I note that an Afghan journalist working for the BBC in the country’s southern Helmand province has been found shot dead. Abdul Samad Rohani had been abducted on Saturday and his body was found on Sunday afternoon in Lashkar Gah. As I mention on another thread, this brutal murder is to be condemned. It is wrong and just because the guy concerned was working for the BBC does not in any way make it right. However when I read this report on Mr Rohani’s murder there are a few missing words. Nowhere does the BBC make clear that Mr Rohani has been killed by fellow Muslims. Nowhere does the BBC make clear that this is Jihad in action – an attempt by Islamists to silence the voice of a free press. The irony is that the US and UK military – whose very presence in Afghanistan is a constant source of BBC carping – risk their lives daily to try and protect the very liberty and freedoms which the the Jihad boys would take away, just as they took away Mr Rohani’s life.
NAME THE KILLERS.
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The BBC suspects it was Baptists.
No. Sikhs!
I suspect the Americans will be to blame (they always are according to Al Beeb)
Just out of interest, what was he up to?
Nah – it was Mossad, folks. Come on, you knew that really.
Before people start bleating for this beeboid popped in Afghanistan, I quote this from the great leaders of our nation (so supported by the BBC)
The defence secretary betrayed the government’s nervousness over the issue when he accused the BBC of endangering the lives of British troops by interviewing Taliban leaders in southern Afghanistan. One was heard saying that British forces were in Afghanistan “not for reconstruction but to fight a war,” Browne complained. “That puts our troops at risk,” he said.
“Every word said here in Parliament or the media” was used by the Taliban, which had an “impressive information operation,” Browne warned. He continued, “The level of risks our troops take on is significant. It does not help their safety for people to say there is confusion.”
The BBC responded, “It was entirely legitimate to broadcast the Taliban’s view that the purpose of the British deployment is to fight war against them.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/jul2006/afgh-j18.shtml
Again I ask, what with this journalist up to?
It’s been interesting to observe the BBC’s obsession with showing us as little as humanly possible of British troops returning from Afghanistan, almost as if the fact of British troops in that country is a source of deep embarrassment for the BBC, and something to be swept under the carpet. So I’m also curious to know what the function was of this murdered BBC journalist. Why would the Taleban, if it was the Taleban, kill one of their friends from the BBC? Or was he perhaps killed because he wouldn’t do the Taleban’s bidding? Or was he too Westernised for the Taleban’s liking?
Be interesting to see whether the BBC will follow this story up. I have an idea they will simply quietly drop it.
Here’s a comment I made on BBC re Afghanistan late last year. Unfortunately the link within the link (to the coverage of returning troops) is no longer valid:
http://www.haloscan.com/comments/patrickcrozier/3014754514090236585/#375189
3 British soldiers killed in Afghanistan. Sky News had a live report from Afhganistan. The BBC? Nothing.
Now the BBC are reporting it using an old story instead of a live report.
This is EXACTLY the point I’ve been making.
Sky have a good report live from Geoff Meade. The BBC? Shit all.
Right now Sky are doing a good live piece and are putting up a role call of all the British dead in Afghanistan.
The BBC? Er sport and next E24 the entertainment programme. But they might do a live interview from Afghanistan.
How come Sky can manage it, but he £3.5 billion a year fucking BBC can’t.
Good observation Martin
BBC and half-a-story.
BBC always appeases muslims, hide information if it is islamic terror.
In contrast to this, if an American/israeli leader utters a word against islamic countries, it will be a talking point on HAVE YOUR SAY.
….
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7443053.stm)
The CIA dunnit, helped by the Jews.
The BBC while quick off the blocks in which to report that one of its own was slotted by one of its own. Is just as quick to report when any British soldier is murdered by one of the BBCs favourites.In other words when its bad news the BBC has no problem reporting it.
Which contrasts with how it hasn’t reported the mini US surge in Afghanistan,
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3835580.ece
The advance by the Paras into Taliban territory .
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/frontline/2085114/Paratroopers-launch-biggest-battle-in-Afghanistan-for-two-years.html
So while the BBC is more than happy to report doom and gloom (currently running a picture show of the 100 British soldiers who have died in over 7 years. (A lot smaller figure than black kids in London)
Yet the BBC news is running with we are losing this war angle.
It doesn’t inform the British public that actually the Taliban are on the back foot and have lost a lot of ground in the region. Hence the reason for spectacular suicide bomb attacks in which to allow the BBC to promote this image we are losing to a bunch of peaceful people.
The BBC said it was legitimate to broadcast the Talibans view………
They are out of their fecking minds.
The Taliban is not legitimate ergo their opinions are not either.
The BBC is worse than the American media such as it is.
pounce: Tim Marshall made that very point. The Taleban have been getting a kicking (just like Al Qaeda in Iraq) but the BBC doesn’t want to admit to that.
Obama is going to have a real problem in the election if things keep getting better in Iraq (and you will be able to tell by how few reports are done by the likes of the BBC)
But the BBC really are just useless. Where is the live report from Afghanistan? Sky had Tim Marshall, Geoff Meade and Robert Fox. The media must have known about this for a while so the fact the BBC can’t report is no excuse.
No doubt the Beeboids were off looking to find out if the Americans were to blame for popping one of their own instead.
£3.5 billion a year for a bunch of utter tossers.
Martin, the American main stream media will NEVER admit to our successes and perserverence. They want Obama.
Fox News report the good and the bad. Then agian they are fair an balanced as opposed ot the BBC who are biased and proud.
Martin, FOX is vilified in the U.S. because it is different. Libtards/Leftists are used to having the media all to themselves.
To liberals fair and balanced is the BBC.
How the BBC spreads its pro Taliban message to the great unwashed.
(And its supposed to be f**king moderated)
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&forumID=4920&start=0&tstart=0&edition=1&ttl=20080609065018#paginator
The BBC Allahs little helpers..
“bleating for this beeboid popped in Afghanistan”
Tremendous.
Recently, someone else here who comments regularly, and clearly loathes the bias of the BBC, was called “limp-wristed” for not going the whole hog and condemning the sinfulness of homosexuals.
This site seems to be in danger of being overrun by people who resort to hysterical capitalisation when trying to make their points, who end their little rants with the words “think about it!” – a formula which really says “I know 100% I am right and anyone who disagrees is simply ignorant or unwittingly liberal!”
On a recent thread under an article given the sober-minded title “Gay Jihad on the Beeb”, I had an exchange of views with Libertus, and he contributed things that I’m sure I wasn’t alone in finding thought-provoking and serious. It really does feel as though that is becoming the exception here at B-BBC.
The site has become a repository for kneejerk, excessive, and thoughtless name-calling towards anything considered remotely left-of-centre. It’s becoming a right-wing rant site.
And I find it sad that, at a time when the BBC is pulling out all the stops to save Gordon, and we are almost certainly going to see a change of government that might be used to end the licence fee or somehow actually redress this idiotic situation, this site is making itself more and more objectionable and redundant every day.
On almost every thread there are a dozen comments that any BBC defender could pull out that would instantly make us look like nutters and bigots. Why do we do that? Are people here really so wrapped-up in their own views that they cannot think tactically? They cannot think of what benefits the site and the cause instead of just spouting their bile at every available opportunity? It’s politics folks, and we’re lousy at it! We’re not going to achieve anything by simply asserting our hatred for the BBC/muslims/gays/liberals/NHS/teachers – every time we come to the keyboard, let alone calling other critics of the BBC stupid names because they’re not quite as rabidly extreme as we might like them to be.
I’m sure you’ll want to discuss exactly why I’m wrong, and no doubt some will say that anyone who thinks this way is a limp-wristed liberal BBC spy wanker communist moron who won’t be missed anyway. That’s your business and your prerogative. Anyway, goodbye and good luck.
He’s right, and Korova too (which for a socialist anarchist is a rare achievement). The moderation here seems to have gone nuts – you can be banned for suggesting Vance is a lier but almost celebrating the murder of a reporter who no one knows anything about goes by without even a slap on the wrist. That Vance has to point out that “just because the guy concerned was working for the BBC does not in any way make it [the murder] right” should be a bit worrying.
Surely gharqad can see that the BBC causes tempers to rise in normally placid people – such as myself. The BBC’s ridiculous pro-gay agenda, and its equally ridiculous pro-muslim agenda (how they manage it is amazing) provokes comments which should have been typed after 5 minutes of reflection. Nonetheless, there are good reasons for the anger and planty of excellent posts so I’d advise gharqad to stay here.
Tree
“I’m sure you’ll want to discuss exactly why I’m wrong,”
or exactly why you’re not wrong……
According to this report, the BBC journalist killed in Afghanistan was most likely murdered by members of the Taleban’s version of Biased-BBC:
Rohani disappeared after his vehicle was stopped by armed men in the suburbs of Lashkar Gah. His body was found with three bullet wounds the following day. A pathologist said the journalist appeared to have been tortured before he was killed….His colleagues told Reporters Without Borders that he had received several phone threats from a local chief who accused him of supporting the Kabul government and of “boycotting” news put out by the Taliban.
Who was it who said on another thread that David Vance was more like the Taleban than he knew? 🙂
Well at least DV hasn’t actually shot any beeboids. The Talibs have. There’s the difference.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27370
Ghargad Tree:
Please don’t go. You are needed on this site.
Maybe we need to spell out the rules a bit:
* Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your mother to read.
* Don’t post anything that could be read in isolation and used to discredit the site.
GT – I always look forward to your thoughful and polite postings. Same goes for Bryan and David Preiser. You are much appreciated.
You are right that we need to use our brains a bit more and aim to win over the middle ground. Lots of people are realising just how biased the BBC is: help those people to reflect and clarify their thoughts instead of scaring them off with these green-ink nutjob rants.
Jack Hughes | 09.06.08 – 11:18 am
Yes.
If all thoughtful posters like Tree desert the sinking ship we’re doomed I tell you.
I don’t think people like G.T. ought to give up, I think many of us have felt like ‘leaving them to it’ from time to time, I know I considered flouncing off once but probably no-one would have noticed.
Oh dear I have turned into Basil Fawlty. I think I got away with it though.
Thanks for that, Jack Hughes. I also appreciate your contributions here. And I second your motion on the rants.
I predict that gharqad tree will be back. After all, there is much BBC battling to be done.
Jon Williams has a post up on The Editors on the subject of the murdered journalists.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2008/06/terrible_price.html
Amazingly, he also mentions the three British soldiers killed, though I’m not sure what to make of this:
Each death is a tragedy – today we’re experiencing some of the pain 100 families have been through in the last six and a half years in Afghanistan.
I suppose the BBC really does see itself as a family rather than a public broadcaster. Which would partly explain its defensive closing of ranks whenever there’s a complaint about it.
I know I considered flouncing off once but probably no-one would have noticed.
Sue | 09.06.08 – 12:07 pm
Not true. I would have noticed. Plenty others also, I’m sure.
Bryan | 09.06.08 – 12:22 pm
Thank you Bryan.
I am apt to feel sorry for myself sometimes.
Then I realise how much I sound like Eeyore. One of my daughters does that too. You have to laugh though, eh.
What I find amazing is how upset the leftoids here have gotten over a BBC journalist getting killed and how horrible it is that people like me haven’t shown more sympathy.
Firstly, I don’t think I ever said I was glad he was dead. I don’t care either way.
What does make me laugh is that the BBC has continually made political attacks and defended the Muslim scum that carried out 9/11, Madrid and 7/7, not to mention the deaths of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghaniastan.
The BBC pumps out total shite like the Panorama special with bum boy Phil Shiner spouting utter crap that can only endanger the lives of our soldiers.
Again though I ask what was this journalist up to?
Suck it up beeboids. Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.
I agree, GT. This bit is almost enough on its own to make me say: f*** Martin and f*** this site:
“Before people start bleating for this beeboid popped in Afghanistan”.
GT,
Great post. Agree with every word. Just remember though, the right wing rants may be an annoyance, but the BBC’s bias is dangerous, can cost lives, and can shape the future of this country in a way we don’t want it to go – all for aonly £135!
So I’m sure you will continue to enhance this site with your observations, especially at such a time when the BBC is becoming almost indefensible.
I have to agree about the over the top rejoicing at the demise of a BBC employee, we have seen it a few times.
I know that some are outraged at the BBC attitude particularly regarding the deaths of our own military, but that cannot condone acting like them.
I agree with much and disagree with much on the blog, that’s how it is, but some things are entirely inappropriate.
Particularly true for N.O.
Having said that N.O. I won’t miss your obscenities that you use in such gay abandon.
I know people feel strongly about things but I think it brings down the blog, makes it unreadable for many and unacceptable for others.
N.O. isn’t the only one, so he shouldn’t be singled out, but I have noticed it more from him than anyone else.
To see ‘f***’ twice was a slightly refreshing change at least.
Seriously this won’t do, it might as well become an issue of Class War, and in which case it will have an equal readership and effectiveness if it does continue unchanged.
“N.O. isn’t the only one, so he shouldn’t be singled out”
followed immediately by singling me out.
Pathetic.
Interesting that you don’t consider this objectionable:
“The BBC pumps out total shite like the Panorama special with bum boy Phil Shiner”
But then, given the general screeching anti-gay mood here, why should I be surprised?
OK Clarification
I am not singling out the tone or views of Nearly Oxfordian, though I could have – in the former case I’m not certain hyper aggression works all the time, but I do this myself from time to time so I cannot be the first to cast stones – in the latter case I agree on some things and not on others, the nature of this is that I have no wish to censor that even when I disagree with you.
I am not singling out Nearly Oxfordian as the ONLY one that uses many obscenities, clearly others have been doing so far too much of this recently as well, whether swear words or highly offensive language in descriptions.
I am not singling out Nearly Oxfordian for obscenities on this specific thread, I commented on him self censoring it this time, but this is not the case for many of the recent threads.
I am singling him out as the one that uses them the most (I am prepared to back this up statistically from the threads over the last month or two) and quite frankly way way too much and if you take time to look at what you have posted you will surely be forced to agree with that.
Is that pathetic enough for you?
My comment was very simple:
You stated that you should not single me out.
You immediately singled me out.
Is that simple enough for you?
Then I was wrong.
Mea culpa.
I apologise and unreservedly withdraw such a suggestion.
It was not my intent for it to come out that way at all, it was my intent to make the point as per my last post (clarification).
The point about the profanities still stood though.
I hope you have the good grace to concede it would be better all round if everyone including yourself kept the profanities to a minimum in future (I won’t say absolutely none because frankly sometimes certain trolls do may drive us to things in a moment of passion that we would prefer not to have done).
It is very hard for the blog to make its case amidst a stream of obscenities being passed back and fore.
David has reminded everyone to calm their language and I think that is good instruction.
Bryan writes: “It’s been interesting to observe the BBC’s obsession with showing us as little as humanly possible of British troops returning from Afghanistan, almost as if the fact of British troops in that country is a source of deep embarrassment for the BBC”
Pure garbage from someone not geographically positioned to hold a valid point of view on this. I don’t know how many strands of the BBC you can follow from Israel. This is manifestly not the case in the strands of the BBC I can follow (as a UK tax and licence payer) from inside the country.
It is wrong and just because the guy concerned was working for the BBC does not in any way make it right.
How debased has this debating space become when the editor has to remind himself (in public) that you shouldn’t be happy about the death of a BBC journalist?
How extraordinary, too, that he should demand to know why the BBC failed to report the religion of the killers. 99 per cent of all Afghans are Muslims. Is that a mystery to anyone?
Many people come here looking for evidence of bias at the BBC. To pick a fight with the BBC over the death of one of its own, and start getting huffy about the nonsensical possibility that anyone other than a Muslim might have murdered him seems way off target.
But a casual reading of these columns yields the notion that there are a lot of people here who wouldn’t know true bias if it slapped them in the face, because their whole lives are consumed with an interlocking series of bigotries.
ColinChase:
BBC was & is happy about the deaths of British/American soldiers..
When 9/11 (or) 7/7 happened, it provided a platform for the thugs to spread their propaganda that “Americans/British” deserve to be killed.
” How extraordinary, too, that he should demand to know why the BBC failed to report the religion of the killers. 99 per cent of all Afghans are Muslims. Is that a mystery to anyone? ”
Colin chase If it is a non-muslim who killed the BBC Reporter, then his/her religion will be mentioned in the headlines.
BJ, apology accepted, point taken, and I will try harder 😉
Michael is quite right.
Colin (and Roland): you huff and puff, but fail to provide any evidence.
ColinChase,
No, I like most do not condone that, as you would find if you actually bothered to read the blog.
You might however like to explain the apparent BBC happiness at British and American casualties, or do you think only BBC employees deserve such ‘protection’.
ColinChase,
“Your ‘bigotry’ is someone elses ‘deeply held personal conviction’.”
That wasn’t me, it was your beloved BBC, I only wish I could remember the programme (perhaps someone could help me out it was a documentary about the middle east and religion from a few years ago).
So I say you are bigoted, its an easy copout, prove to me I’m wrong.
If you can’t (and its not something you can ‘prove’) don’t you think you should give up using the term as its just a lazy insult.
“BBC was & is happy about the deaths of British/American soldiers..
When 9/11 (or) 7/7 happened, it provided a platform for the thugs to spread their propaganda that “Americans/British” deserve to be killed.”
If anyone wants to see a post which encapsulates just how far into the gutter this message board has plunged, try the above. It’s the moral and intellectual equivalent of the toilet in the “Trainspotting”.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7443669.stm
‘I will always be proud of being his friend and colleague.
He dedicated his life and time towards telling the truth and helping Afghanistan.
I don’t know who it was who killed Rohani, but I know one thing for sure – there will be more of us telling the truth and truth will always protect itself.’
http://www.iwpr.net/?p=%3Cp%3ENo%20item%20found.%3C/p%3E&s=f&o=345099&apc_state=henh
The journalists of Helmand gathered…as some rejected the official government account that the Taleban were behind the killing of this respected BBC reporter.
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=27370
‘he had received several phone threats from a local chief who accused him of supporting the Kabul government and of “boycotting” news put out by the Taliban’
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-06/09/content_8334173.htm
‘Unknown armed men’.
Biased BBC:
We don’t know who killed Abdul Samad Rohani but it’s a good bet it was Muslims.
Pure garbage from someone not geographically positioned to hold a valid point of view on this. I don’t know how many strands of the BBC you can follow from Israel.
Roland Thompson-Gunner | 09.06.08 – 4:24 pm
Coupla things, Roland, old chap:
Firstly, if you look really carefully, you’ll see a logical inconsistency between the two statements I have extracted above from your comment.
And yes, you don’t know what I can or can’t follow from Israel but you are nevertheless prepared to judge.
Secondly, since you are such an expert on this blog you might have noticed that I try not to make claims lightly and without evidence.
Thirdly, it’s bad form to make bold statements, as you have just done, without the evidence, in links or otherwise, to back them up.
Here’s my evidence of the lack of coverage:
A ten second clip (no, that’s not a typo) on BBC TV of British troops returning from Afghanistan. Newswatch received enough comlaints about this to warrant calling in a certain senior TV editor named Jawad Iqbal for his mealy-mouthed justification of those ten seconds. I watched the programme but unfortunately I don’t have a link to it since Newswatch does not have a search facility. But I’m sure since you are on the spot there in Britain you will be able to find the programme from your friendly local BBC outlet. Please share it with us if you do find it.
I listen to the World Service a lot during the week and access the news website frequently including various TV clips and programmes accessible via the site. In the last few years, I stumbled across one programme on returning troops (apart from the ten seconds) by accident while looking for something else. That was a forty-nine second clip. Otherwise I have come across nothing, zero, nought.
Now let’s see your evidence of the generous coverage by the BBC of British troops returning from Afghanistan. I’ll wait for it before telling you that you are talking “pure garbage.”
And what about the murder of a BBC reporter in Somalia?:-
“Somali BBC contributor shot dead”
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7442181.stm
Who committed this murder? Apparently, according to this BBC report it may have been some not very dangerous-sounding ‘Islamist insurgents’ who did it (last sentence of this BBC report).
Or was it the ISLAMIC JIHAD murderers, which the BBC likes to keep quiet about, and to learn no lessons from, despite this instructive experence?
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that this is just the wrong example to use to make a point about the BBC’s reluctance to report on the realities of the innocent Muslim victim of the Islamo-nutters.
The BBC does try to keep everyone in the dark about how many Muslims are finally turning against Bin Laden, Al Qaeda, and the franchisees because Muslims are the primary victims of their violence. If the public was aware of just how much support was waning, and why, then it might lead people to think that there could be a hint of something positive in what the BBC refers to as the “so-called war on terror”. Can’t have that. BBC reporters are allowed to make an editorial comment expressing concern over so many victims of so many events, yet the regular reports of car bombs and other mass murders of Iraqi or Afghan civilians are rarely soured by any Beeboid saying how unfortunate it was that so many victims of Al Qaeda and other Islamic “insurgents” are Muslims. No, instead we’re supposed to think that all violence is Bush’s fault, full stop.
But this particular case is not a good example to use.
If the public was aware of just how much support was waning, and why, then it might lead people to think that there could be a hint of something positive in what the BBC refers to as the “so-called war on terror”.
Either that, or people will begin to see that the ‘war on terror’ is just a crock of shit made up by desperate politicians and supported by a compliant media. If the terror is waning (I can barely accept that there was any ‘terror’ to start with), presumably this means we can ditch 42 days, abandon ID cards nad forget about scaring half the population with outlandish claims about this supposed organisation. I wish the BBC would emphasise how many Muslims are turning against al-Qaeda, perhaps then we could put an end to the lunacy.