Nick Cohen wrote: “……….. Jeremy Bowen is blinking at his cameraman in Tripoli, like some startled, uncomprehending mammal who has been shaken by the convulsions around him from a hibernation that has lasted for most of his career.”
He’s still blinking. Caught in the headlights in Tripoli, I think he has suddenly woken up! He’s telling us that the rebels in Libya might not be all they’re cracked up to be. And despite all our efforts, Gaddafi. Aint. Bovvered.
Meanwhile Orla Geurin has gone to the intensive care department of a hospital to emote about civilian casualties inflicted by Gaddafi’s army. I’m always suspicious of broadcasts from hospital wards, especially those direct from intensive care. While the BBC is trying to get us onside in the war against Gaddafi, Bowen is warning us that we should give some consideration to the ‘better the devil you know’ theory.
Now I see that General Lord Dannatt doesn’t think this kind of thing is ‘helpful.’
Just to be clear, I’m ambivalent about our involvement in Libya. But that is neither here nor there. When the BBC is overtly campaigning for something I automatically become suspicious.
Is this really me, or have I metamorphosed into someone else. …. because I’m wondering if Jeremy Bowen has suddenly ‘grown a pair’?
Unexpected Aberration?
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“While the BBC is trying to get us onside in the war against Gaddafi”
I don’t think so: more likely the BBC doesn’t know what line to take. Its knee-jerk anti-British tendency is stalemated by the latest edict from the Saviour of the White House. Rest assured, if Orla was in Tripoli she’d be more than happy to see her journalistic credentials burnished by the sight of a few casualties among the Gaddafi loyalists.
As to Bowen: it’s obvious he has no idea what’s going on and, since he is not being fed his commentary verbatim by Hamas (or its Libyan equivalent), he has nothing to say and might as well be in the studio at White City. He was just as clueless in his “reporting” a few weeks ago from Tahrir Square.
He’s still reporting gossip and the sort of conjecture you might overhear in a bar, but the BBC is concentrating on Gaddafi’s atrocities to justify the policy of ‘regime change’ without exploring the likely outcome. Just as they’ve done with Egypt and their enthusiasm for toppling Mubarak. Now he’s gone, they’ve lost interest. But the rise of the Islamists are still giving cause for concern to others if not to the BBC.
I think Bowen was right to remind us of the ramifications.
The BBC was against it before they were for it. Then The Obamessiah said it was about human rights, so they were for it for a few days. Then they saw the angle to attack Cameron (“NATO is disorganized” is the opening number from the musical “War Is Bad, M’kay?”) and let the reporting slant back into one of a failed effort. Never mind how what Ghaddafi has been doing has only solidified the original reasons for shutting him down, and definitely never mind the defections of officials and pilots and the desperately defiant posing from various offspring.
Orla Guerin’s reporting about innocent causalties is a set-up. Don’t be fooled. It’s only going to be turned into evidence as to how it was the neo-Colonial aggression of Cowboy Dave and Sancho Sarkozy that forced an otherwise easy-going leader to launch artillery barages against his own citizens. He never would have done it if not for those meddling Conservatives, right, BBC?
I noticed Orla Guerlin’s dispatch as the top item on the news at ten last night and was immediately repulsed by it. I guess now the BBC is using wild emotionalism rather than calm rational journalism. Something about her ‘sensitive’ tone (As sensitive as Guerlin’s grating accent can be), the focus on a young child and the use of highly charged language ie the child’s “tiny body” riddled with “turty pieces” of shrapnel (shades of Judas Ischariot?) made me feel emotionally manipulated. As to what the agenda behind this at the BBC I cannot say, but it seems designed to inflame the rebels and thus aids the case of Islamic supremacism.
It’s just a trope of mass-media journalism. They all live for this kind of story, regardless of which side they’re on. The easiest stories are the ones which tell themselves. The real question is: how is this being used to further the BBC’s agenda on the big picture?
It’s either evidence that Cowboy Dave’s war is just, or evidence that his aggression caused something that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. I know which way I think the BBC’s going to play it.
Dear Orla has arrived late. Alex Crawford, Sky News’s version of the ultra concerned & beveiled when necessary female Beeboid reporter, fronted a major Pallywood production from Zawiyah about 3 weeks ago.
No DP, the other way round
It struck me that the consensus on Iraq seemed to be that Tony Blair took us to to war on a lie. Even so, we’re told that many people who opposed that war would not wish Sadaam back, and Iraq is a better place now; but they are less certain of that each time another bomb goes off there.
Should we interfere and try to effect regime change whenever we feel like it? We ignore plenty of other tyrants after all. Now we’ve discovered that Gaddafi is an intolerable tyrant, even though we turned a blind eye to his tyranny last month. So now we are hearing from Human Rights Watch about Gaddafi’s cluster bombs, and it’s our duty to intervene on humanitarian grounds. Orla Geurin is sent for. (“Bring Orla!”) So now we mustn’t undermine the legitimacy of our ‘humanitarian intervention’ by reminding the viewers that we’re not quite sure what is supposed to happen after regime change, which, by the way, is a bit more tricky than we bargained for.
So never mind Jeremy Bowen’s notorious handshake with Gaddafi and the ridiculous Saif and his lavish University shenanigans, Jeremy Bowen is right to remind us that toppling them will not be the end of the story, and if we tolerated them for all that time, perhaps continuing to do so is one alternative to jumping straight from the frying pan into the fire.
Justifying regime change is not the BBC’s job after all, and if Gaddafi is putting up a fight, Jeremy should report that, and not pretend he’s all but beaten, just to bolster David Cameron’s morale.
Naturally I’d like it if Bowen woke up to the reality of Israel’s plight too, and acknowledged the nature of the threat it faces. Maybe this will rattle his cage.
There is a danger that if the allied campaign is successful, Libya might get a Government that isn’t composed of psychopaths intent on annihalating Israel and every Jew that walks the earth. Of course Bowen is giving tacit support to Gaddafi. I heard Bowen interviewed live a few days ago and he referred to Gaddafi as ‘Libya’, then hurriedly corrected himself saying ‘As Gaddafi’s supporters would view things’. Personally, I think it was this vile anti-Semite making a Freudian slip. One of Gaddafi’s supporters is him, just like he is one of Assad’s supporters.
“…….might get a Government that isn’t composed of psychopaths”
Danger that it isn’t, or a danger that it is?
I’m wondering if Jeremy Bowen has suddenly ‘grown a pair’?
A pair of horns?
Perhaps this is a sign that Bowen is not really pro Arab/Muslim/Palestinian but just anti Israel?
That is distinctly possible.
Compare these two reports.
Italian activist found dead in Gaza after abduction 15 April 2011 Last updated at 13:54 GMT
superceded if we believe the time stamp 29 minutes later by Hamas condemns murder of Italian activist in Gaza 15 April 2011 Last updated at 14:13 GMT
Bahrain’s ‘tranquil, liberal‘ image falls away from ‘our’ own correspondent Frank Gardner.
I suggest the ‘tranquil, liberal’ image was always false but a great achievement of FG & the BBC.
Is our Libyan intervention “a bizarre outcome of the “right to protect” (“R2P”) doctrine, which has suddenly become fashionable in some circles as it appears to provide quasi-legal, UN-sanctioned cover for those who wish to meddle in other countries’ affairs?” CifWatch contributor Akus muses.
OTOH, is it an “opportunistic, hypocritical, imperialist venture,” which is how a commenter summarises the left’s postion?
Akus reminds us that Israel’s enemies never hesitate to target civilians indiscriminately and draws a parallel with the condemnation heaped upon Israel whenever it retaliates after intolerable provocation. Using the R2P doctrine to justify the imperative need for our intervention in Libya is looking hypocritical.
This article by Emanuele Ottolenghi asks some of the questions I thought Jeremy Bowen was hinting at with his ‘unhelpful’ reporting.
Sue,
Yes, Glenn Beck had this three weeks ago on ‘R2P’.
Here it is again:
“Connecting the Dots: Samantha Power, Cass Sunstein, Libya, Egypt, Israel”
(Got to 13 mins in of this video and stay with it to end at 40 ms)
http://www.uncoverage.net/2011/03/connecting-the-dots-samantha-power-cass-sunstein-libya-egypt-israel/
It’s really about Israel.