Abu Ghraid is SO 2004. It’s 2009 and time for a new onslaught on US forces abroad and so the BBC is heading Today this morning with an item which promises “uncovered allegations of abuse the US-run Bagram military base in Afghanistan. Correspondent Ian Pannell reports on former inmates’ claims that they were beaten, deprived of sleep, threatened with dogs and hung from the ceiling.” I understand the American military eat their own babies too. As a propagandising arm for the Taliban, you just can’t beat the BBC. Every captured Jihadist knows the form by now; Allege the most hideous crimes of torture and humiliation against US armed forces and a BBC reporter wanting to believe such pigswill will appear, microphone in hand, prepared to provide an echo chamber for the enemy.
LEADING THE JIHAD
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I heaved a heavy sigh as I heard the BBC launch the latest in its series of items designed to undermine any positive outcomes in Afghanistan.
Of course prisoner abuse is serious and important, but in a country like Afghanistan, where the barbarity of the Taliban takes some beating, is it really necessary for the BBC to infrom us that prisoners at Bagram "had to stand for long periods"? I had to do that on the train this morning.
P.S. Anyone noticed that the BBC invariably refer to The One as "President Obama", whereas they invariably referred to Dubya as "George W Bush"?
We were informed after the Today article this morning that we could hear more on the 10 O'clock News tonight. Oh goody.
Why is there never so much as a suggestion that accusations of torture and mistreatment might just be one of the first tactics that members of Al Qaeda and the Taleban are taught to use? It seems to be an article of faith that these guys are all telling the truth.
BBC denigrates Western actions in Afghanistan, but is politically sympathetic (e.g. BBC Lyse Doucet's infamous words uttered at the Edinburgh Festival re- the 'humanity of the Taliban'), about the widespead death and destruction casused by Islamic jihadists there.
And with reference to Afghanistan, the BBC appears to have a black-out on the coverage of the Islamic jihad activities of some 'British' Muslims in killing British troops there, e.g.:
'Mail':
"Killed, a 'Brummie' Taliban fighter with an Aston Villa tattoo"
[Extract]:
"Allied troops fighting in Afghanistan have long suspected that their Taliban opponents include British-born Muslims.
"Thick Midlands and Mancunian accents have been picked up from enemy radio signals in the war zone.
"But now there is fresh evidence that some of the Taliban were raised in the UK with the revelation that one fighter killed in a battle had an Aston Villa football club tattoo on his body.
"A military source said: 'It was a shock to hear that the guys we were fighting against supported the same football clubs as us, and maybe even grew up on the same streets as us.'"
This anti-US item also led the 8 am Breakfast news on BBC1. I switched over to ITV in disgust who led with a story about delinquent primary school children & then to Sky who led with Iran.
Anyway, I'm off to the BBC's pariah state today for a welcome break from all this (Israel) &, by the way, the "occupation" is biting so hard that they're opening luxury shopping centres in the West Bank – not that you'd know about it from listening to the BBC:
Hirbawi Home Center, a new luxury establishment has opened on the outskirts of Jenin.The five-story building cost $5 million to build and it is filled with deluxe, foreign-made products seen mostly in the pages of newspaper supplements. This shopping opportunity is intended to interest the upper crust of Jenin, and the profit forecasts for the project have been so favourable the owner plans to open four more shops in the West Bank and one in Jordan.
The next city to enjoy a Hirbawi Home Center is Ramallah, where one is already in partial operation; then Hebron, Tul Karem and Nablus. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094441.html
From the article on BBC News website:
"These revelations come at a time when Mr Obama is trying to re-set Washington's relationship with the Muslim world and trying harder than ever to win the war in Afghanistan.
It is a controversy that threatens to damage the image of the new administration in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. "
How thoughtful of the BBC to point this out.
This is the thing…Al Beebs focus should not be on scoops. their sole focus should be on getting the truth out, so if that means letting ITV or SkyNews or ace.mu.nu breaking a story, then so be it because Al Beeb doesnt need the revenue generated by such things.
Then again, as we have seen time and time again in regards to Israel, Al Beeb is hardly interested in the truth.
Mailman
This has all the hallmarks of an al-Bebeceera top news item:
Token Amnesty/HRW Drone? Check.
Anti-American? Check.
Muslim Sympathisers? Check.
Anti-Military? Check.
Undermining serious Counter-terrorism efforts ? Check.
Positive Barry Hussein hat-tip? Check.
Philip
Good post – I love these checklists of BBC's bias themes.
……………..
Ronald Deschain
I had mentioned on another post that accusing the captors of torture and maltreatment is part of Al Qaeda training – it is actually in their training manual ! Which of course the BBC never mentions.
And their headlines were saying that the BBC had "discovered" these alleged abuses. Rubbish. Some anti-American terrorist-supporting lawyers or Human Rights spongers took the "story" to the BBC.
It is ridiculous and a sure sign of bias that BBC editors saw fit to make this the main headline in BBC newscasts this morning and at the BBC website.
For most of the audience, it is anyway one big yawn – who gives a flying ferret about prisoners in Bagram ? But not for the Bash-Bush obsessives at the BBC.
If one person was harmed, the entire operation can be discredited. Simple as that.
Is the BBC implying that the Taleban are ignorant barbarians, so we can't expect decent standards from them, but the British and Americans are civilsed people so we expect better ?
If so, that is a kind of bias in itself.
Grant,
That's the soft racism of lower expectations.
re "President Obama" –
I can't recall how the BBC referred to Bush, but since there are many presidents in the world, and Obama isn't the President of the UK (yet), he should be introduced by the BRITISH (not 'Barack') Broadcasting Corporation as 'the US President Barack Obama', similar to 'the French President Nicolas Sarkozy' etc.
libertus
"Abu Ghraib", I think, not "Abu Ghraid".
And to the more important point: It is simply astonishing how eager the BBC and our "mainstream" journalists are to spread enemy propaganda, and even to create it, from time to time. (And how indifferent they are to enemy atrocities.)
Wait until we find out who the lawyers are behind these people making "allegations" Clive Stafford Smith anyone? (Not heard a lot about Binyam recently) Other possibles: Michael Mansfield, Imran Khan (not cricket), Louise Christian, Gareth Pierce, one of the Matrix set? Or perhaps a new terrorist-lover looking to make a name for themselves.
I saw a web page comparing one by one the "worst" of the alleged maltratments with the worst of what Al Q dish out.
Chalk and cheese, of course. But the BBC never mentions the evils of Al Q torture methods.
Speaking of the Taliban, here's a little information and a sober appraisal of the situation in Pakistan which you will not hear from the BBC:
Taliban Turns On Terrorism
In Pakistan, Taliban leaders are suddenly trying to distance themselves from the growing number of terrorist attacks. The Taliban, and some politicians, now insist that these atrocities have nothing to do with Islam. This is an attempt by the Taliban to recover some of their popularity. The terrorist attacks, plus the earlier atrocities (especially against women) committed by the Taliban in the tribal territories, has really turned the country against them. This, the Taliban did not expect. Some Taliban factions don't care, but the more ambitious Taliban leaders can see where this all leads, and it's not good for the Taliban.
Oh, the humanity.
Senior al Qaeda leaders now openly admit that, if they got their hands on any of Pakistan's nuclear weapons, these would be used for attacks on the United States and the West. Al Qaeda is already much hated in Pakistan, and this announcement does little to change that. This loss of public support by Islamic groups tends to snowball, as with the ways in which the Taliban raises money. The Taliban call their extortion demands a "religious tax," but people realize that the Taliban are also involved in drug smuggling (even though the Taliban condemns drug use) and kidnapping (for ransom). For years, the Taliban were some kind of folk heroes to many Pakistanis. No more, and that's a big loss for the Taliban, perhaps a fatal one.
Not quite what Barbara "Tears" Plett, Lyse "Humanity" Doucet, et al. are telling you, eh?
So this is another BBC investigation into "prisoner abuse" – But ask the question "Why now?" What has made the BBC think lets do an investigation into "prisoner abuse" in Afghanistan?
Maybe because
1. They are gurenteed to get the answers they want.
2. "Militants" in Afghanistan will be falling over themselves to talk to the BBC.
3.It fits their anti-war and anti-west agenda.
4. It takes some of the heat off their beloved Labour Party
5. Its soo easy.
Tis isn't just investigative journalism – This is BBC investigative journalism
Radio 4 is still running the Bagram nonsense among its top headlines.
When they should be focussing wholly on Iran at the moment.
Maybe it is intended as a distraction from Iran. Play Bagram ALLEGATIONS as The West being nasty to Islamists – a counterweight to FACTS about Islamists in Iran being wholly brutal.
Maybe the BBC are following the Obama line on this – as part of an appeasment strategy.
JohnA,
Reminding everyone how EEEEEEE-vuhl Boooooosh was is a way to take the heat off The Obamessiah.
David Preiser
Obama is a total wimp. More importantly – he is wrong-headed in his appeasing policies, America's foes are taking him for the inexperienced and ignorant fool he always was. So increasingly are America's friends.
Nowhere on the BBC have I heard that his strategy of engaging Iran in dialogue and THEREBY stopping their nuclear weapons programme is now dead as a dodo.
So – he is a busted flush on Iran, a busted flush on North Korea, looking like a busted flush on the US economy, debt and taxation. The leader of the West is looking like a 9-day wonder.
…………..
One useful by-product of the violence in Iran is that Obama's policy towards Israel has probably been holed beneath the waterline. He was trying to coerce Israel surrender as a precursor to Iran giving up nuclear weapons. This is now seen even by the half-blind as a total non-sequitur.
But again – there is none of this sort of discussion on the BBC.
There are two different aspects to this issue.
The first is the actual truth as to whether, and how much torture has or has not taken place. ie THE actual TRUTH of the matter, and of course what if anything we the people could do about it, what ever is, or is not going on.
The second is the conduct, and ultimate motives of the people who actually control the BBC on this matter.
After all WHY would the establishments BBC seriously want to show itself, as represented by the ESTABLISHMENTS main armed force, namely the US army, to be cruel and generally out of all forms of democratic control?
Why would The ESTABLISHMENTS BBC clearly wish to be seen to be allied to a particular British political Party, especially one that has manifestly failed and lied, in the most enormous manner imaginable?
The answer is simple.
The establishment wish you to feel exactly as you do in fact feel.
Which is frightened, confused, annoyed, frustrated, and highly exposed to further terrorist attacks. But most of all they wish you to start hating your own country, because they have long since planned to destroy it, and have almost done so.
From the Sunday Telegraph, Jan 2005 (but relevant to the Beeb's onslaught against the US military of today):
This is al-Qa'eda Rule 18:'You must claim you were tortured'
The men's claim that they were tortured at Guantanamo should also be set in the context of the al-Qa'eda training manual discovered during a raid in Manchester a couple of years ago.
Lesson 18 of that manual, whose authenticity has not been questioned, emphatically states, under the heading "Prison and Detention Centres", that, when arrested, members of al-Qa'eda "must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by state security investigators. [They must] complain to the court of mistreatment while in prison".
That is not, of course, proof that the Britons were not tortured in Guantanamo. But it ought to encourage some doubts about uncritically accepting that they were – which seems to be the attitude adopted by most of the media.
JohnA,
The President is no wimp. His thuggish and bullying behavior was quite evident when he forced Bank of America to heel, when He demonized shareholders, and when He shredded US contract law to give Chrysler to Fiat and the unions. But that's stuff he cares about.
He just really isn't that interested in all this foreign policy jazz. He's a radical neo-Marxist activist who cares about tearing down the infrastructure of the US. He spent his entire adult life in a very, very narrow political and philosophical area, and that's all He really cares about or knows.
The rest of this stuff is a distraction, and He's never really thought about any of it before, other than on a shallow, emotional (BBC) level. Whatever happens in Iran has no effect on His ability to nationalize every single industry He can, and redistribute all our wealth to His cronies. So He doesn't give a damn who wins or loses, and His Administration lackeys don't either.
His advisers have been screaming at Him for a week to say something stronger just to please the folks here in the US, not because "the world is witnessing," or because He thinks it might help the oppressed Iranians. This is someone who grew up learning to hate things about the US, not the rest of the world. The mad mullahs shooting their own people doesn't mean anything to Him, because – and stop me if you've heard this one before – nothing is as bad as the tyranny of Boooooosh and evil white Capitalist Rethuglicans. Sure, He has to pretend He really cares now to please the masses and shut up haters like myself, but it's so transparently an act.
The domestic agenda is everything, It's all He cared about as a young man, all He cared about as a "community organizer", and all He cared about in his extremely limited political career. Remember, neither He nor his cronies actually believed that Islamo-fascist terrorists were a real danger to anyone other than a few nasty US soldiers. Once He got elected and they showed Him the real data, He couldn't move fast enough to continue or expand upon all the Bush policies He condemned for months and years before.
He may not give a damn about Iran or Neda or anyone else, but He's no wimp.
Yes, such things shouldn't be covered on the news, that's not what its for.
Great analysis
Anon
This item should not be given such prominence – all day long, when other more important things are happening.
And allegations like this from Al Qaeda people should never be presented without mention – every time – of the FACT that they are trained to allege torture if captured. That way appeasing idiots might get half a clue about reality.