I found it telling that the Taliban chose the BBC as its propaganda conduit to declare it sees no reason to talk to NATO. John Simpson, that doyen of fairness and impartiality, was the point man in this exercise, and as he gushes the Taliban believe they are winning the war so why bother talking? What annoys me most about this is not the way in which Simpson and the rest of the BBC rush to broadcast Taliban propaganda (That’s par for the course) but rather the impact this sort of story has on the families of those brave men and women serving their country in Afghanistan. It’s the drip drip drip of BBC manufactured defeatism that so enrages me. Fighting the savages in the Taliban is one thing but countering the PR the BBC afford them is quite another. From where I sit, the BBC are the enemy within and every time our military goes into action the BBC will not be far behind them, undermining their every action.
TALK TO THE TALIBAN
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The Anti-British Broadcasting Corporation.
Contrast with the way the BBC would react if NATO said it was winning. Support for the Taliban is actually very small in Afghanistan 9according to polls), but you would never know this from what the BBC say.
On a different note, here Peter Whittle makes the same point many of us have made here:
http://www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/3204
This type of thing was evident in Woman’s Hour a couple of weeks ago with their “Balloon game”, where Margaret Thatcher was thrown out first to the cheers of a seemingly unanimous audience.
AS wrote:
“Support for the Taliban is actually very small in Afghanistan 9according to polls), but you would never know this from what the BBC say.”
Did you read the BBC piece this thread is concerning?
Firstly, it was clear from the report that the BBC had initiated this line of communication. However, the Talibanin Afghanistan has always had an open line to many many media organisations including the BBC and AlJazeera.
Secondly, I think the report did make it clear that the statement was at least in some part a propaganda exercise, and clearly explained the strategy the Taliban are employing here. This is an attempt to convince the Afghan people that it is winning and thereby disuade them from helping the NATO allies for fear of retribution. The article also raised the fact that this had been a successful tactic employed against the previous more moderate government in 1996.
Where I take issue with the report, is that there was no balancing statement from any NATO commander which might offset the Taliban claim or at least give some allied perspective upon it.
William Hague was interviewed on the subject of Afghanistan, and I feel that if there is any complaint to be had it was in the conduct of that interview and how the Taliban line was pushed at him as if it had more credence than even Simpson had afforded it. Also there was a snide remark about countries in positions of economic strength which in the BBC’s terms we must ‘suck up to’ which made my blood boil and I’m disturbed that Hague didn’t jump on it very strongly.
I am afraid Hague has gone down in my estimation since his appalling knee-jerk condemnation of Israel after the flotilla incident. It is a disappointment as he has so many good qualities.
DV
You of all people should be aware of the sense of the Taliban position (although, like all such statements, it shouldn’t necessarily be taken at face value). The IRA only agreed to have serious talks with the UK government when it was obvious it (the IRA) had lost the military war. At that time – and ever since – the BBC has been cheerleading the “peace process” even when it entails known and unapologetic murderers taking positions at the top of the NI administration. Accordingly, when the Taliban – using the transmission belt of anti-British propaganda, the BBC – ask why they should negotiate when they’re winning no-one is allowed near a BBC microphone to state the obvious: the obvious being that if a terrorist organisation (IRA or Taliban) is winning there is no incentive for them to enter into negotiations which imply a compromise end to hostilities. On the contrary, if the terrorists are within sight of gaining their objectives by existing means it defeats common sense for them to end their campaign.
In the case of NI the IRA got almost all they were fighting (and losing) for and are now laughing all the way to the financial and political bank. Given a more resolute political class in Britain (and in the absence of a DUP desperate for power, money and the easy life), Adams and McGuinness would still be on the run, being hunted down like the vermin they are. Such a view would never find the light of day at the BBC which is complicit in the sell-out to terrorism in NI.
About Afghanistan, the BBC, I would guess, is in two minds. On one side they thirst to see the British Army humiliated. However, on the other, humiliation for the Afghan campaign would damage St Barry. The subtle “middle way” is to keep chipping away at support for the Army (and the intelligence services) by, for instance, dragging up poster-boy Binyam at every opportunity. The future inquiry into allegations of complicity in torture by MI5 (6?) suits the BBC down to the ground. Whatever the outcome, such an inquiry will weaken British resolve in (and divert British intelligence resources from) the fight against terrorism – particularly Islam-inspired terrorism – here or abroad.
Blair legitimised 30 years of PIRA terrorism. If he’d insisted on PIRA/Sinn Fein complying with the terms of the Belfast Agreement in not releasing any of its terrorist prisoners till they started decommissioning, PIRA/SF wouldn’t have reversed the support the SDLP once had. The SDLP have only themselves to blame for this for getting suckered into the PIRA/SF web and acting as apoplectic as Republican terrorists over insistence on no terrorist releases without decommissioning. The depth of SDLP stupidity and complicity in aiding and abetting the political wing of terrorism is beyond staggering.
With regards to your comments on the BBC contribution to the War against [Islamic] Terrorism on behalf of the enemy, I really dont see Simpson as being part of that, despite the odd asinine statement here and there, that one guesses is designed as a sop to the evil loonies he works with.
bbcpolitics The Taliban in Afghanistan tell the BBC they will not enter into any kind of negotiations with Nato forces.http://bit.ly/bDjx2w
My first thought was, by what means?
Whatever the news gathering & presenting background to this, I found Mr. Simpson’s complementary ‘Taliban calling’ radio slot rather keen on the ‘We’re winning! You’re all doomed. Give up now!’ that might have erred in a propaganda sense to the other side of objectivity to one might have presumed from the BRitish state national broadcaster.
BBC_WHYS New blog post: Is the Taliban winning ?http://bit.ly/aec0kg
Nothing like attacking on several fronts, mind.
Nifty question from the ‘opinion on reporting from news we’ve created in the first place files’.
Next: ‘Why are we according any respect to a nihilistic bunch who are for nothing and against everything (making negotiation a daft ploy* that merely provides much need PR and morale boosts in some quarters)?’
*Granted, the politico-military establishment don’t seem to have grasped the ‘to the death’ honey, virgins, gig too well either.
The only thing the Taliban are winning is the PR war. With a little help from their friends at the BBC.
Aunty Doolittlegood (good name for Messrs Simposn, Bowen, et al) – Feel free to improve
‘If we could talk to the Taliban, just imagine it
Chatting with an AK 47, weee!
Imagine talking to a (Tamil) Tiger, chatting to a Fatah
What a neat achievement that would be.
If we could talk to the Taliban, learn their languages
Maybe take a Taliban degree.
We’d study suicide and kidnap, aid convoy and tunnels, Katushyas, beheadings, and fleas.
We would converse in polar bear [for Richard, Roger & David, especially, a sidebar] and python,
And we could curse in fluent Arabic too.
If people asked us, can you speak all PRoposterous,
We’d say, “Of courserous, can’t you?”
If we could talk to the Taliban, learn their soft sides
Think of all the things we could discuss
If we could walk with the Taliban, talk with the Talban,
Grunt and squeak and squawk with the Taliban,
And they could squeak and squawk and speak and talk and fax and email news… to us.
Would that be the very same John Simpson who on his white-washing for Islamic terrorists spot a few years back referred to the London transport bombers as “Misguided criminals.
I wonder of these idiots in Germany work for the bBC.
Err that should read If and not of.
On the subject of Afghanistan did anybody bare witness to the bBC news at 11.15. Blond haired women beige suit brings in bBC defense expert and both laugh at the sacking of McChrystal, it wasn’t even disguised. Anybody getting watching them would have garnered the impression that the bBC supports Islamic terrorism.
They are still predominantly a Pashtu faction, and when they were in power they caused much anger by imposing Pashtu cultural norms on the complex and varied peoples of Afghanistan.
There’s one Pasthun “cultural norm” that Simpson forgot to tell you about.
In Pakistan, sex between men is strictly forbidden by law and religion. But even in the most conservative regions, it’s also embedded in the society.
Except the Taliban tried to suppress this, not spread it around. But most Afghan men seem to engage in homosexual acts, some of which might be offensive to us, but not to certain BBC employees:
Former soldier still fights to protect Afghan boys from abuse
But the former corporal says the assault is just the tip of an iceberg and underneath lies the systemic sexual abuse of boys at the hands of Afghanistan’s police and army. It’s a practice, he says, the Canadian Forces has turned a blind eye to.
“It’s disgusting,” said Schouten, now retired after eight years in the military. “We’re telling people that we’re trying to build a nation there and we let this happen?”
It’s strange, but one would think that the diverse and open-minded and liberal and tolerant BBC would be at the forefront of quality reporting on a homosexual society. In case any Beeboids are reading, here’s some more information you might want to report to the license-fee payers.
Shh, It’s and Open Secret: Warlords and Pedophilia
Gay Afghanistan, After the Taliban, Homosexuality as Tradition
Come on, intrepid BBC journalists. Do your job. What are you afraid of? Why hide this from the public? The BBC has no problem reporting on child abuse and homosexuality in the Catholic Church and internet child porn raids.
Why so shy, BBC? Is there some concern about appearing to undermine the war effort, perhaps?
The BBC has been reporting all morning that the Taliban actually don’t want to talk to us because they think they’re winning. Well, all I can say is: What did we expect? Reasons for this that the BBC isn’t talking about because today’s theme is “concern” and they all have their frowny faces on:
Endless media reports that we’re losing, that it’s a disaster. Years of media morons wheeling out Northern Ireland as some example of how to handle it (i.e. put the armed killers in charge and call it a peace process). Endless streams of celebutards and dopey anti-this war activists screaming that we should get out now. Endless streams of moronic politicians demanding a withdrawl deadline.
This is called snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. And the BBC is loving it.
John Simpson is one of the more amusing “icons” of the BBC, notable mainly by his vanity (which is almost as vast as his ever-expanding guts). It was, after all, the elephantine Mr Simpson who “liberated Iraq”. And every tedious report he delivers has some egotistical reference.
But this latest anti-British report is remarkable in another way. It transpires that “Fatty” Simpson never actually met the person he’s “interviewing”. All communications was done via an intermediary who, in all probability, knows what the stinking BBC is about and what they will and will not report.
So what we have is a dubious, unverifiable interview that serves 2 of the BBC’s principal objectives: 1) weaken the west and esp the UK, and 2) promote that fat slob Simpson.
Yup, the vile BBC at its best.
I just saw Simpson’s video report. He said the the Taliban currently “seem to have the upper hand”. Is this a joke? What city do they control? What military bases have they overtaken? What major victory have they had lately over Afghan army forces? What evidence is there at all that the Taliban are in any position except hiding in caves and hanging out in Pakistan?
Roadside bombs and sniper kills do not count as major military victories, and do not count as having the upper hand in a war for an entire country. Sure, Gen. Petraeus has expressed his concern, blah, blah, blah. But that’s all just political posturing, trying to scare up more support and playing on people’s fears. It shows that the bar for success has been set so high by the anti-this war media (in the US as well as UK) that even one soldier dying means that the war has been lost. This isn’t intelligent or useful or even realistic criteria by which to judge a military conflict.
What Simpson is doing – and the BBC has been pushing for ages – isn’t journalism or accurate analysis of the war in Afghanistan. It’s emotion-based reporting, done by children, for children.
Where has the fibre of this country gone?
Once this sort of parroting on behalf of the enemy (for that is what they are) by quisling like Al Beeb would have been considered treason, look what happened to Lord Haw Haw.
This is the same BBC whose report on British plans in the Falklands allowed the Argentinians to plan their attack and kill “H”.
Now the BBC is reporting that the actual plan is the same one we’ve heard before: it’s not talking to the Taliban, but rather trying to peel off the non-ideological fighters who were just doing it for money and/or siding with whom they felt was the strong horse, while still increasing the attacks on the actual hardcore Taliban.
If that’s the case – and of course it actually is – what the hell is all the rest of this noise about? Total crap made-up story to get a dig at the Tory Government and push the BBC’s “We Lost! Get us out!” Narrative, I think.
Personally I have very little problem with the piece. Simpson wrote:
“The Taliban are still deeply unpopular in many parts of the country.
Memories are still vivid of the brutal and extreme way they governed from 1996 to 2001.
They, together with their supporters, certainly do not represent anything near a majority of the Afghan people”
Also, he quotes this from the Taliban spokesman:
“We are certain that we are winning. Why should we talk if we have the upper hand, and the foreign troops are considering withdrawal, and there are differences in the ranks of our enemies?”
There was a time one would automatically expect an MP to frame a question in the House around this statement on the PM’s wisdom in declaring withdrawal plans before victory is won. They would raise points on the basis of the BBC report like ‘isn’t the Prime Minister at risk of making the sacrifice of British servicemen futile by talking of withdrawal instead of using all means at our disposal to ruthlessly lay the enemy low?’.
While Simpson’s inference that the tremendous turnaround in Iraq by Patreus to achieve victory was actually disguising defeat cannot fail but jar (typical arch BBC stupidity believing its clever), overall, I think the piece can be put to very good use in helping to do what it takes to defeat the Taliban.
One should not take the Taliban’s refusal to negotiate at face value. Refusal to negotiate is not necessarily a sign of strength. It is also rational for a determined enemy to refuse to negotiate from a position of weakness, especially if he is prepared for a long war. The Lord Haw-Haw BBC do not seem to consider this possibility.
Colombia and its various Marxist fractions are a classic case: ten years ago or so they were very willing to negotiate with the government as they felt that they could do so from a position of military strength. Then the government fought back and weakened the guerrillas, the guerrillas retreated back into the jungle and mountains and they became unwilling to negotiate as the government held the advantage.