None, really. Yesterday, on Today, John Pilger was allowed to come on and claim that “more than a million” people have been killed in Iraq since 2003. Now talking fiction is the order of the day from Comrade John but the BBC must have felt slightly embarrassed about this so this morning, around 6.50am, they wheeled on the latest UN special representative to Iraq. He was quizzed to provide a number but refused. He did point out that 2013 was one of the VERY worst years in Iraq and that 7000 had died. There was mention of 120,000 deaths in total from another source but incredibly the BBC seemed to suggesting that whether it was 120,000 or in Pilger-talk, 1,000,000 this was more of a detail.
HOWEVER, the interview didn’t end there! Oh no. The UN representative was a BULGARIAN and he was asked to comment on the anxieties in Britain concerning the likely deluge of his fellow citizens coming here to the UK. He said this was “right wing media” playing to the galleries and that Bulgarians would be here to make essential contribution to the economy.
Pilger let off the hook, Mass immigration from european peasantry sanitised. Five minutes on the BBC.
The whole Today debacle yesterday has been ripped to shreds and Pilger was spouting his opinion on more than a few things (on a news programme…wish they’d get me on for a few of my opinions.
In the balance of fairness they are going to get some right wing commentators to guest edit Today: from the USA Glenn Beck, from Canada Mark Steyn and from Australia Andrew Bolt…what’s that you say? No they’re not? Oh…
“In the balance of fairness they are going to …”
—
Well, never say never, and two Flokker aces, the clever ones (at least, that’s what they say) appear on station to swoop on any errant opinion already.
Frankly, even if Today had a seance and brought back Ghengis Khan (never too sure what got him top of the right wing iconography, but I’ll succumb) I’d be unclear how this would be the BBC serving balance, on top of listeners today possibly not being the same or no longer connecting with what was claimed unchallenged yesterday.
I return to my analogy of CSI Salford, where a corpse with head in freezer and feet in oven is pronounced by average temperature at the centre to still be just about right.
A truthful remark about Al Qaida this morning came at the very end of this piece (I think), by a someone from the Middle East who stated baldly and without qualification that the only solution is to kill them – otherwise they kill you.
Unfortunately, the West (with the possible exception of Russia) still seems not to understand this. We had no compunction going after the Nazis with everything we had, and accepted that collateral damage was inevitable and had to be accepted if we were to defeat them. Militant islamism is a far worse threat, but we still treat them with kid gloves, and nurture them within our societies.
We can’t kill them…we need them for their contributions to poetry.
It seems to me that the Left are so sure they have now got BBC News and Current affairs fully in their grip, and are confident of senior management compliance, that they can indulge themselves and push on with more extreme propaganda, bias and distortion than hitherto, such as we have just witnessed in the PJ Harvey ‘Today’ programme.
The BBC must be stopped.
Yes I think you are right. I have noticed that in the last couple of years the liberal left bias has got more blatant and extreme. Its as though they think they don’t need to bother with even a flimsy veil of impartiality. Of course we all hope that this proves to be their undoing and that as they get so leftist as to be laughable. Then the long suffering public may realise at last, that the BBC is no longer the BBC of 50 years, but a self serving, anti democratic, liberal elite that is hell bent on changing Britain into a liberal left Utopia whether we want it or not.
Strangely, the same concern about chaos following regime change was never in evidence back when St Nelson was being buried. If the Rainbow Nation turned out to be a bloodbath, why, that was a small price to pay for freedom.
David, I think it was even worse than you describe. Once the ex-Bulgarian foreign minister and Montague had established it was just hysteria that was being whipped up over the potential Romanian/Bulgarian immigration influx she asked him ‘Who do you think is to blame for this, is it the politicians or the media?’ To which he replied ‘The Far Right’. She then closed the interview with a ‘thank you’ – job done.
It is essential for us to understand that the liberal elite which includes the majority of BBc commentators feels nothing but contempt for us ordinary English so that the very notion of patriotism and love of the land of your ancestors has become alien to them.
“Far right” to them is a reflex action they use to describe those of us who reject their absurdities .
It is meaningless. Reject it completely.
These are critical days for the future of England. The liberals feel they are going to win. To dump old England into what they believe is the past.
This will not happen. The liberal fantasists control education, the media and the law but do not control reality.
An ancient people like us are not going to go down however much the liberal elite wishes it.
In the end reality is on our side not theirs and they will not succeed in destroying old England.
To that end it is essential that you do not argue with them or give them space in your world.
Pilger’s 1,000,000 is backed by a very controversial Lancet study. Poll: Civilian Death Toll in Iraq May Top 1 Million
This figure, by far the highest estimate, is 10X figures from other sources. Wikipedia’s Casualties of the Iraq War is quite comprehensive.
One must ask, when estimates vary so widely, mustn’t an honest, competent journalist give the range rather that state the highest or lowest?
Pilger isn’t a journalist. He’s a political writer who pretends to a be a journalist. Hence the the repeated reference to a million dead in Iraq. This was from a long discredited report in the Lancet, but he keeps on at it. Used the same figure in The Metro paper a few weeks ago, he’s afraid to adnit that he was wrong over Iraq and Bush was right. Now his style of Stalinst Newspeak has been virtually dropped from ITV, I’m surprised BBC hasn’t snapped him up yet!
“Pilger isn’t a journalist” Really, and what journalist accreditation do you have?
John Pilger, renowned investigative journalist and documentary film-maker, is one of only two to have twice won British journalism’s top award. He is one of the very few journalists of integritybringing the real truths to the people unlike the Zionist run BBC and Mainstream Media and this obviously Zionist run pseudo BBC appraisal blog. The one sad observation of him is that he still believes 9/11 was pulled off by a man in a cave and 19 Arabs many of whom were alive and kicking on 12th September 200!
I would imagine that the figure of one million dead for this illegal war in Iraq is not only accurate but indeed an underestimation –perhaps you can furnish me with evidence of your estimation of Iraqi dead?
In the meantime I will contemplate my New Year wish that Internationally wanted War Criminals Tony Blair & George Bush will be brought to justice for their heinous crimes against humanity.
Yawn.
Graham, me old leftie fruit, You’ve treated us to your opinion – every cliche in the left wing hymn book.- answer your own question – “and what journalist accreditation do you have?”
Graham Lawrence:
The comprehensive report in Wikipedia, Casualties of the Iraq War lists every estimate. Most of which are an order of magnitude less than one million, which is by far the highest estimate. What evidence do you have that it is an underestimate other than your wish that it be so?
deegee :Your wasting your time ,he can’t hear you through all that tin foil.
“Zionist run BBC”. LOLOLOLOL
ROFLMFALOLOLOPML…..gasp….LOLOLOLOLOLOL!
What Zionist-run organization tries to deny Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol? What kind of Zionist-run organization publishes on its children’s website that 9/11 being perpetrated by Al Qaeda is only a US suspicion? What kind of Zionist-run organization tells children that Muslims consider Israeli Jews to be the enemy of their religion? What kind of Zionist-run organization publishes dishonest maps and acts as if 1967 is the Year Zero? What kind of Zionist-run organization has a Director General who states uncategorically that they treat Islam gently because most of them are ethnic minorities? What kind of Zionist-run organization reports on the “Israeli blockade” and refused to acknowledge Egypt’s border with Gaza until too many complaints forced them to do so? What kind of Zionist-run entity has a Middle East editor who hates Israel and has a personal grudge against the country, keeping him in that influential position long after he had the life-altering traumatic experience? What kind of Zionist-run organization reports conflicts from the perspective that it all started when Israel hit back? What kind of Zionist-run organization allows a high-profile news anchor to voice concerns during a public Q&A session about the power of the Jewish Lobby?
I could go on and on, but tears of laughter are preventing me from seeing my monitor properly. Otherwise I’d be posting links to prove every single one of those. Declining to air a film promoting Hamas and asking for donations to the cause against Israel (that so-called Gaza charity appeal), and telling the truth instead of lying about that Gaza Flotilla hardly make the BBC a Zionist-run organization.
If anyone’s interested just say the word and I’ll post them once I’ve recovered from fits of hysterical laughter.
Brilliant and too good to leave to disappear over time in this thread. I am going to share it.
Just one minor point: The BBC did not broadcast the Gaza film but did everything it could to publicise it, including providing links on the website; allowing interviewees to a give link details on air and obsessive coverage of the ‘dispute’ about whether they should broadcast it. Also (as far as I can establish) failing to report on the absolutely dismal results of the appeal.
Shared on Five Minutes for Israel. Hope you don’t mind.
http://5mfi.com/bbc-roflol/
Are you being ironic, or do you believe the stuff you write? If the latter, I would get yourself taken into care as quickly as possible, even if this means you will be a burden to the tax payer.
he may have won British Journalism top award – but truth to tell there is very little competent British Journalism to put up against our Pilger, an amateur.
We, here in Australia know John Pilger, and don’t think much of him; he seems to live in the fantasy world so beloved by socialists – which is probably why you think he’s marvellous. I am sorry, but he isn’t, he was usually under researched, agenda driven and bombastic. and he obviously hasn’t changed.
He probably stays in the UK because he knows that even the ABC may balk at employing someone of his rather shoddy reputation, again.