The memo has gone out to all and sundry at the BBC….pump out the pro-immigration propaganda at every opportunity…and they listened.

I caught this little exchange (2 hrs 4 mins) between a BBC sports presenter and British runner Rabah Yousef….

‘Rabah, you’re proudly wearing Great Britain across your vest, you were born in the Sudan and came to Britain and had to seek asylum, how much does it mean to you to be here with those two words on your chest?’

Blatantly clear what message she intends us to get because this wasn’t really about Rabah Yousef, it was about all those other asylum seekers heading this way.

Now Rabah Yousef has certainly worked hard and done well for himself and for British athletics, and has picked up an impressive amount of colloquial English…..but he’s not an asylum seeker, more of a draft dodger to be blunt, as he admits….he came to the UK and saw the opportunities on offer here and decided he wanted some of that….as the Telegraph tells us…..

Excelling both on the track and in jumping disciplines, it was on what should have been a routine trip with the Sudanese junior athletics team at the age of 14 that he made a sudden decision that would change the course of his life.

Stopping off in Sheffield for a training camp en route to the World Junior Championships in Jamaica, the young teenager made a break for it. He ran away, he hid and he lied – all in the name of becoming a better athlete.

“Athletics in Sudan was cut-throat,” the 28-year-old says. “They recruit you into the military and if you don’t train they threaten you. It sounds like they want the best for people but they did things that I didn’t think they should.

“I hadn’t thought about staying in Britain at all before I left Sudan but when I came here and saw the facilities and coaches I decided to give it 100 per cent to stay here and achieve my goals.”

So he had no thoughts about seeking ‘asylum’ before he saw the streets of the UK paved with gold….and only then decided he needed the protection that only a rich country like the UK could offer.

And why flee Sudan?  After all British Muslims head out there for an education...before joining ISIS:

Most of the British students at UMST were the children of British-Sudanese parents who are successful UK doctors.  They had sent their children to Khartoum to study medicine because they wanted them to reconnect with their African and Islamic roots, before returning to work as doctors in Britain.  Nine British-Sudanese students and recent graduates disappeared from Khartoum in March, flying to Turkey, and then crossing over to Syria. Seven more followed in June, although two were detained in Turkey and returned to Khartoum.

Now I don’t blame him for seeing the bright lights and being dazzled, why not grab the opportunity if it’s offered to improve your life, who wouldn’t?…My objection is to the BBC’s glorification and misleading sexing up and exploitation of his story.  He wanted a better life, he took the chance to get that, good luck to him, end of.

His story though is being used as a shining example of what can be achieved by ‘asylum seekers’…therefore, the BBC is suggesting, we should allow in more, no limit suggested, and that such generosity would result in an endless supply of brilliant runners or somesuch that will enrich and enhance our nation.

Trouble is of course he’s not really an asylum seeker, nor can the country support endless numbers of immigrants, nor do we need countless numbers of 400m runners, however brilliant.

This isn’t an argument from the BBC it’s pure emoting and manipulation of the audience’s perceptions.  There is no genuine attempt from the BBC to discuss the real issues around immigration be they a matter of resources, culture or politics.  This is just ambush tactics by the BBC, spraying pro-immigration graffiti across the airwaves catching people unawares and they hope, unthinking.

And whilst we’re here….Rabah lied to the immigration service in order to get asylum and yet no one raises an eyebrow.  Contrast that with another famous asylum seeker, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who was chased from Europe by the liberals and the Left because she was a critic of Islamic values and culture….

Secrets and lies that doomed a radical liberal

Ayaan Hirsi Ali championed the rights of Islamic women and warned of the dangers to Holland from refugees. Now she must leave the country after being accused of lying her way in, writes Jason Burke in Rotterdam

I see the BBC have a new programme called Charisma: Pinning Down the Butterfly is a two-week series presented by Francine Stock starting on BBC Radio 4 on Monday, 24 August. I notice one of those to whom the BBC attribute “charisma” is Robert Mugabe. I am sure the next of kin of those white farmers murdered at the behest of this thug will be tuning in to hear just how charismatic Robert really is.

I noticed the BBC have instantly gone on the attack as regards the plans announced by Iain Duncan Smith to reform the way in which the Disability system works.

To my mind, IDS is being very sensible, seeking to move the model away from an absolutist whether you can work or not to one that examines how much work some might be able to do. To listen to the BBC, and I’m thinking of William Crawley on BBC Talkback here in Northern Ireland, one could be forgiven for thinking that IDS is suggesting culling everyone who claims this benefit and killing the firstborn for extra cruelty. It seems that everybody claiming it is “the most vulnerable” and utterly deserving of a life on welfare. As IDS points out, there will be some seriously disabled people who cannot work and they will be protected – but there are others out there who could benefit from work and this system is about trying to encourage and help them to find it. The BBC hates IDS and that is as good a recommendation as he is going to get.

Time for a new one of these. What’s been bothering YOU about the BBC and its bias? Detail it here.

After a tragic and shocking event like the air crash at the Shoreham Air Show in which possibly 20 or more people were killed it would be expected that there would be a feeding frenzy from the Press with all sorts of claims, accusations and wild assertions being made. You’d expect the BBC, as an organisation that has no papers to sell and no axe to grind, to stand back and take a considered look at the crash and its surrounding circumstances.  However listening to John Humphrys this morning on the Today programme (08:10) when he was haranguing John Turner, chairman of the British Air Display Association, I got the impression that this was an interview driven more by emotion and anger, with a good dose of holier than thou sanctimony mixed in with a little bit of ignorance than a measured news interview.  Consider also that the pilot of the aircraft, Andy Hill, was very experienced, ex-RAF Harrier pilot, and no doubt very ‘responsible’ and would have been highly aware of the risks and no doubt shaped his display to ensure it was as safe as possible…..something that Humphrys seems to have overlooked.

Humphrys’ thrust was that the Airshow had been highly irresponsible in allowing the aircraft to display overland and that, obviously, it should have been done over the sea….because there was nowhere for a plane to crash land should the need arise.

Well let’s have a look at Shoreham and see…I’ve put the video of the crash at the top of the post so that you can see that the aircraft approached from wide open countryside and did the loop the loop whilst in open country.

The Mail provides this graphic to show that the people on the road were incredibly unlucky to be hit…and note that the runway is actually directly next to the crash site…so a plane taking off or landing, not doing aerobatics, could have crashed in exactly the same spot….

Look on Google Earth and you can check out the exact layout of the land and you can see that to the north is the open country, to the south is the sea  with urban areas either side….there is plenty of space for an air show.

What do the Red Arrows do? Do they display overland and built up areas?  Yes they do…

….but here’s their latest at Bournemouth where they displayed over the sea but also flew over land…..

The Daily Mail and the Mirror , amongst others in the Press, have got another angle on this…the Red Arrows, they tell us, won’t fly over Shoreham because it’s too dangerous….well, they may have changed their criteria since 2009, but here’s the Red Arrows at Shoreham in 2009 flying north to south:

But let’s go back to John Humphrys and his outrage at the Shoreham Airshow’s  dangerous ‘irresponsibility’….what has he got to say about Farnborough?…once again Google Earth it and you can see the surrounding area is massively built up with even less open land.

Here’s the Red Arrows flying overland at Farnborough last year…

If you are going to pillory someone on national radio, on the BBC’s prime news programme, at the prime slot of 08:10, then you’d better get things right and in perspective….perhaps he should read the BBC’s archives…here they could have told him that a Red Arrows plane crashed, after displaying over the sea, on land.  Perhaps Humphrys thinks the planes should take off and land at sea just to be really safe.

As far as I can tell this interview was pure emotion and ignorance.  The deaths were shocking and tragic but to start whipping up outrage and sounding off about practically closing down air displays is highly disproportionate and wrongheaded based on a complete misreading of the situation and a lack of perspective.

Certainly things need to be looked over as always but to hang someone out to dry based on your own prejudice isn’t news or even  considered opinion, it’s a kangaroo court.

Remember Locherbie?  What would Humphrys say about the routing of airliners using this extreme case as an example?

Apparently Alex Salmond would like to ship the BBC’s Nick Robinson off to a desert island and abandon him there….the spat continues as Salmond uses Robinson as his whipping boy.

The former First Minister described as “ludicrous” the outgoing BBC political editor’s comparison between the separatists’ mass protests against his reporting of the campaign last year and Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Robinson bites back…the SNP are the anti-Establishment party, one which, Robinson suggests, organised the protests against the BBC….

• Nick Robinson ‏@bbcnickrobinson Aug 21

  .@GeorgeMonbiot What you call “anti establishment” runs govt in Scotland. Governing parties protesting outside a media HQ not a good look

“The city is mostly Iraqi and Syrian immigrants, but some Swedes live here too.”

 

Nick Darlington in the comments described this video perfectly…..

Migrant crisis: Inside Sweden immigration camp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKx_ClRrGfY

A classic example of the BBC’s emotive reporting trying to manipulate the viewers perceptions.  In this case it is the classic BBC tactic of contrasting ‘intelligent’, charming, articulate immigrants with what the BBC hopes are unattractive, uneducated, ignorant and prejudiced people who are voicing opposition to immigration…..

BBC Breakfast this morning had a report on the different approach which Sweden takes to the ‘Migrant Crisis’. Cue interview with a smart well dressed well groomed couple posing on a jetty on a Swedish lake (fjord perhaps) saying how lovely it is and how welcoming Sweden is. Then a brief clip of a member of a ‘hard right’ opposition party in a gloomy suburb saying that over 50% there were immigrants creating ghettos and who did not attempt to integrate or even learn the language…… Switch swiftly back to our couple posing in the sunshine, the low sun casting a glow around them ‘Do you speak any Swedish?’ to which the man replies in Swedish to our awe-struck reporter Graham Satchel who has to ask what it meant (Nice to meet you apparently)… Wow. Final word from the local mayor – Britain should do the same as Sweden – if immigrants can make it there they should be allowed to stay. That’s us told then. Another BBC-supplied wind up to start my day.

A highly manipulative video with emotive images and language and with a message to peddle.

You should note that Sweden has the ‘moral highground’ as the BBC reporter, Graham Satchell, tell us.  He tells us that Sweden ‘wants Britain and the rest of the EU to have a more co-ordinated and civilised solution to the migrant crisis.’

So it is morally the right thing to do to take in immigrants but he doesn’t put a number on that….and we know that there are millions of migrants out there just waiting for the opportunity. He tells us that it is the ‘civilised’ thing to do.

Is it though?  Satchell does admit that the Syrians (mostly Christian apparently) find to hard to find a job, to get housing and to get their children into schools and yet he somehow ignores that reality and continues to press for open borders.

The town that he is in, Södertälje, is now half immigrant.  Is he suggesting that the rest of Sweden and Europe become similarly ‘diverse’?  Does he think that there will be no problems ensuing from such a massive change in the demographics?

He has the mayor of  Södertälje on the film telling us that accepting more immigrants is the right thing to do…which is odd as in 2012 she said enough is enough:

The mayor of Södertälje is Boel Godner, of the Social Democrat party. This is a traditionally industrial town, where Scania makes its trucks, and the Social Democrats are in charge, together with the Left party and the Greens.

Boel Godner says to Radio Sweden that she is in favour of helping people who want to escape war and persecution. But that her city is not able to cope with so many refugees. For one thing, she thinks the refugees don’t have enough space to live.

The mayor says that serious overcrowding is happening, especially in certain areas of the town. Her main wish is that the government stops refugees from coming to Södertälje.

She also admitted...’ the question that has come up lately, is, can the welfare system bear us all? What’s going to happen to everyone who comes here? No one has given the answer to that yet.”

Oh and this…

The lack of assimilation has driven a wedge between native Swedes and the immigrants living in Sodertalje, and the influx of nonworking immigrants has meanwhile stretched social services and increased pressures on schools, housing and health care. Sodertalje Mayor Boel Godner lamented to the BBC in an interview last year that one Sodertalje school had to take in 400 extra refugee students during one month alone, many of whom required special education to help them catch up to their age group level. Free language classes for refugees have a backlog of around six months, further hampering their progress.

And there’s this comment…‘Andreae, Sodertalje’s city manager, says he hopes Swedish politicians find concrete ways to manage immigration instead of closing its doors to war refugees. He would like to see other municipalities take in more refugees, for example, since Sodertalje’s resources are now stretched.’

So when the pressure gets too much they want other cities to accept more immigrants…..which tells you that there must be a limit to the numbers of immigrants that can be absorbed and yet the BBC presses on with its campaign for unlimited numbers, giving no thought to the very real pressures that such immigration brings today and the problems it will certianly bring in the future.

In Södertälje the immigrants are fairly recent and still finding their feet with expectations that things will turn out well…for instance…just why do immigrants head to Sweden?….

“In the U.S., you always say that it’s the land of dreams, yeah? I say it’s actually Sweden,” says Yakoub, who’s now chairman of the Assyrian Community of Sweden. “Here you can get an education from kindergarten up to university without paying one cent. Society takes care of you because the social welfare system is good. Generally, it’s an open society with good values.”

A free ride, not having to pay a cent.

But things are crowded, houses and jobs are in short supply…

“You’ve got a situation where there are several families living in a one-bedroom apartment because there are literally no available flats in Sodertalje,” he says. “And it’s a problem that is increasing every year, as more people come here.”

Sodertalje’s unemployment rate is twice as high as Sweden’s national rate. That’s partly because refugees are struggling to learn Swedish, a requirement for a job.

Sweden’s basic approach to granting asylum has been that refugees would eventually become taxpaying residents, according to  Eberhardsson. But industrial decline means that job opportunities have diminished. Loss of many of the city’s car manufacturing plants in the 1990s and early 2000s has made competition for jobs intense, particularly for recent arrivals who aren’t fluent in the language.

And, like many transplanted populations, “the immigrants are more likely to embed themselves with the culture and language they know, eroding the likelihood of them integrating into Swedish culture or even bothering to learn the language,” Eberhardsson said.

Johan Lindgren, a social worker in Sodertalje (and Eberhardsson’s father), said he has seen as many as 20 refugees sharing a room in Sodertalje.

Just how long does the BBC think such immigrants will stay quiet and peaceful under these conditions?  How long before some ‘community leader’ is ratcheting up the tension demanding jobs and housing saying that they are being marginalised and disenfranchised and this is making them angry. How long before the riots, or terrorism, start?

Cultural tensions are being imported and there is little integration:

New government rules that allow new residents to live wherever they wanted once their residency was awarded have, ironically, created integration problems. The rule change led to greater migration to places like Sodertalje, where there’s less need to learn Swedish because there’s already a large Syrian/Arabic-speaking community in place. 

One of the visible manifestations is St. Aphrem Syriac Orthodox Church, one of five Syrian Christian churches in Sodertalje. The churches act as meeting points for the Assyrian community and welcome almost any refugee who is looking for help. The community has self-segregated, with Christians staying in Sodertalje and Muslims apparently migrating to towns further west. 

The Orthodox community in Sodertalje is strong, and while that helps incoming refugees get settled, it also becomes another barrier to integration. Swedish is not spoken in the churches, which are the main cultural hubs of the community. One older churchgoer, Hanna Tahan, who arrived from Turkey in the 70s, says he learned Swedish when he first arrived, but since the 80s he rarely has had to use the language because the local community, centered around the church, doesn’t require it.

The Assyrian Christians generally lived apart from their Muslim counterparts back home, and have brought their cultural tensions with them. Many point out that there is no mosque in Sodertalje. “If they built a mosque there would be trouble here,” said Deniz Can, who immigrated decades ago.

“If this continues with Muslim and Christian immigration, where will the war be in 50 years? It will be in Sweden.”

The answer is not to import the world’s population and their problems…the UN reckons there are at least 50 million ‘displaced’ persons out there somewhere looking for a home….and of course many more who owuld just like to live in the West.  The answer surely is to try and stabilise the countries they flee from or to provide somewhere safe to stay near their home countries so that they can return to rebuild things when there is peace.  That I believe is the British policy for refugees and it seems eminently more sensible than importing the world’s refugees and the conflicts and pressures on our own society that come with them.

The BBC is at war with the government and has set itself against government policy and is openly, as this video shows, campaigning for more migrants to be brought into Europe, not bringing us news but propaganda.

There are two sides to immigration.  The BBC only wants you to see one.

The BBC is becoming ever more dishonest and political as it reports on immigration.  ‘Reports’ is in retrospect the wrong word as the BBC is not reporting but broadcasting pro-immigration propaganda. It has decided immigration is good and uses its massive resources and uniquely privileged and powerful position to provide an entirely false narrative about immigration painting a picture of benign immmigrants integrating successfully, being hugely appreciative of the opportunities and sanctuary provided by the countries they have made their way to.  The BBC also tries to close down debate by making any criticism of the free flow of immigrants a dangerous business.  If you should be thinking of voicing any concerns about immigration be aware that the BBC will launch an attack upon you.  Be prepared to be labelled Far Right, and extremist, a Nazis, an Islamophobe, a bigot, a racist.

The BBC has set itself up in direct opposition to the government and to the majority view of the population which increasingly thinks immigration is the major concern of our time.

The Mail reports  ‘The charities using YOUR money to sabotage all efforts to rein back migration: How a cabal of tax-payer funded groups is waging a vicious war on ministers trying to solve the Calais crisis‘  but the real culprit in the sabotaging of immigration policy is the BBC.

The BBC has declared war on the government going so far as to try and label ministers, inculding the Prime Minister, as racists intent on stirring up hatred against immigrants.  The BBC was clearly intending in its attacks on Hammond and Cameron to turn the public against them and to as a result limit and control what Ministers say on the subject.

The BBC doesn’t confine itself to attempting to control what can and can’t be said by politicians about immigration it also tries to manipulate the public’s thoughts with an endless stream of tales that either paint a picture of immgrants as wonderful, loved by the communities they impose themselves upon, or tales of desperation, of danger, of migrants abandoned by a greedy, selfish and heartless West, the BBC ramping up the guilt, insinuating that we are failing morally unless we open the borders to what would be unlimited numbers of immigrants.

The BBC seems to have more reporters on the borders than the UK has border staff.  Their coverage with its insidious moralising is relentless.  On Friday (13:20) we heard, in a breathless report from a gauche BBC reporter, tales of migrants fleeing ‘persecution’, ‘fear’ driving them to seek refuge, journeys which are increasingly unsafe,  having to live in forests braving the dangers of bears, wolves and snakes and yet she tells us , they bravely keep trying…..these were Syrian Kurds coming from Turkey which has declared them ‘enemies’ of the State.   A term that deserves consideration for similar groups that want to set up their own states within a state. The BBC reporter was highly inventive in conjuring up images of desperation and danger…a small girl fell off a rope she was playing on and hit the ground only to get up and carry on regardless without any fuss.  The BBC reporter’s interpretation?  She could not imagine the suffering the little girl must have gone through in her life that meant she could walk away from the accident and treat it as if it was a normal occurrence.  I kid you not.

Or this:

Thousands of refugees from Iraq and Syria have settled there recently. Many of them are Muslim — and the ethnic tension is palpable.

“Often they don’t want to come here and change,” he says. “They want to change us. And we don’t want to be changed. So that’s a conflict.”

In many cases, the people attacking Jews are Muslim immigrants.

“Almost exclusively, they have some sort of background in the Middle East,” says Aron Verstandig, a leader in Stockholm’s Jewish community.

Or this:

Journalist Documents Anti-Semitism In A Swedish City

Over the past few years, the Swedish city of Malmo has earned a reputation for anti-Semitism. Members of Malmo’s small Jewish population say that walking in some of the city’s Muslim neighborhoods wearing a skull cap, a kepah, is to risk verbal abuse and possibly worse. Well, that risk has now been documented by Swedish television journalist Petter Ljunggren. Ljunggren wore a cap and also a Jewish star pendant in Malmo while secretly filming. One scene captures him fleeing a group of increasingly agitated young men as eggs are thrown at him from nearby windows. Later, a young man from that neighborhood describes how on that night, he’d gotten a text telling him to egg the Jews.

SIEGEL: Now, this is not the old problem of anti-Semitic, neo-Nazi skinheads. This is anti-Israel sentiment that is turned into outright anti-Semitism. Do I have that right? And how common would you say that is?

LJUNGGREN: It’s – you are right. And it’s common enough to be a big problem. It’s not all Muslims or all Middle Eastern men in Malmo – not at all. But there are so many that it’s a problem. And it’s not only on an individual basis either. There are groups. And it’s an acceptance of anti-Semitism. It’s an acceptance of hatred of Jews in some environments. And that’s a big problem.

The BBC twists everything in order to discredit critics of immigration.

In this interview with a Sweden Democrat politician which is clearly intended to disprove his contentions, the BBC suggests that racists are attracted to the party because the party is anti-immigrant and makes claims that, the BBC thinks, are false… claims that immigrants are behind a rise in crime are false and creating a malign anti-immigrant view based on distorted claims about crime….but are they?

Immigrants behind 25% of Swedish crime

Immigrants in Sweden are four times more likely to be investigated for lethal violence and robbery than persons born in Sweden to Swedish parents, the National Council for Crime Prevention said on Wednesday.

 In a report studying 4.4 million Swedes between the ages of 15 and 51 during the period 1997-2001, the council found that immigrants were overrepresented in Sweden’s crime statistics.

Immigrants were also three times more likely to be investigated for assault and five times more likely to be investigated for sex crimes.

The report is based on statistics for those “suspected” of offences for reasons of comparison, but Stina Holmberg of the Council for Crime Prevention said that there was “little difference” in the statistics for those suspected of crimes and those actually convicted.

Rape charges in the capital are spiraling upwards, 40 percent higher from 1999 to 2000 and up 13 percent so far this year. Police Inspector Gunnar Larsen of Oslo’s Vice, Robbery and Violent crime division says the statistics are surprising – the rising number of rape cases and the link to ethnic background are both clear trends. But Larsen does not want to speculate on the reasons behind the worrying developments. While 65 percent of those charged with rape are classed as coming from a non-western background, this segment makes up only 14.3 percent of Oslo’s population. Norwegian women were the victims in 80 percent of the cases, with 20 percent being women of foreign background.

In December 2011 a Swedish mother-of-two was subjected to a brutal gang-rape by 12 Afghan immigrants in a refugee camp in Mariannelund. Reports stated “The rape was oral, anal and vaginal sometimes with three rapists inside her at the same time while everybody was cheering and clapping. The gruesome rape marathon lasted for 7 hours. 11 suspect may have been involved taking turns while drinking and getting high on drugs. The asylum seekers were cheering and clapping their hands during the rape marathon while calling the victim “whore” and “slut”.”

The BBC has dumped the Met Office apparently to cut costs telling us that ‘”Our viewers get the highest standard of weather service and that won’t change.  We are legally required to go through an open tender process and take forward the strongest bids to make sure we secure both the best possible service and value for money for the licence fee payer.”

So the Met Office doesn’t provide the best possible service?  Surely that must be the conclusion…..or is the BBC saying they may provide the best possible service but are too expensive….in which case you have to ask what does the BBC consider more important…an accurate service or a cheap one?

Perhaps this is politics by the BBC…..they are in negotiations with the government for charter renewal and the subsequent shape, size and scope of the BBC are up for grabs and the BBC is not above making dramatic public statements in order to try and pressurize the government in the ongoing PR battle…

Lord Hall threatened to overshadow Budget after TV licence row by saying he would close BBC2

So is the high profile move to dump the Met Office a genuine attempt to cut costs and improve the service or is this just another highly political tactic by the BBC to strong arm the government into backing down on any attempts to rein in the BBC?

This post combines the concerns of the last two posts….namely the BBC’s love-in with Islamist extremists and its so oft noted preference for loading a panel with those who have the same interests as the BBC.

The Reunion on R4 today brought together former inmates of Guantanamo Bay, the hooman rights lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith and, in sole opposition to them, Colonel Mike Bumgarner, guard commander at Guantanamo, whose diffident and brow beaten performance hardly merits the word ‘opposition’ as he caved in to the ‘evidence’ weighted against him and Guantanamo.

Moazzam Begg, the BBC’s Islamist poster boy, was back on the BBC, when isn’t he?  This time not as a representative of the Islamist group Cage but as a ‘victim’ of American injustices.  He rattled off a long list of abuses but failed to offer any evidence other than his own word that this was true.  Sue MacGregor asked him if he was a radical…he denied it and then went on to claim the Americans didn’t care anyway, they picked up anyone regardless…and suggested he was an innocent victim of bounty hunters.  Only much later in the programme did MacGregor remind him he had signed a confession that he had trained at terrorist camps….which of course he denied…the confession was beaten out of him!  MacGregor didn’t challenge that at all.

The tenor of the programme was set entirely against Guantanamo and every word was carefully chosen to create a negative perception of events.  Everyday events that would occur in many jurisdictions were described as if they were extreme and abnormal….for instance prisoners having had their heads shaved….reason?  Likely for their own health…de-lousing.  We heard that they were chained to their aircraft seats….well yeah….a good idea if you are at 20,000 feet in a plane full of potentially violent prisoners.  Finally we heard that one had been sedated….no explanation for that….could he have been violent?  Most likely.  But we’ll never know from the BBC.  All we got was a self-serving tone of reprimand and disapproval from the BBC journo, his own deliberately slanted take on events.

The ‘Reunion’ was an outright propaganda coup for the Islamists and they took every opportunity to spin their version of events with absolutely no proof that any of what they claimed happened in the way they said it did. The US guard’s immediate reaction team that dealt with unruly prisoners was presented as unnecessarily violent but there was no attempt to provide any undersatanding of why they were sent into action….no attempt to reveal what the prisoners were up to that forced such interventions…..interventions that are just as common in British prisons by officers in riot gear….and sometimes by military personnel drafted in for their expertise and perfection of the use of force in quelling disturbances and hostage rescue.

We were told of Korans being deliberately desecrated but there was no proof, we were told of other abuses and violence and again no proof, and we were told that inmates had committed suicide but were driven to it by their treatment at the hands of their captors.  Stafford-Smith told us that we must find out what drove them to their suicide as suicide is unIslamic and therefore their treatment must have been very terrible.  Has he never heard of 9/11 or 7/7 or the hundreds if not thousands of Muslim suicide attacks?

In the same way that Islamists were trained to lie about their treatment in captivity and to conduct ‘lawfare’ against their captors the suicides were thought to be a continuation of that, asymetric warfare….an attempt to get the world’s attention onto the camp and pile on the pressure to get it closed with as much scorn and opprobrium as possible pouring down upon the heads of the Americans.  Stafford-Smith, and the BBC, failed to mention that the Americans suspected he had himself helped organise the mass suicide as a political act.

Stafford-Smith has another pre-packaged tale to tell in order to illustrate the evils of Guantanamo, and this one is just as dubious as the last one….here his organisation ‘Reprieve’ spells it out just as he did on the programme…

‘I am working at the charity Reprieve at the moment whose lawyers were counsel in the infamous case of Mohammed el Gharani. He was just 14 years old when he was seized for a bounty in Pakistan. His US interrogators used a Yemeni translator, but Mohammed spoke Saudi Arabic. The word zalat meant ‘money’ to the interrogators; to Mohammed it meant ‘salad’. He could not understand why they wanted to know what zalat he had taken to Pakistan with him. He said he could get it anywhere he wanted. They got excited, and demanded to know where. He described various market stalls around Karachi. They thought he was an Al-Qaida financier and as a consequence, he then went on to spend seven years in Guantánamo before a conservative federal judge found the intelligence was so woeful that they could not even work out how old he was. Mohammed’s interrogators had heard what they expected — or wanted — to hear.’

Unfortunately the reason the boy was held was because the Americans believed he ‘ had stayed in an al Qaeda-affiliated guest house in Afghanistan, had fought in the battle of Tora Bora, had served as a courier for senior al Qaeda operatives and was a member of a London-based al Qaeda cell.’   The story about the salad and money is a nonsense spun by Stafford-Smith to try and mock the Americans and make them look foolish and as far as I can see he seems to be the originator of the story himself with no-one else deeming it news worthy.

The reason he was released…

‘On January 14, 2009, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon ordered the release of Gharani because the evidence that he was an enemy combatant was mostly limited to statements from two other detainees whose credibility had been called into question by US government staff. Gharani’s attorney Zachary Katznelson said after the ruling “Judge Leon did justice today. This is an innocent kid when he was seized illegally in Pakistan and should never have been in prison in the first place.’

Nothing to do with salad.

Bumgarner said he felt that Guantanamo was a necessary facility…Sue MacGregor leapt in and suggested he thought it was a ‘necessary evil’….so in her opinion Guantanamo was ‘evil’.  Just so we’re clear where we stand.

Programmes like the BBC’s ‘Reunion’ are just another part of that assault on the West and its fight against the terrorists.  The BBC is siding with the enemy either by design or by naivety.