You have to laugh at the BBC’s slavish devotion to the world’s MOST corrupt organised hypocrisy – the United Nations. No sooner does the US reveal that North Korea and Syria have been working together to produce Boy Bashar’s very own nuke facility than the BBC rushes out to tell us that the UN is going to have to “investigate” this claim and that the International Atomic Energy Agency has already criticised the US for withholding this intelligence until seven months after Israel bombed the site. (Mm, I wonder why that might have been then?) Note how quickly Israel and the US get criticised and the charming “ulterior motive” sub heading towards the end of this pusillanimous report.
SEND IN THE UN!
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Typically the article’s last paragraph is “But questions are being asked whether the reactor claim is designed to reinforce those diplomatic efforts or an attempt by some in the administration to undermine them.
Asked by whom? Unless we are told, it is impossible to judge the legitimacy of the questions, and we are left with the likelihood that it is asked in the BBC canteen.
Incidentally, the Today programme this morning referred to claims as being made by “the Bush administration”. I’ve noticed this phrase used frequently of late, rather than just “the White House” or “the US government”. I don’t recall hearing references to “the Clinton administration” in the past. There seems to be an unspoken inference that George Bush says it, so it must be wrong.
For Beeboids:-
“The United Nations versus Human Rights”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/blog_direct_link.cfm/blog_id/14413
No – the supposed inference is that Bush is not really the American president. The BBC dislikes him, therefore it must follow that he is not a legit president.
A bit like Tosser Healey referring to the Israeli government as ‘the Israeli regime’.
Next, wait for the Syrians to claim (and the BBC to believe and tell us) that (a) the facility was empty, so those nasty Israelis didn’t manage to kill any Syrians, ha ha!, (b) the Nazi Israelis, in bombing the facility, murdered innocent and brave Syrians.
Assuming for the moment that Al Beeb aren’t lying through their teeth about what El Baradei said (it’s 2 words, surely?), he seems to be an even greater asshole than I have taken him for.
Israel and America have done the world a favour in destroying the syrian reactor…I hope the U.N. have a time machine otherwise one patch of sand is pretty much the same as another.
Nick Reynolds: you really must take your colleagues to task over references to ‘the Bush administration’ which I have heard as well on the BBC. The correct term is ‘The US Government’ or ‘The White House’. The expression ‘Bush administration’ only makes sense in a comparative or historical context, e.g. ‘the Bush administration did this, while the Carter administration did that’ etc. You may not like them (any more than I like ‘the Brown administration’), but it is the popularly and constitutionally elected government of the United States and these snide turns of phrase can only be interpreted as an attempt to deny its legitimacy. It reveals the bias of the BBC.
The BBC is also carrying water for the enemies of freedom and the West by trumpeting the ludicrous remarks of Mohammed ElBaradei.
Nobody (outside the BBC) takes the IAEA seriously, and certainly not ElBaradei. He is part of the price the West pays (along with meaningless Nobel ‘peace prizes’) to keep ‘moderate’ Muslims in line. Didn’t work with Pakistan, of course.
It has been known by anyone with a soupcon of awareness since last September that the Israelis had ‘taken out’ a nuclear plant – we saw all the ‘before & after’ pictures then. This was basically a repeat job of the Osirak raid in 1981. I suppose we’ll soon hear it was a ‘baby milk factory’.
liiterbus:
you really must take your colleagues to task over references to ‘the Bush administration’ which I have heard as well on the BBC. The correct term is ‘The US Government’ or ‘The White House’.
Damn right. Here are a few other Islamofascist organs we can hold to task for using this phrase;
The Jewish Telegrahpic Agency NY:
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/108250.html
The Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/23/AR2008042300935.html?hpid=topnews
Bloomberg: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a3WZn0WOJ_W0&refer=home
Christian Science Monitor: http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0425/p25s05-usmb.html
Out of my respect for the patience of fellow B-BBCers, I’ll omit the other 58,492 instances thrown up by Google News.
these snide turns of phrase can only be interpreted as an attempt to deny its legitimacy
Quite
It reveals the bias of the BBC.
Indeed. Plus the other 58,495 writers whose fingers slipped inexcusably into the same pattern.
Biased BBC: The Blush Administration
Oh dear Hillunt all those were domestic political references.Bush Administration,as opposed Congress or the Democrat Party et al.
Go back and read through those 58,492 references and find some which are apposite there’s a good kid.
A very silly comment that only reveals the vacuity of your grasp of Google and the BBC Charter. Or do you have a compulsory (on pain of imprisonment) subscription to these private newspapers as well?
I don’t think you’ve moved beyond first base in your grasp of the issue.
Hillhunt,
Of those organisations that you quote, can you tell us how many of them force us to pay a tax to view their opinions? Othere than the BBC?
The BBC seems reluctant to employ anyone who has the knowledge to solve its endless problems with the Editors blog. Having finally got it right last week, they now have a little “embedded video” menu that appears when you access the site. It asks for user name and password but then freezes the computer – well, mine anyway. Only way out of it is to switch off without shutting down.
libertus | 25.04.08 – 7:57 pm,
Hillhunt can’t move beyond first base. He’s too wrapped up in his own self-importance and trying to prove to us how brilliant he is. I thought he might have changed after his banning. But all I see now is the same old sarcastic crap with very little comment on BBC bias.
Roland Deschain:
“I don’t recall hearing references to “the Clinton administration” in the past.”
That’s why God made Google.
http://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=mozclient&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&q=%22clinton+administration%22+site%3Anews%2Ebbc%2Eco%2Euk
Note many are in the present tense.
David:
Don’t quite see your complaint. Are you upset that the BBC ran a story on the UN criticising the US, or that the story about the UN criticising the US contained criticism of the US?
Alex,
There is a convention.When referring to international issues one speaks of the British Government,American Government etc,when it is domestic politics it is customary to use the form Labour Government,Bush Administration,etc.
I see that there is open season, aka witch hunt, against HH. It’s quite pathetic, really. He is saying no worse than many other posters. OK, so not everything he says is PhD matreial. Is that a reason to gang up on him? You are being adolescent, and that is putting it mildly.
Peter:
My point was that the BBC referred to the “Clinton Administration” in the same way it does the “Bush Administration”. This shows how ludicrous the idea of a double standard or some weird conspiracy where “these snide turns of phrase can only be interpreted as an attempt to deny its legitimacy” really is.
Domestic politics Alex.
“BBC News | Crisis In The Gulf | US: Can Clinton Sell Iraqi Deal?
Trent Lott, the Republican leader in the US Senate, expresses one element of this feeling by accusing the Clinton administration of appeasement. …
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/crisis_in_the_gulf/60338.stm – 22k – Cached – Similar pages
BBC NEWS | Americas | Rice hits back at Clinton claims
26 Sep 2006 … Ms Rice responded: “What we did in the eight months was at least as aggressive as what the Clinton administration did in the preceding years …
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5382914.stm – 39k – Cached – Similar pages
BBC NEWS | World | Americas | US plan to attack al-Qaeda ‘ignored’
The White House has denied a report that a plan by the previous Clinton administration to attack the al-Qaeda network was ignored for eight months by the …
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2172937.stm – 50k – Cached – Similar pages.
You can see the difference can you not?
Alex,
MY point is that the BBC skillfully manages to turn the focus of the story away from WHY Syria wanted nukes, and WHY North Korea might be co-operating on this and instead query was bloody Dick Cheney behind it. It’s an inversion of the actual story in my view and THAT is what I am raising for debate!
Nearly Oxfordian | 25.04.08 – 9:09 pm,
Hillhunt was on this site for many moons last year, commenting excessively and doing his best to derail threads and make them revolve around himself before the administrators clamped down on wayward commenters and imposed radical censorship of comments. Then, he was far worse than he is now and he quickly became scrolling territory for me. He is capable of reasonable debate but I see him slipping back into the same old mold. Hence my comment.
Mr Vance:
Of those organisations that you quote, can you tell us how many of them force us to pay a tax to view their opinions? Othere than the BBC?
I think I can help you there, Mr V.
None.
On the other hand, what rule is there that the BBC’s tax status means it cannot use phraseology which is commonplace among hundreds of other respectable media?
None.
.
Peter:
There is a convention.When referring to international issues one speaks of the British Government,American Government etc,when it is domestic politics it is customary to use the form Labour Government,Bush Administration,etc.
God, that’s what I’ve missed about this site. Not just challenging opinion and challenged intellects, but lessons on journalistic etiquette, too.
Let’s see who else observes it among the UK media (Lefties not counted)…
The Telegraph perhaps?
Ooops…no:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/04/16/eabush116.xml
The Times, then?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article2741488.ece
And many more
Sky! They’ll toe the line…
Nope:
http://news.sky.com/skynews/article/0,,91242-1304026,00.html
Surely the FT?
Nope, 1505 examples:
http://search.ft.com/search?queryText=%22bush+administration%22&x=23&y=4&aje=true&dse=&dsz=
Biased BBC: Good Manners. Daft Notions
“On the other hand, what rule is there that the BBC’s tax status means it cannot use phraseology which is commonplace among hundreds of other respectable media?”
Because they are required to be impartial,they are not.
Hillhunt,
I was under the impression the BBC pretends to be impartial, hence the need for a more careful use of language. Of course if it comes out and just admits it is institutionally biased – then we can move the debate on.
Mr V, Peter:
Good points about impartiality.
What’s partial about calling the Bush Administration the, um, Bush Administration?
.
Because the terminology is wrong,the correct use should be the American Government. It is a bit like calling the BBC the Thompson Administration.
It is also a judgemental statement,it implies that only the Bush Administration is involved.
It’s as close as the BBC are publicly allowed to come to using the language that I know (from 2 good friends at the BBC) is used privately among many – especially younger – BBC employees; “Bush regime” (never a word used without negative connotations), “junta”, etc. It is unsurprising from an orgnisation whose employees have on at least occasion had a “Bushitler” poster in their newsrooms.
On the other hand, I don’t find the use of the phrase “Bush administration” particularly distressing. If someone were able to show that the use of the phrase “Clinton administration” were resverved almost solely for stories portraying the US government’s actions in a positive light, whilst in Bush’s case it was almost exclusively reserved for condemnation of his evil chimp deeds, then we’d have a point. Otherwise it seems like a diversion from the fact that a terror-sponsoring fascistic state like Syria seeking nuclear technology bothers the UN and the BBC less than the fact that Israel and the US acted without first consulting the UN and waiting until the technology had been perfected in defiance of a severely annoyed Security Council several years down the line.
After all, Israel owes the UN so much… such ingratitude!
I see hillhunt is back.
Can’t really miss him, out of 25 posts he has made 4 posts and managed to get the majority of others to be about him.
He’s got straight back into using alternative ‘amusing’ names for posters (hardly surprising some feel constrained to repay the compliment).
He’s gone straight back to insulting (‘being amusing’) the blog members as a whole in bold on the blog he is actually posting himself – as it refers to all, it refers to him, after all he usually posts so much more than anyone else.
That’s quite apart from his total failure to reply to specific points and usual lack of evidence (its more ‘humour’ oriented).
And I disagree with most of his posts but then again I disagree with lots of others, its not that I have the problem with, that would be a wholly wrong position.
Its the trolling!
I genuinely hope I prove wrong but if its just another scrolling exercise I’m back out of here watching my derriere as I go.
Perhaps I’ll go somewhere peaceful and quiet where no-one posts week in week out, somewhere like hillhunts own blog for example.
Re hh: Partly trolling, partly lack of humor. Also, he needs the site more than it needs him. The ice is getting thinner… It won’t be long, then.
Peter:
These stories don’t look like domestic politics.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/270460.stm
“Clinton orders China ‘spying’ probe:
The Clinton administration has been seeking to separate its many differences with China over issues such as human rights to enable Washington and Beijing to normalise their relations.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1118458.stm
“Clinton approves anti-Saddam funds
Despite long-standing reservations, the Clinton administration has approved new assistance to help opposition groups reestablish themselves in Iraq.”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/673973.stm
“Having been forced to pay attention to India and Pakistan after being completely surprised by their nuclear tests in 1998, the Clinton administration is now making a conscious effort to treat the two sides as important in their own right.”
“Because the terminology is wrong,the correct use should be the American Government.”
This is the thing you Biased-Beeboids have difficulty with. Wrong, inept or paid for by the telly-owning taxpayer is not the same as ‘biased’.
“MY point is that the BBC skillfully manages to turn the focus of the story away from WHY Syria wanted nukes, and WHY North Korea might be co-operating on this and instead query was bloody Dick Cheney behind it.”
“The US said the alleged Syrian reactor “was not for peaceful purposes”. Syria has said the US claim is “ridiculous” and has denied any nuclear links to North Korea.”
“Syrian officials have said the site that was bombed by Israel on 6 September 2007 was an unused military facility under construction.”
“American security officials showed members of Congress evidence they said proved Syria was building a nuclear reactor with North Korean assistance.”
“The White House said Syria’s “cover-up” operation after the Israeli air strike reinforced its belief that the alleged reactor “was not intended for peaceful activities”.”
“Syrian officials have denied any North Korean involvement in their country. “These allegations are ridiculous,” Syria’s ambassador to the UK, Sami Khiyami, told the BBC…Mr Khiyami said the facility was a deserted military building that had “nothing to do with a reactor”.”
Lots of speculation as to Syria’s motives for building a nuclear reactor.
Though not a regular poster here, I am a fan of this site, and I am grateful to Biased-BBC for exposing anti-American bias in the BCC.
As much as it distresses me to admit this, I think Hill Hunt has a point. It’s not at all unusual for U.S. media to refer to the Executive Branch as “the X administration,” and nothing sinister is meant by this term. It is incorrect to call the Executive Branch the “US Government,” because our “Government” is collectively, the Executive Branch, Congress, and the US Supreme Court.
However, this is a minor point, because the article is in fact grossly biased. Syria is accused of building a nuclear weapons facility. The US is accused to taking and publishing photographs. Yet it is the US which is treated with suspicion by the BBC.
Point taken, Frank, but in this country we use British terminology 😉
Alex,
It’s the BBC, of course it is wrong.
“Lots of speculation as to Syria’s motives for building a nuclear reactor.”
There is only one reason for dysfunctional dictatorship to clandestinely build a nuclear reactor,to get nuclear weapons.
Frank,
I would go along with your point except for the fact the Democrats control the Legislative branch and many of the Congressional committees,viz Rockefeller who heads up the Intelligence Committee.The man who went to warn Syria about the invasion of Iraq.
The MSM in the US is extremely partisan,the New York Times has revealed not a few classified programmes.
It is not for the BBC to ape the partisan tactics of the American MSM.The BBC is not supposed to have a dog in the American democratic process.
Peter, don’t confuse Alex with rational arguments: it gives him a headache. In particular, he has difficulty with understanding the true awfulness of the Syrian regime.
“It’s the BBC, of course it is wrong.”
Wrong isn’t the same as biased. We’ve been over this before.
“There is only one reason for dysfunctional dictatorship to clandestinely build a nuclear reactor,to get nuclear weapons.”
You know they can make electricity as well.
“You know they can make electricity as well.”
Alex, that is pathetic.
Alex
They can be used for both – Calder Hall was one such example.
The question then arises , as in the case of Iran , as to why Syria would need a Nuclear reactor in the first place .
Surely with the amount of Sun they get , A solar “farm” would be as effective and a lot less controversial
“There is only one reason for dysfunctional dictatorship to clandestinely build a nuclear reactor,to get nuclear weapons.”
You know they can make electricity as well.
Alex | Homepage | 26.04.08 – 7:07 pm
Have you actually seen where that site is on a map?
How many hundreds of miles of high tension power lines and attendant pylons would they need to get that electricity to anywhere useful?
Dream on sonny boy!
You’d have thought that if they wanted to use it for bombs they’d have built some kind of reprocessing facility too. Fact is we don’t know for sure what their motives were and so the BBC is entirely right not to report as such.
LOL. Pathetic. Alex is utterly unable to answer any of the preceding arguments, so like a good beeboid he simply runs away.
Nearly Oxfordian:
If you would like me to answer in detail, then I shall.
Geoffrey:
“The question then arises , as in the case of Iran , as to why Syria would need a Nuclear reactor in the first place.”
Interesting point. The short answer would be the same as above: to make electricity. The longer answer would be: probably because that entire region is going to face a crisis fairly soon when the oil starts running out, and they want to make sure they use as little themselves and sell as much of it as they can.
“Surely with the amount of Sun they get , A solar “farm” would be as effective and a lot less controversial”
Don’t know a lot about solar energy, but from what I do know it’s generally not as productive as nuclear.
Biodegradable:
Firstly, if I am right to assume from your name that you’ve been unbanned, then congratulations and welcome back.
Secondly you may have a point. I’ve not seen it on a map (if you’ve got one about you that might be handy). If it is right in the middle of nowhere then that is fairly suspicious. Though I can see the advantages of not building your nuclear power plant near anything valuable.
In general though, you lot are on your own with your whimsical nuclear theories, as even US intelligence has “low confidence” that it was intended for weapons and, as I said, the BBC is entirely right to echo that uncertainty.
Where do you get that from? Your beloved BBC even acknowledged that, “The US says a Syrian facility, destroyed in an Israeli air raid last September, was within months of being functional.”
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&start=0&edition=2&ttl=20080426205222&forumID=4686�
Alex, you should consider sacrificing quantity for a bit more quality in your comments.
You need a lot of water, esp. sea water, to make electricity from nuclear power. Not a lot of that in inland Syria, I would imagine.
Solar power is now used extensively even in Germany. Syria has a vast desert, and could develop solar power very effectively.
Alex, you really should think before scribbling.
Al,
“Wrong isn’t the same as biased. We’ve been over this before.”
It is possible to be both,as you amply demonstrate.
“The short answer would be the same as above: to make electricity. The longer answer would be: probably because that entire region is going to face a crisis fairly soon when the oil starts running out, and they want to make sure they use as little themselves and sell as much of it as they can.”
Syria has negligible oil reserves.
Did you know Iran burns off enough gas from oil production to generate most of its electricity needs?
“In general though, you lot are on your own with your whimsical nuclear theories, as even US intelligence has “low confidence” that it was intended for weapons and, as I said, the BBC is entirely right to echo that uncertainty.”
In which case why is the UN castigating America for not informing it about a Syrian nuclear facility?
Brilliant leg spin, Peter 😉
Secondly you may have a point. I’ve not seen it on a map (if you’ve got one about you that might be handy). If it is right in the middle of nowhere then that is fairly suspicious.
[…]
In general though, you lot are on your own with your whimsical nuclear theories, as even US intelligence has “low confidence” that it was intended for weapons and, as I said, the BBC is entirely right to echo that uncertainty.
Alex | Homepage | 26.04.08 – 8:30 pm
I do have a point.
I don’t have a map “on me” either but I do have Google Earth on my computer and you can too, or simply go to google maps. In fact the BBC’s map showed clearly enough that the facility was in a remote region.
You should check on these things yourself before making unsubstantiated claims and mouthing off just for the sake of it, and wasting everybody’s time and patience.
It is (was) “right in the middle of nowhere” and is therefore suspicious enough for Israel to decide to risk war with Syria in an action to destroy it. I’m certain that decison wasn’t taken on a whim.
Brilliant leg spin, Peter
Nearly Oxfordian | 26.04.08 – 11:24 pm
And a googly. Alex should Google more and post less to defend himself against the googly.
This elBaradei creature of the IAEA is an Egyptian Muslim. Here’s part of his speech at Oslo:
Shakespeare speaks of every single member of that family in The Merchant of Venice, when he asks: “If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”
And lest we forget:
There is no religion that was founded on intolerance – and no religion that does not value the sanctity of human life.
Judaism asks that we value the beauty and joy of human existence.
Christianity says we should treat our neighbours as we would be treated.
Islam declares that killing one person unjustly is the same as killing all of humanity.
Hinduism recognizes the entire universe as one family.
Buddhism calls on us to cherish the oneness of all creation.
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2005/elbaradei-lecture-en.html
Sounds wonderfully tolerant and accepting. Goodness, the man can even speak from the point of view of Shylock, the Jew. Interesting, though, that he trots out the usual “killing unjustly” saying for Islam which people habitually do when they try to prove how wonderful Islam is. Only problem, of course, is that when you take it in context that saying was originally directed at Jews as a warning of how they would be dealt with if they dared to touch a hair of a Muslim’s head.
So is elBaradei doing the taquia thing here to deceive people? Who knows. But it would be interesting to know where he stands on the spectrum from moderate to extreme Islam. There is something quite disturbing about an Egyptian Muslim complaining that a country way over in the infidel West didn’t inform him about the nuclear ambitions of his fellow Muslims a stone’s throw away from his native Egypt. He really didn’t know about that Syrian plant?
I think I’ll ask the bold investigative journalists at the BBC to dig into this matter. And I look forward to a Have Your Say or two on this issue with topics like, Is the IAEA bringing us the Muslim Bomb?
Er, I meant ..the Islamist Bomb.
Brian, with due resepct, I think you missed ElBaradei’s main taqquia trick:
“Islam declares that killing one person UNJUSTLY is the same as killing all of humanity.”
“Unjust”, according to Mulsim law, can only be the killing of a Muslim. Others, — though ElBaradaei won’t tell, — are fair game.
.