I was listening to an item on the Today programme just before 7am concerning Iraq and was struck by the comment from the BBC report who said that he was stunned when John McCain claimed last week that the US was “winning” in Iraq. Further, he added that this was “an irresponsible” comment. He went on to state that although the Surge had worked, a lot of success was down to “the awakening” (Former Ba’athists who had fought against the US now working for them) and the acquiescence of the Mehdi army. Naturally, no criticisms of Obama who opposed the surge, no praise of the US military who have prosecuted it. The BBC relentlessly propagates the idea that Iraq is another Viet Nam, that we have no business there, and that victory is not an option. Now I accept that some out there may think these thing (I don’t of course) but the BBC role is to provide balanced opinion and on this issue it spectacularly fails time and time again. The only drumbeat is that encouraging cut and run and so when John McCain and others press for victory, the little defeatists in the BBC attack them.
McCain Irresponsible?.
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David, the US and its South Vietnamese allies were actually winning in Vietnam. It was a victory thrown away by the left and for many of them is considered their greatest ‘achievement'(?).
The BBC and the left really do want another Vietnam in Iraq and will continue to blast out the defeatist lies until they get it. My own opinion is that it was an error and that after enforcing near-peace, we (I include the US as ‘we’) should get out whilst the opportunity is there. But the BBC is a disgrace on this as on so many issues.
What is interesting that when the BBC reported from Iraq recently, they were able to walk around interviewing Iraqi’s who for the most part didn’t want the Americans to leave just yet.
As you rightly mentioned Obama was forced to admit recently that the surge has worked beyond expectations.
The surge was what allowed areas to be held and cleaned out of Al Qaeda scum.
Five Live with Victoria Derbyshire, right now, pushing the old ‘Gordon The Experienced’ nonsense, just wheeled out Duncan Bannatyne to support Brown. The recent change of media narrative in favour of Brown has the hallmarks of a set up/Dolly Draper-esq Excalibur rebuttal operation. Not that the BBC need any help on this.
Mark Urban (a reporter whose opinion I respect) recently had a piece on Newsnight, in which he stated that the US had succeeded in ‘avoiding defeat’ in Iraq.
This will be as good as it gets from the Beeb.
However this is far, far better than the alternative, which would be Humphrys, Paxman and Simpson gloating from the sidelines as American helicopters depart from the Green Zone in a panic, leaving their Iraqi allies to their fate.
Yeah, sorta like how the allies also avoided defeat in 45! 😉
Mailman
But maybe the BBC’s lack of coverage of Iraq this year is a tacit admission that the US is succeeding there ?
No, in 1945 the great Soviet Union saved American bacon. Helped by the Rosenbergs, who the Beeb finally admitted were guilty this morning – made me drop my toothbrush.
Gordon Brown has of course got lots of relevant experience – he nationalised Northern Rock last year and Bradford and Bingley this year. Rewarding failure’s what he’s good at.
So the Soviets also managed to avoid defeat in 45!
Why aint AL Beeb reporting this!
Mailman
So the BBC reports that “both Presedential candidate’s are cutting short their campaigns….”
Er didn’t the BBC suggest McCain was being cynical when he did this last week, whilst the sainted one kept his distance and just said “Call me if you need me”
Now which candidate is being Presidential?
Look what happened when the left got their way in Vietnam and had America pull out – the South was overrun with communist bastards and hundreds of thousands took to rafts and boats to escape, while hundreds of thousands more were brutalized and sent to “reeducation camps”.
None of this made any impression on the left at all, because of course communism is a “good idea” and you “don’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.”
Then of course Pol Pot did his communist maniac number next door. Not that the Beeb will ever say he was a Commie.
One for our American friends:
From True Conservative
BBC bias on America – index of banned books
I listened to the AM slot 9-9.45, 22nd September, to hear a discussion about the United States, which concentrated on America’s Achilles heel, race. It was inspired by the current presidential race and the issues separating the candidates – but don’t expect to hear both sides of the story. Moderated by Justin Webb, leftist America correspondent for the BBC, the world’s premier left-wing News organisation (funded by the British Taxpayer, but never mind), had invited onto the programme as guests three Americans: a socialist sympathiser, a woman called Castillo and Sidney Shelby, who was black. For much of the programme there was the usual unanimity of opinion between the participants, all of whom seemed to have been invited on in order to be critical of the United States, its institutions and its history. In fact, the tone of the debate was unremittingly negative, concentrating on Racism and exploitation, the exception being the occasional comment from the African American Shelby, such as that the US eventually got round to facing these issues and deserved some credit for having faced them, unlike other countries.
Sounds about right.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/161736
I’m surprised that story is not getting more press. See how racist, how cowardly? How the KKK is alive and well?
Give me a break. The note said, “Act Six Reject”. In other words, he got his education opportunity for being black, and botched it. This is almost a brilliant sarcasm, in my oppinion, though it will never be seen as such. Obama has not grown much passed the tree-hanging phase, still hollaring “racism!” Using the race card at every opportunity.
One student, a recipient of Act Six, said, “Obviously it was against Sen. Obama, and it brought back a lot of horrible racial connotations with the fact that he was hanging from his neck in a tree.”
No duh. Just as he hopes to conjure, in order to recieve the guilt vote, and thus the wit: he is in reality a reject of the purpose of the program.
Which, by the way, has a quota for colleges that reverse discriminate – white males are rejected.
I can’t believe the media asked, “What’s the motive?” They can’t even see it, poor blighters. As one of the posters said, Effigys are burnt all over the world, why is this guy in effigy off limits?
Because of white guilt, and the Great Reject playing off that guilt, that’s why.
That last post seems off topic but is in relation to Jonathon Boyd Hunt’s post, also, in contrast to what we know is true of the evolution of tolerance, given that Obama runs for president at all, and what the media personalities wish to portray. It’s almost like they are telling bedtime stories, to lull us into fantasies, such as we are still in the 1960’s.
Why is it irresponsible for John McCain to say we’re winning in Iraq? That’s the general consensus of military analysts.
Are Beeboids now Opponents of the Consensus?
Looks like McCain is going against the BBC narrative, anyway.
I see the Gallup dail ytracking poll shows Obama back to a 4 point lead, down from 8.
I notice the BBC don’t mention that Obama has been going backwards in the polls again.
Perhaps something to do with him going missing over the last few days, just when America needed ‘leadership’
Biden talking more bollocks. Need I even bother to see if wanker Webb has blogged about it?
___________________________________________
He told the National Guard Association: “If you want to know where al Qaeda lives, you want to know where Bin Laden is, come back to Afghanistan with me. Come back to the area where my helicopter was forced down, with a three-star general and three senators at 10,500 feet in the middle of those mountains. I can tell you where they are.” .
But the reality of the incident was different. Bad weather forced his helicopter to land, and while American jets kept watch overhead, a land transport team was sent to retrieve him and his party.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1065668/Biden-accused-distorting-war-stories-Iraq-Afghanistan-make-dramatic.html
“…wanker Webb…”
Martin. Now now…
“America is often portrayed as an ignorant, unsophisticated sort of place, full of bible bashers and ruled to a dangerous extent by trashy television, superstition and religious bigotry, a place lacking in respect for evidence based knowledge. I know that is how it is portrayed because I have done my bit to paint that picture…” BBC’s Washington correspondent Justin Webb, in a remarkably frank admission of his role in misinforming the British public about America and Americans…
He’s only human, afterall….
http://theamericanexpatinuk.blogspot.com/2006/01/justin-webb-apologizes-for-offending.html
I knew the surge was working as soon as the BBC stopped reporting bad news from Iraq 24/7 and moved on to all the bad news it could find in Afghanistan.
“…everything would be fine if only the Americans behaved better.”
You old Snarky Justin!! and Martin called you a w…..
betyangelo: Our friend wanker Webb.
“…Possibly a little too warmly. But what I was trying to do • and I would say this in mitigation • is puncture an atmosphere which developed,I thought, during this broadcast and which I think does occasionally develop on the BBC, and on other broadcasting outlets, where there is a kind of cosy feeling that somehow if only America would behave differently, then everything in the world would be fine. I think that is a view which does annoy and upset Americans, as I said it did. And it’s not just the White House – it is a broader thing than that – and also a view which is, to put it mildly, open to challenge, and that’s what I hoped to do, so to the extent that I upset people, I do apologize for that and I would ask them to listen to the range of work that I do, because America is such an important place I am on the radio pretty much every day, and I don’t think they could generally accuse me of being someone who is pro-American. In fact, most of the work that I do, frankly, is sceptical, certainly about the Bush administration and, to a wider extent, about American policies and motives…”
http://theamericanexpatinuk.blogspot.com/2006/01/justin-webb-apologizes-for-offending.html
“…And God forbid I should be pro-American. In fact, most of the work I do, frankly, is meant to disparage and cause anxiety and a general sense of mistrust and doom, and though I may seem a bit skeptical of anything slightly resembling honor, integrity, and higher conscience, let it be known that to my credit my journalistic skeptisism extends well into the territory of bestial Colonial, er, American policies and motives of whom we all realize are the worst sort of mongrel…”