LAH THEY WERE BIASED!
Anyone else catch the abomination that is John Simpson fondly recollecting his travel adventures with Iranian Mad Mullan Ayatollah Khomeini on “Today” earlier this morning? In Simpson’s world-view, the Shah carried primary responsibility for the return to Iran of Khomeini and naturally Jimmy Carter and the French were absolved of any responsibility! From the sounds of the interview, Simpson admired the Ayatollah.
Oh dear, David. I knew you’d write about this. There was no whiff of admiration in Simpson’s recollections. And last night on the 10pm news he finished his piece on the same incident talking of the “terror” and the executions that followed Khomeni’s rise to power. This morning, he explained quite dispassionately how the Shah’s cock-ups led to the remarkable return of Khomeni.
You are blogging out of your backside.
Oh yes, the abomination who single-handedly librated Kabul … and who wrote an enthusiastic foreword to the antisemitic book ‘Golden Bowl of Scorpions’.
mikewineliberal | 31.01.09 – 10:40 am
last night on the 10pm news he finished his piece on the same incident talking of the “terror”
That’s because there was a producer and an editor from the news dept. to remind him what is correct form on these occasions.
Left to himself, Simpson tends to forget about the moral dimension, coming over not just as respectful, but admiring when discussing the hard men of history.
Recently David Preiser and others here noted how JS seemed almost gleeful at the dexterity with which the monster Mugabe had finessed things in Zim. The tone was all wrong.
There may have been less of it this time, but I too felt he might have squeezed in the thought that the Ayatollah had proved something of a mixed blessing at the very least.
What was truly awful this morning was the fulsome thanks to JS from Evan D. Embarrassing.
Nearly Oxfordian | 31.01.09 – 11:51 am
I’ve googled ‘Golden Bowl of Scorpions’ and much else like it, but nothing to do with Simpson comes up.
Is this for real or someone’s idea of a wind-up ref your reputation for having a hair trigger on the anti-semitism front?
mikewineliberal…
Why are you an apologist for the bbc’s blatant bias in all areas.What possible motive have you got…apart from a nice monthly cheque from your employers.You really are a sad little creep!
jeffD | 31.01.09 – 12:51 pm
Heavens, I think you have me there. Debate a bit too tricky for you is it Jeff?
Is this for real or someone’s idea of a wind-up ref your reputation for having a hair trigger on the anti-semitism front
Let’s try again:
HE WROTE THE FOREWORD.
That is unlikely to come up in your links.
I have read the book.
Have you?
Or are you just shooting your mouth off without knowing the first thing about it?
Answers on a postcard.
.
Debate a bit too tricky for you is it Jeff?
This, from the loser who can’t grasp the concept of facts, especially when they undermine his delusions …
OK, the name I quoted was slightly innaccurate, sorry:
http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Basin-Full-Scorpions-Jerusalem/dp/075152364X
Nox – fabulous.8 minutes from ad hominem to apology. Tom must be reeling.
Fact me til I f@rt I say.
Nox – fabulous.8 minutes from ad hominem to apology
Still with the reading comprehension issues, MWL?
The ad hominem came entirely from Tom’s side. He accused me (without the slightest evidence) of inventing this stuff to tarnish Simpson’s name.
I am still waiting for his apology.
I had nothing to apologise for. I simply admitted that I had got the book’s name very slightly wrong – which is hardly a major sin, given that it’s been 7 or 8 years since I read it.
Now I am waiting for your apology also.
.
Nearly Oxfordian
This time you really have gone too far.
To accuse Con Coughlin, of all people, of being an antisemite is grotesque.
Coughlin is one of the most pro-Israel journalists writing in the MSM. He is the Foreign Editor of the Daily Telegraph and frequently appears on the broadcast media to support Israel. His columns are regularly flagged up for recommended reading by BICOM.
Here are just a few of his pieces to get a flavour of the guy’s writings.
The assault on Gaza offers the best hope of peace
There is no excuse for the loss of life, but Israel is right to seek the destruction of Hamas, says Con Coughlin.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/concoughlin/4060748/The-assault-on-Gaza-is-the-best-hope-of-peace.html
Hamas thinks nothing of seeking refuge among the civilian population, knowing that if their better-equipped adversaries accidentally kill or injure innocent civilians while trying to attack Hamas fighters, Israel will receive all the criticism
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/comment-and-opinion/con-coughlin—09-01-2009
While the Israeli military’s immediate focus is to destroy Hamas’s ability to terrorise Israel’s southern border, the military campaign should be seen within the wider context of Israel’s growing resolve to deal with the combined danger of Iran’s continuing support for Islamic terrorist groups and its controversial uranium enrichment programme. The Israeli government sees both of these as direct threats to the country’s existence.
http://www.bicom.org.uk/news/comment-and-opinion/con-coughlin—11-01-2009
Fundamentalists threaten Israel from all sides
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/3640643/Fundamentalists-threaten-Israel-from-all-sides.html
Telegraph Columns page:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/concoughlin/
Since you accuse Coughlin of antisemitism, I am beginning to be a bit suspicious about whether you are really what you claim to be. You pose and the scourge of antisemitism, but someone ruthless and cunning could use that role to become the most antisemitic force at work on this blog if they acted in a way such that five minutes in their company were enough to turn the Righteous Among Gentiles into a gang of Jew-baiters.
I sincerely hope you are just careless, not sinister.
For Heaven’s sake, get a grip.
Nearly Oxfordian | 31.01.09 – 3:55 pm
The ad hominem came entirely from Tom’s side. He accused me (without the slightest evidence) of inventing this stuff to tarnish Simpson’s name. I am still waiting for his apology.
There was no ad hominem stuff. I merely politely asked whether this was a genuine posy by you or whether it was a spoof • a legitimate question since the book title mentioned in your post didn’t come up on Google, and neither did any like it except for a novel by Henry James.
Have you read the book?
No?
Then you are just shooting your mouth off – again.
It contains dozens and dozens of outright lies, historical and geographical, many of them very easy to establish, some only obvious to people who know Jerusalem, others to anyone with access to a good history book; and every single one of them slanted so as to paint the Jews in the worst possible light: latecomers, people who didn’t actually have a nation and polity in Jerusalem for very long at all, people who behaved abominably towards the Arabs who never intended them the slightest harm, and so on.
Why do you insist on posting irrelevant flimflam when you haven’t read the book?
Oh, and I never said CC was an antisemite. I said the book was antisemitic. Get a grip.
a wind-up ref your reputation for having a hair trigger on the anti-semitism front?
And this is not ad hominem? Oh, right, I forgot that to people like you, ‘ad hominem’ is what others say about you, never what you say about others. You referenced my ‘reputation’ – which is a great ‘argument’, and is a totally personal attack on my veracity; in other words, ‘ad hominem’.
Nearly Oxfordian | 31.01.09 – 4:05 pm
Whether you have read the book or not is beside the point.
You clearly misunderstand what you read.
I know that because even in this thread you wilfully misunderstood what I write as reflecting a concern about Simpson’s reputation.
I no longer trust either your judgment in these matters or even your basic comprehension skills.
And anyone who is familiar with Coughlin’s corpus of work over many years will think the same.
Next you’ll be accusing Coughlin’s friend and erstwhile patron Barbara Amiel of being an antisemite.
You clearly misunderstand what you read
You really are one sad specimen. You haven’t read the book, you don’t know what the fuck you are talking about – and yet you come here to lecture to me about its content.
You know nothing about Jerusalem, her geography and history. I do, I have read the book, and I know from first hand knowledge that it is hugely biased against the Jews, incl. many outright lies. And yet some ignorant know-it-all thinks he can tell me, without even reading the book, that I have ‘misunderstood’ it.
What a saddo.
Nearly Oxfordian | 31.01.09 – 4:09 pm
And this is not ad hominem?
No it isn’t.
It was a perfectly civil question.
You know very well that there has been a lot of traffic these past few days on your tendency to accuse people of antisemitism when it is unjustified. e.g. Chuffer.
My reference to this reputation was jolly diplomatic. Others here have used much stronger terms, sometimes involving words like “obnoxious” and “arsehole”.
Oh, and I never said CC was an antisemite. I said the book was antisemitic.
So the Protocols were antisemitic, but the forgers weren’t?
Pure sophistry.
You know nothing about Jerusalem, her geography and history.
I’ve never been to Newmarket either, but I know a horse’s arse when I see one.
Fight! Fight! Fight!…
Reminder for BBC’s Simpson:
“Also sprach Zarathustra” (Hugh Fitzgerald)
[Extract]:
“If you have forgotten what the Ayatollah Khomeini was all about, or his hanging judge Khalkhali, consider that virtually his first act was to reduce the marriageable age of girls to nine (and by now you know why), and to start executing the leaders of the Bahai and Jewish communities. Later on his followers would polish off the naive leftists who had initially thought they could use him, though it turned out to be the other way round; Shahpour Bakhtiar was the most deplorable example. Over twenty-five years of terror, idiocy, and boredom have had one unintended benefit: Islamic rule, at least for those Iranians who think and feel, is beginning to be understood as the problem. There are still those ‘reformers’ who pretend that the problem is not deeply rooted within Islam (i.e., Shirin Ebadi). There are others who allow themselves to believe the same thing, more out of ignorance than calculation: they have never studied what actually has been the treatment of Armenians, Jews, and Zoroastrians ever since the Arabs came to town, bearing as their little gift (in the shape of a Trojan Horse) the mental straitjacket of Islam.”
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/archives/009702.php
At least we know that John Simpson still does some work now again, even if it is only one day every two months.
H
Don’t know what happened there. I was about to write…
How much does he get paid? Probably more than Ross when you break it down to hours worked.
IRAN and BBC mindset:
The influence of the thinking, directly and indirectly, of people like Michel Foucault, on Western political attitudes (archetypically those of the BBC) is dissected here by Ibn Warraq:
‘Apologists of Totalitarianism: From Communism to Islam –
Michel Foucault’ (by Ibn Warraq)
[ Opening extract]:
“Michel Foucault’s uncritical admiration of the Islamists in Iran, from 1978 onwards, revives memories of the great tradition of the intellectuals of the Left who, at first, denied Stalin’s Reign of Terror, and then minimized the atrocities, and finally acknowledged them in private but refused to denounce them in public. Robert Conquest gives the example of Sartre, who thought the evidence for the Stalin’s forced labor camps should be ignored or suppressed in order not to demoralize the French proletariat.”
http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/31136/sec_id/31136
One question which I like to put to the islamo-nutter-leftists on their websites is – how did the Iranian communists get on after Khomeini’s muslims took power? Each time, it’s deleted. Go to Socialist Unity website for some fun.
Well why should one Leftist totalitarian attack an Islamist totalitarian.
They’re both on the same side.
They both believe in the power of the state over the individual.
They both share the view theat the unwashed masses should be ordered around by a benevolent government, and not allowed to do as they wish.
Thus the Green Green alliance.
Simpson, is your average posh Leftist BBC twit. Pompous to the extreem
I haven’t listened to Simpson yet, but I did hear the opening segment with Jon Leyne telling us that this was really Iran’s “war of independence” from US and British interference. Oh, and they aren’t totally happy now about the lack of personal freedom and other trivial things. But really they’re much better off now that they’ve thrown off the yoke of foreign oppression.
The BBC spent the last five years digging up Iraqis who said they preferred life under Sadaam, but I guess life under the Shah (and the boot of the US and the UK, obviously) was worse.
Aside from that, I have to say that Jimmy Carter was only slightly to blame for the rise of the Islamicists in Iran. He shares much of the blame for the resulting hostage situation, but not so much for the revolution. The highly politicized CIA was so busy screwing around in Angola and Latin America, throwing money and training around at everyone who said they’d fight against the Communists that instead of paying attention to the Islamic rumbles, they were spending all their energy on surveillance and spy networks in Iran to prevent an encroachment from the USSR.
In the end, all they did was provide ground for the Iran-Contra affair, Ed Wilson giving explosives and training to Qaddafi, and a nice network of “students” and Islamo-nutters backed by the Soviets.
All of this was well under away before Carter became President. The CIA was doing its own thing; Carter was hopeless at dealing with them and foreign policy. In truth this was mostly instigated under the direction of the head of the CIA from January 1976-January 1977: George H.W. Bush. Barely a year, but he did a lot of damage.
PS: Yes, I think it’s reasonable to assume that Ed Wilson’s training of Qaddafi’s people enabled the Lockerbee bombing, which is pretty sickening.
Please note that I decided not to respond to Tom’s ongoing personal attacks on me.