HAD BIN LADEN A BBC LICENSE?

I only ask the question because I read that….

Among the newly released data from inside the secret compound is a series of video tapes. They show him sat in his compound, watching video footage of himself and rehearsing his lines for propaganda video. At one point there is a recording of his favourite TV channels and among those listed are Al Jazeera and the BBC’s Arabic service…

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36 Responses to HAD BIN LADEN A BBC LICENSE?

  1. David Preiser (USA) says:

    Sorry David, but Bin Laden didn’t need to pay the license fee to watch the BBC Arabic service because you and millions of others already pay it for him.

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    • hippiepooter says:

      Bin Laden might not have had a BBC license but the BBC certainly licensed bin Laden.

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      • gud says:

        Was just googling for info about the death of Belgian cyclist Wouter Weylandt today, in the Giro D’Italia.
        Imagine my surprise when up popped a pic of you-know-who, stuck out like a sore thumb amongst the thousands of pics of the cyclist.
        No prizes for guessing who the host website was.
        Anyone care to explain the subliminal meaning of this strange phenomenon…?
        Think the bBBC must have all things islam in its DNA.

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    • Span Ows says:

      Aha! it becomes clearer as to 😀 why he was caught at last: he believed what he saw on the Beeb!

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  2. Grant says:

    That’s a good point.  The BBC should charge a TV tax on anyone anywhere in the World who buys a TV.  They could set up a special department with foreign trips, posh hotels, meetings with foreign Governments etc.
    I would love to see a Beeboid walking into a Taliban house demanding the TV tax !

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    • All Seeing Eye says:

      You jest well, Grant, but I can see the Taliban being quite happy to help fund the BBC. Examples from most bits of “neutral’ coverage over the last few years will explain why to anyone with eyes. 

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      • Grant says:

        All Seeing,

        Good point, I hadn’t thought of that.  Maybe the Taliban already fund the BBC  !

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      Grant, Mark Thompson told Andrew Marr a few months ago that they were putting together a plan for a world-wide subscription service.  Not sure if that would include the i-Player.

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  3. David vance says:

    David – Yip, I knew that of course but was being a little wicked  😀  Grant and ASE make equally great points – maybe OBL was a commissioning Editor to World News? Just wonderin’

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  4. deegee says:

    He only watched the BBC for an alternative to al Jazeera  😀  And then he would turn to MTV!

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    • hippiepooter says:

      The BBC is always a reliable alternative when Al Jazeera’s Israel coverage isn’t anti-Semitic enough.  Mark Regev does after all say he finds al Jazeera interviewers more balanced.

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      • RCE says:

        Al Jazeera is much more balanced; I don’t know how anyone can question this.

        It may be because AJ considers itself first-and-foremost a news broadcaster whose credibility is based on the quality of its output. The BBC, on the other hand, is an ideologically-based propaganda machine with sacrosanct, institution status, that knows it can do what it wants without any fear of its munificent funding being withdrawn.

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  5. Grant says:

    deegee,

    I always had him down as a bit of a closet rock and roller.  Something to do with the beat, well, dead beat anyway.

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    • hippiepooter says:

      Let’s also remember that several Al Qa’eda operatives were found with a BBC World Service number in their posession.  Either Al Qa’eda has a lot of press officers or they had this number for – ahem – ‘operational’ purposes.

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      • Grant says:

        hippie,

        Maybe they are planning a terrorist attack on the BBC  !  Or should I dream on ?

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  6. George R says:

    No doubt INBBC Arabic TV is especially flattered; its politically appeasing programmes are reaching its desired audience.

    And Britsh taxpayers* pay for it.

    (* In a couple of years, financial burden of  Arabic TV and of World Service will be shifted on to licencepayers, as agreed at the last Government financial settlement re-BBC.)

    INBBC Arabic TV has HQ at Broadcasting House, London (photo)

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonathanmarks/2312501612/in/photostream/

    This financing by the British public has to be added to all the lavish expenditure which British government provides for the likes of our non-ally, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, etc.

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    • George R says:

      100 Osama bin Laden cartoons, which may not be appreciated at INBBC Arabic TV.

      http://www.ocregister.com/articles/cartoons-299527-death-patriotic.html?pic=1

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      • My Site (click to edit) says:

        Bloke with a turban and a beard. Religion of peace missing a trick there. Get offended and threaten to whack anyone involved and they’d be pulled before you can say ‘cultural sensitivities’. Perhaps less so in the US currently.

        Possibly the BBC needs to ‘debate’ how ‘angry’ some folk are about such expression of opinion as art?

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  7. Frederick Bloggs says:

    I thought he wasn’t allowed to watch TV because of the telly-ban.

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  8. Frederick Bloggs says:

    BTW – did we ever find out whose phone number at the BBC was found in the posession of al quaeda suspects (as publicised via wikileaks)

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    • Grant says:

      Fred,

      Like alcohol and adultery, that only applies to the plebs.

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    • Span Ows says:

      I suspect it was the same dude taht ETA contacted, can’t remeber his name. “Hey, terrorists and associated scum…I mean disidents, we’ll be your mouthpiece, just give us the exclusive”.

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  9. cjhartnett says:

    That the vulnerable old gentleman did NOT have a licence is the crime that the BBC would regard as being far more heinous than his somewhat disproportionate response to events as perceived on 9/11. Disappointing!

    Why did Lambeth social services NOT tell him of his entitlement to a free licence at Tora Bora Community Centre-bleedin` Toricutz again!

    Stll we are where we are-time to move on-and the BBC has “sent a signal” …albeit with Seals that DON`T cry whenever we book an air ticket!

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  10. Chairman of Selectors says:

    The bias, mis-reporting and downright deceit of the BBC’s reporting of the attacks on christians in Egypt for me is the final straw. The BBC calls it “sectarian violence”, clearing muslims of all blame, merely waving it away as balanced violence between the 2 sides, each as guilty as the other. Islam is of course, the religion of peace. The editorialising is not just scandalous and disgraceful, it is a LIE. A hateful, deliberate lie. I dont say this lightly, but I hope those guilty at the BBC burn in hell.

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  11. cjhartnett says:

    Grant makes an intersting link early in this blog.
    I do think that the “more enlightened” BBC staffers are missing a trick here!
    I forsee a programme here on “Fairtrade Opium”-lots of young pups in the field agonising about the money NOT getting to the Talibans development and Human Resources Fund as Islingtons party people might prefer.
    No doubt, plenty BBC pioneers of the Rainbow Revolution are doing market research on “The Peoples Behalf”.
    Ah…bless!

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  12. pounce_uk says:

    I lived in Northern Ireland during the 80s and 90s and to be honest I loved it. Yes there was the dangerous element. I mean if the Catholic husband of the woman I was seeing found out there would have been hell to pay. But he didn’t and I feel to this day I got one over the nationalistic bastard who only bought a British passport because it was cheaper than the Irish one. But that’s a story for another day. (And we wonder why there are problems to this day)

    Anyway back to Osma bBC Laden and how he didn’t have a TV Licence. It was common knowledge that during the troubles the TV detector Van never went down the Falls Road. But oh how the bBC loved the Irish Nationalists. Funny that.

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    • deegee says:

      Pounce_uk. The detector van never entered the Falls Road because the inspectors were scared they would receive a bullet in the knee caps. It had nothing to do with BBC bias.

      Does anyone know did BBC Northern Ireland employ an equal number of Catholics and Protestants during the troubles? Was the ‘British’ in BBC enough to scare Catholics from working for the BBC? Was the Ormeau Avenue site of Broadcasting House, Belfast a problem for Catholic employers? Was BBC Northern Ireland more or less pro Irish Nationalists than the main BBC from Bush House?

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      • David vance says:

        The BBC has been, and remains, decisively nationalist, Or, if you prefer, ant-British

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      • David vance says:

        The BBC has been, and remains, decisively nationalist, Or, if you prefer, ant-British

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  13. pounce_uk says:

    Could somebody be so nice in which to knock up a new board please….pretty please.

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  14. Phil says:

    He didn’t need a licence.

    Nobody does.

    How many people would buy a car tax disc if there was a zero chance of being fined for not paying it?

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