Just listening (on Today 08:44) to yet another Frank Gardner attack on Saudi Arabia….bet the Saudis wish they had paid off Gardner with the £1 million that they said they would pay him for his injuries received in a terrorist attack. Not saying it colours his reportage about Saudi but Frank’s a little bit bitter.
Apparently Britain and the US is responsible for the war in Yemen because we supply arms to Saudi Arabia…and of course the usual BBC narrative….this will lead to radicalisation of the ‘youth’…..regardless of whether the bombs hit targets by accident or not says Gardner. So war is bad whatever for Gardner. Hmmm….so why is there a war in Yemen fighting and who started it? Gardner of course doesn’t bother to give context or reasons just a condemnation of Saudi Arabia and the usual BBC pro-Jihadi narrative of angry, besieged Muslims, victims of the West.
Why doesn’t Frank mention in the same report that Iran has been supplying and encouraging the anti-government insurgency in Yemen…ie inciting the war?…
UN: Iran arming Houthi rebels in Yemen since 2009
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) — Iran has been shipping weapons to Yemen’s Houthi rebels since at least 2009, according to a confidential UN report, indicating that Tehran’s support dates back to the early years of the Shiite militia’s insurgency.
Iran’s involvement in Yemen goes back years, and ranges from political and religious support for Houthi leaders to military training and active involvement in the fighting, according to media reports and Yemen analysts.
“There is a well-documented history of (Iranian) support for the Houthi, including in various State Department reports — money, weapons — support for a very long time,” State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf told reporters Monday.
There probably wouldn’t be a war in Yemen if it wasn’t for Iran instigating it.
Curious how the BBC totally ignored the state sponsored terror in Iran where the male population of a village was killed by the government just recently…
Iran executed all adult men in one village for drug offences, official reveals
The entire adult male population of a village in southern Iran has been executed for drug offences, according to Iran’s vice-president for women and family affairs.
Of course its not just drug dealers being killed off but gay people and very young women who don’t conform to the Islamic modesty rules.
BBC? Not really interested…..and not really interested in the wars Iran sponsors, certainly not interested in condemning Iran in the same harsh tones it uses to malign Saudi Arabia….wars such as the genocidal one against Israel carried out by Iran’s proxies….those wars that some BBC journalists cheerlead with their support for Hamas….and of course Iran’s support for Assad in Syria.
The BBC adopts a campaigning anti-Saudi tone that it doesn’t use when reporting on Iran. Why? The BBC has always had a soft spot for Iran and sees it as a victim of Western aggression and believes that Iran’s own aggressive actions are merely the inevitable and justified responses to that Western interference in its affairs.
Gardner’s report didn’t seem to have a point other than to blame the UK and US for the war…he told us that the Saudis denied deliberately targeting hospitals but then he said you get a rather different view on the ground….but all we heard was that billboards all over the north of Yemen were telling the local population that it was Western bombs killing them…..who put up those billboards and why? Gardner doesn’t think that’s important. And of course he came up with no proof or any of those ‘facts on the ground’ that indicate the Saudis deliberately target hospitals.
Gardner amusingly told us that he was advising(unasked) the Saudi government on their war….I’m sure their really interested.
Full of his own importance….and other stuff.
To be honest, on this occasion the BBC might have a point!
Saudi is far worse in terms of human rights & intolerance of people who don’t fit its narrow Wahabist interpretation of Islam. They have together with other Sunni groups been responsible for the creation, spread, and scope of terrorism which affects us all. Iran has not.
You’re bothered about Iran executing gay people? Well how about Saudi which regularly executes those young people it ‘suspects’ of being gay, but might not be?
It has poured billions of pounds into the West for the promotion of Islam, built thousands of Mosques & Madrasas in the hope of control over the worlds Muslims.
The West is hostile to Iran because our leaders are compromised by the money offered to them. Iran is our enemy because Iran is Saudis enemy, and every single dictator we have removed has been disapproved of by Saudi for one reason or another.
We see our leaders aiding Saudi Arabia with its appalling human rights record, to become head of the UN human rights council, and when Saudi executes 47 condemned people our political leaders refuse point blank to criticise them.
And then there’s the small matter of the $500 million the Saudis gave to the Prime Minister of Malaysia, via Abu Dhabi to try to conceal the source.
Or how about the $1.3 million worth of gifts the Saudis have given the Obamas in one year alone!
Or the £130 given to Tony BLiar by Sunni Muslim countries since he left office?
At what point do people yell ‘foul’ ? At what point is there sufficient prima facie evidence to begin an investigation ?
Saudi is one of the biggest threats facing not only the West, but Israel – and probably the whole world.
Tony only got 130 pounds? Isn’t that a bit stingy from a country wallowing in unspeakable wealth from its black gold?
Poor old Frank seems to be a step down even from Stockholm Syndrome.
That was only a mind thing…so you could say one thing and do another-taqqiyya in effect.
Whereas Frank will be paralysed and confined to a wheelchair-but seems not to have learned a thing. poor soul.
Reminds me of the Dinsdale Brothers in Monty Python…utter self-abasement in the face of appalling cruelty, where Frank even lost his cameraman.
Maybe the BBC would be less kind to Saudi had they killed Frank and spared the cameraman.
The BBC know nothing about Islam, and those captive mutilated stump wavers who pass through the BBC will always get anything but a REASON for why Islam is so brutal and evil.
Not that the Religious Affairs Unit will be telling us why-“we are where we are”.
In a sandpit getting dug snugly in as the aggregate gets delivered nearby….
And need I say that Russia gets the blame for backing Assad-whereas the Iranians get no such criticism…
Why doesn’t Frank (don’t shoot me I’m a Muslim) Gardner mentioned Iran’s involvement? Because he is a talentless Twat that’s why.
…such as the genocidal one against Israel carried out by Iran’s proxies….those wars that some BBC journalists cheerlead with their support for Hamas…
True, and there’s also the BBC’s identical support for the jihad from Lebanon against Israel – the abject fawning to Hezbollah during the 2006 war, the dhimmi compliance to Hezbollywood[s fake reporting and the avoidance of any mention of Hezbollah fatalities* while shouting other Lebanese casualties from the rooftops.
Shortly after the beginning of the war the following triumphant BBC headline screamed from the website:
Israel kills Lebanese civilians
It was quickly replaced by a more moderate headline as the BBC realised the bias was a bit too blatant, even for them.
Frank Gardner is a BBC hack, filtering his ‘understanding’ of all issues through his typical agenda. And his callous, brutal treatment at the hands of the Saudis will not lead him to condemn Islamic jihad as a whole, just those parts of it he disapproves of.
*There was one exception on the World Service: a reporter questioned a Hezbollah spokesman insistently on the terror group’s fatalities and would not accept the absurdly-low number he was given. I never heard anything from him again during the war. Evidently he didn’t get the memo that any mention of Hezbollah fatalities might be seen as Israel waging a just war against an armed enemy and not as brutal Zionists murdering civilians unprovoked.