Monthly Archives: February 2010

Justifying Jihad?

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I only had half an eye on Peter Taylor’s Generation Jihad last night – and also, until I noticed it on the website, I didn’t realise it was only part one of a series of three. So my impression that he was more sympathetic to his Jihadi interviewees than strictly necessary may be premature. He may have been coaxing them into letting their fanaticism speak for itself. But this episode strove to convince us that Islamist extremism wasn’t the real Islam, but as chalk to ‘moderate’ Islam’s cheese.
I was horrified to see him perpetuating the discredited tale of the Al Durah shooting at the hands of the Israelis, when the veracity of that has been exposed, at the very least, as dubious.

If Peter Taylor is sufficiently ignorant about the controversy surrounding that case to use it to illustrate justification for Jihad how does that make the rest of his programme look?

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THE ENEMY WITHIN..

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Did you read that the head of Britain’s special forces has been trying to stop the publication of a book by a senior BBC journalist which describes in “tactical detail” operations carried out by the SAS in Iraq from 2003 to 2009?

The major-general, who cannot be identified for security reasons, is concerned about the impact of Task Force Black on the elite regiment’s operational effectiveness because of the contents, which are understood to be based on interviews with members and former members of the SAS. Negotiations with lawyers representing the book’s author, Mark Urban, Newsnight’s diplomatic and defence editor, and the Ministry of Defence, have been going on for months, and a compromise had been reached.

I suggest that the BBC’s visceral hatred of our military – and our Special Forces in particular – drives this sort of project and even though the publication of this book may result in future deaths of OUR soldiers, I am sure Newsnight’s Urban has no such worries. 

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WHEN A DEBATE IS NOT A DEBATE

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The BBC allows all shades of opinion, from A to B! With our first past the post system no longer looking so good for Labour, time for the Today programme to have a debate on alternatives. So, around 7.51am this morning bring on Hillary Benn and Chris Huhne to cover the topic – what could be more balanced than that? All shades of political opinion…!

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ALI DIZAEI…BBC ICON

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The newspapers are well-and truly laying into jailed Met Commander Ali Dizaei this morning; it seems that the world and his wife knew about his corruption and his bullying, but the Met sought to cover it up as best they could because they feared his chants of racism – and shared his ‘equality’ agenda. So of course did the BBC. They disgracefully made his pack-of-porkies autobiography Not One of Us Radio 4’s book of the week when it was published, despite its lack of obvious literary flair (to put it mildly!); and then there’s this gem of an interview by Andrew Marr soon afterwards. Here’s a small extract of the gut-wrenching exchange to illustrate how avid Marr and his cronies are to hear and air such claims:

ANDREW MARR: Just to be clear, you’re saying that the police are still institutionally racist?

ALI DIZAEI: Yes they are. We are less institutionally racist than ten years ago. Have we got a clean bill of health? No. Is it within our grasp? Possibly. And I think the reason this is very important, and I think politicians ought to really take this very seriously, because there is direct correlation in the way the police service looks in terms of this composition, and the way we deliver a service to our community.

ANDREW MARR: You have become Commander at the fifth attempt, which of itself suggests that you are abnormally tough and determined to keep going when other people might have given up long ago. Was it frankly humiliating to have to do, go through that process five times…

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BOILING SEAS …

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This morning, I was intrigued by a new posting on the BBC website which said that “endemic” seals are leaving the Galapagos islands for a new island 1,500 kms away where temperatures are said to have risen as a result of climate change by a whopping 6 degrees Centigrade in 10 years. Such a rise could, of course, could be the result of localised warming due to volcanic activity, but the report is very definite in asserting that it’s because of climate change. On my calculations (the current temperature has reached 23 degrees), that means that we are heading for 100 degrees seas by 2110 or so. Boiling seas? That’s beyond even the wildest claims of the IPCC.

So I started checking out the writer, Dan Collyns. It turns out that he works for GRNLive, a worldwide agency supplying reports from radio correspondents to broadcasters around the world, including the BBC World Service. GRN is run by a chap called Henry Peirse, and guess what? He’s a climate change fanatic. Yet another. Mr Peirse says he is is proud to support, for example, the Earth Journalism Awards, which this year took place at the failed Copenhagen climate summit. I quote from their press release:

Nobel Peace Prize winner Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri and Internews, the international media development organization, celebrated the best in climate change reporting at the Internews Earth Journalism Awards in Copenhagen.

Among the presenters were key figures on climate and environmental issues, including Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland; Marina Silva, the former environment minister of Brazil; and award-winning Chinese movie star Li Bingbing, who is also the Global Ambassador for WWF’s Earth Hour.

“If we are to have any hope of reversing the effects of climate change, then we have a monumental task of educating the six billion people on our planet about how climate change works and what they can do to help,” Dr. Pachauri said. “The media is critical in this effort, since just one reporter has the ability to reach thousands, even millions, of people. These awards help to expand and honour these vitally important efforts.”

So, wherever you look, have no fear. There’s a Pachauri connection and a climate change activist supplying the BBC with a constant diet of the propagand it craves, no matter how nonsensical. Even from the Galapagos Islands, making predictions of boiling seas. And he’s supported in his efforts by none other than Li Bingbing. I kid you not.

Update: The BBC website now has this at the end of the item:

Correction 8 February: An earlier version of this story had the species incorrectly as sea lion – lobos marinos. The mammal in question is fur seal – lobos marinos finos. The measurements of average sea temperatures were taken by the Peruvian Geophysics Institute, and should not have been attributed to Orca as in the earlier version. The earlier version had a reference to the temperature rise being caused by climate change. This has been removed as the relevant research is still in its early stages.

In other words, the whole story was a pile of garbage. As B-BBC readers have pointed out, the reason why such animals “migrate” may be nothing whatsoever to do with climate change. The saga confirms what I have long suspected – any scare will do so long as it contains the magic phrase. Or, never let the facts get in the way of a good climate panic story.

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YEO KNOW WHEN YOU’RE BEING CONNED!

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C.I.N.O. Tim Yeo was given an interruption free outing on Today this morning 7.12am as he was allowed to waffle on about the EU Carbon emission trading scam. Yeo reckons the price of carbon is just too low to make this scheme work effectively and he was given free rein to pontificate on this scam. No tough questions for Yeo! It would have been nice had the BBC chosen to ask Yeo about the corruption that distinguishes this Carbon Trading system but then again I suppose that would require balance, something which is forbidden by the BBC.

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JOHN BROWNE’S BODY LIES….

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Anyone catch Naughtie’s swooning interview with former BP boss John Browne this morning? Browne is that rare beast – a corporatist that the BBC loves. Why do they love him? Because he came out and admitted he was gay. This simpering 6 minute interview was all about Browne’s gayness and how tough it was for him in that macho Oil world. But cheer up, Browne has a new “partner” and all is now well. I wonder if lying heterosexual corporatists will get the same easy ride from the BBC?

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BLAIR’S FRANKENSTEIN MONSTER

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This is a guest post by Hippiepooter.

One cannot be without sympathy for the upset Alastair Campbell suffered in his interview with Andrew Marr today, both on a human level and as a staunch supporter of the Iraq war myself, but as a committed democrat one does feel the need to state that he and Tony Blair dragged British politics through the mud in coopting the already biased BBC as a propaganda weapon and are now victims of the monster they created.

As a youthful Tribunite member of the Labour Party in the late 70’s it was clear to me that the only real bias at the BBC was towards the Left, and I was against it as it was bad for democracy. When Tony Blair assumed leadership of the Labour Party, this bias went into overdrive. It was patently evident to anyone semi-politically literate that pre ’97 Tony Blair’s office was running an anti-Tory smear campaign in concert with the BBC to get elected, and once elected proceeded to govern with the same appalling contempt for democracy. Mr Campbell certainly wasn’t complaining when Mr Marr in both his Observer and BBC incarnations was doing New Labour’s dirty work traducing the integrity of the Conservative Party in the same manner that he has traduced his own and Mr Blair’s over Iraq.

What our former Prime Minister Mr Blair showed, to me at least, over the Iraq War, is that his heart was in the right place all along. He is, despite all his manifest shortcomings in attaining and retaining power, a personal hero. The Iraq War was just that critical. But if one’s ego is large enough to believe that the means he used via Mr Campbell to attain power were justified, sympathy for their vilification over Iraq has to be qualified. As it is, many of the moral bankrupts who he’d previously exploited to his advantage and who are now vilifying him would be calling for Mr Blair to be strung up for not going to war if we had to suffer the consequences of that today. Saddam could restart his WMD programme at any moment of his choosing. He had given Al Qa’eda leader Al Zarqawi refuge after fleeing Afghanistan. Had we stood down from the threat of war to enforce compliance of UN arms inspection, the marriage between WMD’s and terrorists that Blair feared would have become a reality, with all the apocalyptic consequences that carries.

We dont need another Iraq inquiry into Tony Blair’s decision making. What we need is an Iraq Inquiry into how the BBC acts as a propaganda weapon for the enemy at time of war.

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STILL SEARCHING FOR HOPE AND CHANGE…

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Have you read Mark Mardell’s latest love message to Obama – and just before Valentine’s! Mardell opines on The One’s most recent teleprompter recital which contains “solid economic measures” and in words which were “striking”. Mardell goes on to allege that Obama was “daring the GOP to vote against potentially popular measures such as curbing lobbyists, promoting new jobs and toughening banking rules.” Pity that under Obama lobbyists are even more to the fore and entrenched, jobs have hemorrhaged and $$$billions have been lavished on the banks. Still, never let the facts get in the way of a good story, right Mark?

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