
‘Our correspondent said in part this could be because the personnel were taken by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, and the Iranian government as a whole may not yet have developed a unified position on how to proceed.’
What utter bollocks. How much are we paying this clown. For those with high blood pressure I recommend that you do not go to the BBC HYS on this.
Anonymous | 26.03.07 – 10:39 am |
me again
Compare the reporting:
The Daily Telegraph
Blair: Iran must free naval prisoners in days
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=O5MGGUKSRMT1ZQFIQMGCFGGAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2007/03/26/wiran26.xml
Trash news courtesy of the £3 billion publicly funded BBC.
Iran warns sailors may be charged
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6494289.stm
The Telegraph:
’Britain’s position received support from other European Union countries yesterday. President Jacques Chirac of France said Britain had the “complete solidarity” of all EU leaders over the sailors.
“It seems clear they were not in the Iranian zone at the time,” he said.
The German presidency of the EU issued a statement calling for their immediate release.’
Trash news:
’US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has backed the British call for the personnel to be released, as has the EU.’
I’m getting the distinct impression that there are people employed by the BBC (whose salaries are paid by the British taxpayer) who are bending over backwards to confir legitimacy on the Iranian action.
This so-called ‘reporter’ knows that they were in international waters. All he had to do was skip up onto the bridge and ask to look at the GPS, so why haven’t the BBC trotted him out to say so.
Time for independent oversight of this ugly mess called the British Broadcasting Corporation, because British it surely ain’t.
TPO | 26.03.07 – 10:28 am
And it sure ain’t got too many journalists worthy of the profession. No doubt BBC hacks feel they are being wonderfully egalitarian when they put a terror regime like Iran on a par with a country like Britain. That would be bad enough, but they actually side with the terror regimes.
Good morning.
Re-Slavery
As a very keen historian, I’m not sure whether some of this “debate” is doing any justice to an important subject-and I think there is a smattering of Nu Lab as this “national awareness campaign” just comes at the same time as the History Curriculum is being published:
http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/schemes2/secondary_history/?view=get
Actually as a curriculum the subject matters is interesting and if taught well (read: objective as humanly possible) can be a rich and informative subject (I’m biased!!)
The problem I have is context- why is the British Empire picked out?
I live in The Netherlands in the town of Hoorn, a very important place in the history of exploration and trade. This was the birthplace of the Dutch East India Company and opposite where I live are the very warehouses where goods and people from all over the world mixed. I practically live in one of the towns that started the discovery of the new world.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoorn
Living here as made me realise that history isn’t about “slaves” and “freemen” but the stories of millions of souls, and for every slaver who through is “goods” over board, others ensured that there “teams” were well looked after and educated. For every innocent African family being forcibly removed, there is another story of an Indonesian family seeking refugee. It simply isn’t so black and white, as travelling around the world certainly makes one realize.
Even in the Deep South black and white race relations are far more complex than the “identity politics” of the BBC. History is more than a jaundice view of a horrific practice to contemporary minds.
In fact it is very hard to find a single culture who in hasn’t enslaved or have been slaves themselves for example Rome conquered Gaul who were themselves a slave owning society. Alexander conquered Persia, who in turn went on to be the Sassanid’s and so forth and so forth. Further the “slaves”,”soldiers”, “convicts” went of to be the founding fathers of some of our nations:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1250188.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/country_profiles/1136253.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1217752.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1211306.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/country_profiles/1166587.stm
I suspect the narrations are more to do with the continued self loathing of all things “Empire” (and a little dig at America as well, although you need IR goggles to see it) as well as a chance to lighten our wallets as well…..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6494207.stm