says the BBC.
Troublemaker. Stirrer. He’s going to go to a meeting and say exactly what everyone expects a Catholic cardinal to say. Can you believe that? Just when every decent person had finally come to an agreement about what the law on abortion should be.
Hat tip: Archduke.
UPDATE: It now says, “Cardinal urges abortion rethink.” Hat tip: me, and King Herod. Mirabile dictu, the timestamp has been changed as well.
Adloyada says Human Rights Watch now says it “cannot contradict” (huh?) the findings of the Israeli Defence Force that the fatal explosion at a Gaza beach was not caused by Israeli artillery fire.
As of now (8.38 am BST) the front page of the BBC’s multi-million pound news website says that… Palestinian workers receive wages.
Given the wall-to-wall coverage by the BBC of this story when the explosion happened, and of the earlier claim by HRW that the explosion was caused by incoming Israeli artillery, it will be interesting to see how much attention this latest turn of events receives.
Expect updates to this post.
UPDATE 9.29am: Though not yer something new to report type of update. The most likely cause of the explosion, Human Rights Watch now say, was unexploded Israeli ordnance from some earlier clash. Mr Garlasco of HRW is also quoted as saying,
“… that he was impressed with the IDF’s system of checks and balances concerning its artillery fire in the Gaza Strip and unlike Hamas which specifically targeted civilians in its rocket attacks, the Israelis, he said, invested a great amount of resources and efforts not to harm innocent civilians.”
Will these remarks of Mr Garlasco’s be quoted as widely by the BBC as his earlier assessment that “it’s likely that this was incoming artillery fire that landed on the beach and was fired by the Israelis from the north of Gaza”? I trust the old stories will be updated.
UPDATE: 10.15am. Here is the BBC’s Middle East front page. Nothing there on this. OK, so why do I expect there to be? Because, as this Newswatch piece twice says, this story is “so significant.” Images of Huda Ghalia screaming in grief flew round the world on media wings. The story was presented then by the BBC as one of the Israelis first being trigger-happy and then trying to dodge responsibility. The BBC said (middle link under “as” above):
Of course, the Palestinians have rejected this case. On top of that, a military expert for the Human Rights Watch organisation, Mark Garlasco, says the evidence he has seen points to Israeli shelling as the cause.
He has been to the site of the blast. And he happens to be a former Pentagon intelligence analyst.
Smug, or what? Now the same former Pentagon intelligence analyst has praised the Israeli inquiry. The same man now thinks that the most likely cause of the tragedy is one – unexploded Israeli ordnance – that, while it can still be attributed to Israel’s past actions, is no longer in Israel’s power to clean up, since Gaza is under the control of the Palestinians. If everlasting peace were to be declared between Israel and Hamas this afternoon people would still occasionally be killed by UXBs for years to come. If Garlasco’s and HRW’s views were news last week they ought to be equally newsworthy this week.
UPDATE 6pm. Dunno why I call it an update. Still nothing from the BBC. But Barker John has pointed out that the subject is being discussed on this BBC message board. See Message 29 onwards. Here are two samples:
Message 31
A Pentagon-trained ballistics expert working for the US-based organisation Human Rights Watch is here in Gaza.
He has surveyed the scene and has forensically examined evidence from the beach.
He concludes that the explosion was *caused* by an ISRAELI shell.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/…
Even the LIES of Israel are clear for all to see.
And
Message 33
“And even Mr Garlasco of Human Rights Watch, who blamed ISrael, has now cleared Israel of responsibility. In fact he even praised the IDF’s professional investigation.”
I can find no evidence for this statement.
Can you provide a reference for it?
says an article the BBC Sports section, referring to John Pantsil, a member of the Ghanaian team that unexpectedly defeated the Czech Republic in the World Cup match on Saturday. It is an odd choice of headline. Those who get no further than the headline might be forgiven for thinking that the unspecified gesture was obscene.
Actually it was much more shocking than that. He waved an Israeli flag. Mr Pantsil plays for an Israeli team and had apparently promised his Israeli fans that he would do this if Ghana scored.
Commenter Archduke says:
note the BIGGER factoid buried in the story:
FIFA “had said they had no problem with the gesture.”
also note the quote from the israeli sports minister at the end.
you could argue that the headline should read “Ghana gains Israeli support” or “Israelis delighted by Ghanan gesture”
I think that the BBC headline did originally say something very like what archduke suggests. At time of writing (4.50pm BST), this Google News search shows a link to a BBC Sport story, and the link text says, “Ghana win friends in Israel.” But if you click the link you get to the story with the “Apology” headline.
UPDATE: Blogger wasn’t working so I was unable to publish this post until several hours after I wrote it. Google News has changed but you can still see the link to the BBC story saying “Ghana win friends in Israel” if you press “All 36 related.” Am I right in thinking that was the original headline? If I am, why was it changed to one that seems designed to depress interest?
Please use this thread for off-topic, but preferably BBC related, comments. Please keep comments on other threads to the topic at hand. N.B. this is not an invitation for general off-topic comments – our aim is to maintain order and clarity on the topic-specific threads. This post will remain at or near the top of the blog. Please scroll down to find new topic-specific posts.
Hat tip to Bob for this one:
France jails 25 for attack plot
A French court has jailed 25 alleged Islamist militants for planning attacks in France in support of Chechen rebels.
Alleged? They have been convicted by a French court of law. That it was no kangaroo court was indicated by the fact that two of the defendants were acquitted. I thought it was us Amerikkka-luvvin neocon warmongers who were supposed to claim that France is a banana republic whose courts cannot be relied upon, not the BBC.
The featured quote in the grey box is, of course, from the defence lawyer: “These convictions profit the United States, Algeria and Russia.”
Update by Andrew: A screen grab to accompany Natalie’s post:
BBC speak: convicted terrorists are merely “alleged Islamist militants”.
[ADDED 21.00 BST: This post has been updated. The BBC story has now been stealth edited to be less misleading and the identity of the singer, who is a US marine, has emerged.]
Commenter Barker John alerted me to this post from LGF.
The BBC story concerned is by Adam Brookes and is called ‘Kill Iraqis marine song’ probe and misplaced quote marks are the least of its problems. It describes a video of a man, apparently a US marine, singing a song about Iraq.
The BBC story is worded to give the impression that the song is about US marines gleefully killing Iraqis, including children.
…apparently shows a serving marine singing about killing Iraqi civilians.
And
Posted on the YouTube website, the video shows a man in uniform strumming a guitar while singing about killing Iraqis, as others laugh and cheer.
And
The lyrics caught on video refer to the shooting of Iraqi civilians, especially children.
These are weasel words. The lyrics do refer to “the shooting” of a child – but by her own father and brother, not by the narrator. The narrator’s first reaction to seeing an Iraqi girl is to fall in love with her. She takes him home to see her family. It turns out to be an ambush.
You can watch and listen for yourself if you follow the link to the LGF post. (Not work safe or suitable for children due to swearing and general tastelessness.)
I cut and pasted the version of the lyrics given by Rayra, making a few changes where I heard things differently or ambiguously.
I was out in the sands of Iraq
And we were under attack
And I, well, I didn’t know where to go.
And the first thing that I could see was
Everybody’s favorite Burger [or Burqua?] King
So I threw open the door and I hit the floor.
Then suddenly to my surprise
I looked up and I saw her eyes
And I knew it was love at first sight.
And she said…
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah [This cartoon Arabic is taken from the film “Team America”.]
Hadji girl I can’t understand what you’re saying.
And she said…
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
Hadji girl I love you anyway.
Then she said that she wanted me to see.
She wanted me to go meet her family
But I, well, I couldn’t figure out how to say no.
‘Cause I don’t speak Arabic.
So, she took me down an old dirt trail.
And she pulled up to a side shanty
And she threw open the door and I hit the floor.
Cause her brother and her father shouted… [Some LGF commenters thought “shouted” was “shot her”. I heard “shouted.”]
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They pulled out their AKs so I could see
And they said…
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
So I grabbed her little sister and pulled her in front of me.
[This line is timed to be the punch line and one can hear laughter]
As the bullets began to fly
The blood sprayed from between her eyes
And then I laughed maniacally
Then I hid behind the TV
And I locked and loaded my M-16
And I blew those little fuckers to eternity.
And I said…
Durka Durka Mohammed Jihad
Sherpa Sherpa Bak Allah
They should have known they were fucking with a Marine.
This song is insensitive and in poor taste. Soldiers’ songs often are. Twenty years ago two popular songs in the British Army were “Bestiality is Best, Boys” and (to the tune of Camptown Races) “Napalm Burns on a Baby’s Back, Doodah, Doodah.”
In the song, the narrator is described as using the little sister as a human shield in an attempt to stop himself from being shot in ambush. Not exactly in accordance with the highest military tradition, but softened by the fact that that line is obviously meant to surprise by its very ingloriousness. It is the punch line of a black joke.
(AFTERTHOUGHT: The BBC loves to describe its own comedies as “edgy”, meaning “close to the edge of what is permissible” rather than “irritable.”)
Had the BBC been content to report this straight, there would have been a minor story along the same lines as those we have seen about “lads’ culture” or “canteen culture” in the British armed services and police. It could have reported the embarrassment of various Pentagon spokesmen and I’d have said, fair cop. But the BBC, so careful to report the sayings of Jihadists in a sensitive manner, could not resist the chance to selectively quote in such a way as to cause maximum resentment among Muslims.
Another example of bias: the “Bullets began to fly” lines from the lyrics are quoted in the main story and also featured in a quote box. The same quote box has a helpful link to another story called Haditha: Massacre and cover-up? This story has a pair of graphics illustrating two incompatible accounts of the alleged massacre at Haditha. One is labelled “Haditha deaths: US troops’ version” and the other labelled “Haditha deaths: eyewitnesses’ version.” Dunno about you, but I thought this was begging the question.
UPDATE: Hat tip to Mike: the BBC story has now been stealth edited to read “The lyrics caught on video refer to the shooting of Iraqi civilians, especially children, by insurgents and then how a marine responds, opening fire himself.” As is usual with the BBC, the “last updated” field has not been altered.
UPDATE II: DFH provides before and after screenshots of the BBC story and Biodegradable links to an interview with the Marine who made up the song.
that took place in this troubled world on Friday night/ Saturday morning concerned crimes and alleged crimes by US soldiers in Iraq, according to Ceefax.
For those unfamiliar with Ceefax, the BBC’s teletext system displays about twenty-five pages of news stories each day, starting with the news summary on page 101.
Pages 125 has four sub pages on the alleged massacre at Ishaqi. When you get to the fourth page, if you are still awake, you discover the source of this video – a “hardline Sunni group.” These four pages make no reference to the news on page 107 that says US troops have been cleared of the same massacre. After suffering that annoying news on page 107, the ideal BBC reader can at least cheer himself up on page 108. It bears “new allegations” from a US deserter. Another massacre? No, someone in the army told him that in the event that he killed anyone he ought to put an assault rifle next to their body to cover it up. Page 117 tells us that one of the Abu Ghraib accused is not going to jail but will have to do hard labour at an army camp instead. I think they should have the Abu Ghraib man on Desert Island Discs, then at least we’d be able to finally learn what his favourite music is when they trailed the show on the Radio Four news bulletins.
Not everyone is impressed by the BBC’s use of a video from a “hardline Sunni group.” Regular commenter Dumbcisco sends the following roundup of what some US blogs are saying:
“Guns caused gunshot wounds”
“Number of editorial layers unknown, but probably a lot” : Point Five
[Point Five also had a link to a post from All Things Beautiful called “Get Me Another Marine Murder Story In Iraq And Get It Now!”]
Michelle Malkin (- a blog read by the President’s new Press Secretary, I believe)
“The BBC shills for a hardline Sunni group” : The Political Pitbull.
“Who needs Al Jazeera when you have the BBC ?” : Democracy Project
“BBC airs propaganda obtained from Sunni insurgents” :
Security Watchtower“What the heck is wrong with the BBC – this story was reported 6 weeks ago and was debunked then……For the BBC to fall for this now only shows how far some people will go to promote an agenda against America and the war” : Rightwing Nuthouse
Total incredulity about the credulity of the BBC in this story : Riehl World View
“BBC reports : Guns cause gunshot wounds ” : Blue Star Chronicles
“The BBC says they “uncovered” the video evidence….this is a strong word to use when it was GIVEN TO THEM BY SUNNI INSURGENTS …” :Outside the Beltway
“….The press is unbelievable. I wish they would just come right out and say – AMERICA IS EVIL. WE OPPOSE EVERYTHING IT DOES. LONG LIVE ISLAMIC FASCISM” : Ninth State
“UPDATE ….looks like the BBC should not only be ashamed of themselves, they should issue an apology to the US armed forces….They were carrying water for the enemies of the iraqi people …” : A Blog for All
“Anxious to pile on more accusations against US troops, the BBC has an article out today …The most curious thing is …a line buried 15 paragraphs into the 16 paragraph story : “The pictures came from a hardline Sunni group opposed to US forces”….. Texas Rainmaker
Oh – and here’s the BBC story described in an editorial as a My Lai and splashed across the Middle East : Arab News
and here is a decidely odd new story from the BBC saying that Iraqis are not focussed on Haditha or Ishaqi anyway. Is the BBC backing away from all its screaming blue murder ? : Iraqis not focused on massacre claims
dumbcisco
The BBC story linked to last is indeed decidedly odd. It says
There are a number of possible reasons for this. One is that many Iraqis already believe that civilians are targeted on a daily basis by coalition forces – whether accidentally or deliberately.
Another is that people have become used to images of alleged massacres and attacks – sometimes these are even made available on DVDs in markets or used by militant groups to recruit new fighters.
But perhaps the main reason is that people actually have more pressing concerns.
More than a thousand people are being killed every month in the country. The sectarian divide in places like Baghdad is growing daily.
Who are these thousand people killed by, exactly? You can guess from the mention of the sectarian divide in the next sentence. But the BBC isn’t going to tell you. That would involve directly comparing the scale and nature of alleged American massacres (subject to investigations and punishment if proved) to the much greater number of bombings of mosques, of bombs set to go off as children were being given sweets by Americans, and all the other massacres carried out by the various factions of anti-coalition “militants” that, far from being a cause of shame to them, are celebrated and praised.
Yet that very comparison must be one of the reasons why Iraqi reaction has been so muted.
Remember the BBC Rule 1: “Active Israelis, Passive Palestinians”? Rule 2 is Active Coalition, Passive Insurgents.
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“the_camp_commandant” writes:
This BBC news article (link) appears to have swallowed completely the line the government is pushing about “giving more rights to cohabitees”.
There has been a suggestion from liberal lawyers that cohabiting couples should have the same “rights” on separation as divorcing couples. The BBC article buys completely the canard that this proposed interference in people’s lives is somehow in pursuit of giving them rights. It completely fails to state the obvious intellectual challenge to this proposal, which is that imposing the same terms on cohabiting couples by default actually *removes* rights from them.
Oh yes it does. At present, cohabitees have the right to live together without a lifelong financial commitment to each other, if that’s what they want. If they decide they do want to make such a commitment, they can always go and get married. At present they have complete freedom of choice.
If this mooted law ever happened, it would mean the *removal* from people of the right to live together in an informal way and a reduction of freedom. what would happen is that by default, and after some wholly arbitrary period of time, they would be forcibly connected financially. They have thus lost the freedom to live the way they do now, and would instead be forced to live in a way the Government decrees.
Nowhere in his article does the writer confront this. Instead, he cravenly accepts all the guff he has been spoonfed. ‘What legal protection do cohabitees currently have?’ worries Mr. Silverman. But wait: ‘On separation,’ he goes on, ‘a claim to a share of property can be exercised only by using complicated trust law. By contrast, married couples can go to court to “divide the spoils”‘. Well spotted, Jon! I think you just answered your own question there! That’s right – the legal protection they have is that at any time they like, they can choose to become one of those married couples. Then there’s no nasty trust law, see?
So if the BBC put two and two together it would work out that the answer here is for cohabiting couples who want a finacial piece of each other to get married. Meanwhile, those who don’t, don’t.
Oh but wait. That last suggestion – well, that’s how things are now. And that sounds a bit, well, pro-marriage, doesn’t it? And we can’t have any of that mucky talk on the BBC.
I could go on. For example, when someone lives with a family member who dies, what rights do they have to stay in the property? Answer: none at all if they can’t pay the inheritance tax without selling it – a problem that has been solved for same-sex couples and is about to be forcibly solved (even though no problem may exist) for unmarried couples. Yet somehow, it isn’t on the BBC radar at all as an issue for, say, maiden aunts sharing a house, or for children looking after elderly parents in their own home.
There is also a story arc embedded in this about the instability of the Left’s attitudes to, well, everything really, but the family in particular. It was the left that pushed for the abolition of the family unit as the basic building block of society; it was the Left which thought it was somehow liberating for people not to have to get married before they had children. Now the Left seems to have decided that anybody who does will be forcibly treated as though they had got married. Now if you’re the BBC, what to do, what to do? Should it agree with this (it’s more “rights” after all, so it’s right-on), or should it object to it because it’s pushing marriage?
There follows a similar take on another BBC story about proposed changes to the legal position of cohabiting couples. The author, “SteveNewton” has made some excellent points – but I am just going to take this opportunity of saying to him (and some other correspondents) that he needs to lower his expectations of the speed with which amateur websites operate.
The BBC has recently had great fun discussing all aspects of proposed new legislation which will allow unmarried couples to claim the assets of people they are living with, even if they have exchanged no contractual obligations such as with a marriage.
Well, some aspects anyway, assuming they happen to align with the BBC’s own agenda. They report this story from their own selected gender specific point of view, giving direct links to people who think it’s a good idea and having Barbara Simpson (‘a deputy district judge in the family division and leading family law expert’) rubber stamp the proposed new law as “…long overdue.”
Further, unnamed lawyers the BBC tells us, have suggested, ‘…the entitlements should apply after couples have lived together for two years…’ You see the BBC is quite happy to refine the specifics of the new law itself even if the Law Commission who originated these proposals is not.
Of course the BBC being publicly funded has an obligation beyond mere independant broadcasting standards to be fair, impartial and complete in it’s coverage of any social legislation and so we do get to hear the ‘other side’ of the story. Right at the end, in the last 3 paragraphs of the story we get a little input from Melanie Philips, a Daily Mail columnist to whom the BBC, we assume, has had to outsource their journalism when it lurches dangerously away from the loony-left.
What else could we possibly require to balance out the previous 22 paragraphs of unidentified lawyers, deputy district judges an unfortunate lady called Rose Green who was left in a “vulnerable position” because her partner died without updating his will to her satisfaction and numerous links and quotes showing how this law will address a, “…terrible unfairness…”
Of course, before Ms Philips is quoted directly we have a BBC filtered summation of her position, just so as we know what her agenda is, the BBC say: “…Melanie Philips told the BBC changing the law would undermine marriage.”
That you see is the only reason we are offered as to why anyone might consider this legislation in anyway controversial. Those crazy people who value the sanctity of marriage; you never know they might even be religiously motivated!
These few paragraphs, however, are about as close as the BBC comes to discussing any other aspects of this legislation that might in anyway contradict or pollute the BBC’s favoured interpretation.
Of course this purity of source doesn’t stop them drawing parallels with other legislation which are not the subject of this legislation but which they think might be in support of it
In fact they make a point of paralleling this new legislation with Civil Partnerships; the image at the very top of this article shows two grooms on top of a cake with the staggeringly crazy piece of associated text: “The Civil Partnership offers similar protections to gay couples.”
How a piece of law which was designed to involve a formal contract between same sex couples is similar to a proposed piece of law which will enforce a ‘contract’ between heterosexual couples even if they refuse to enter into such a contract, isn’t of course explained futher.
This piece of proposed new law represents everything that Civil Partnerships are not. It is an assault on our very rights to freely associate! Unlike Civil Partnerships or their heterosexual equivalent (called Marriage) this new piece of proposed legislation would mean simply residing in the same building as someone for a period of time (determined by unidentified BBC legal sources as 2 years), constitutes an agreement to support them, share your property and income even as far as being forced to supply maintenance payments after separation, all without entering into any formal contract; indeed regardless of the fact that the couples involved may have actively avoided a contract of dependency between them.
Does the impartial BBC consider any of this an injustice or even a point worthy of consideration as injustice? Not a chance, in fact in all of the BBC’s feministic fury to promote this law they have overlooked the greatest and most tragic consequence of the break-up of couples who cohabit without a formal contract. That is the fact that by default a father and his child have no automatic right of contact if the couple are not married and the mother has chosen not to have his name appear on the birth certificate.
This new law which has obviously been thought out to address a disparity between married and non contractually bound heterosexual couples only looks at the mostly female, financial benefits, disregarding what might reasonably considered the most vital area of cohabitational injustice, child custody!
The only mention the BBC makes of children in this report is of course financial when the say: “Cohabitees can currently claim maintenance for a child but not for themselves.”
Barbara Simpson sums up the importance the BBC places on the rights of fathers and their children when she is described in the article as stating that:‘the new rights would recognise there is little difference between living with a partner for years and looking after children – and doing the same as husband and wife.’
Well. ‘little’ unless you are a man in which case you will still be denied responsibility for your own children and have enforced responsibility for any adult women you live with. Too ‘little’ a difference to make a fuss about as far as BBC journalism is concerned of course.
Joe Joseph of the Times reviews the latest edition of the BBC’s series of speculative mini-dramas set in the future, “If… the Oil Runs Out.” Ten years may have gone by, Western civilisation may be grinding to a halt, but the BBC hasn’t changed.
Interviews with oil analysts were interwoven with a mini-drama spun around an abrasive, career-minded American geologist who thinks she has located oil in a wildlife haven in Alaska. She is married to a sensitive Englishman who thinks that what’s important in life is starting a family, and being sensitive; by, for instance, letting his cleaning lady bathe her children in his house when she can’t afford to pay her soaring heating bills. The wife’s mid-Western parents are selfish, consumerist, thoughtless gas-guzzlers who drive an SUV the size of Shropshire: maybe the scriptwriter just asked Ken Livingstone to give them balanced guidance on the essence of the average American.
OK, guess what happens next. Did you guess that enough oil is found to keep everyone happy, and scientists find new ways of burning fossil fuels that aren’t polluting? Then you are a moron. What happens is that society breaks down, and we start behaving like barbarians, and have fights in petrol queues. The geologist doesn’t find oil. She becomes pregnant, after a draining spell of fertility treatment, and realises she must save the planet for her new baby. In short, the drama’s plot was not the area where the budget for this programme was lavished.
