Category Archives: anti-war

SHOOTING THE MESSENGER

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Listen to John Humphyrs doing everything possible to suggest that the British Army is running away from Sangin in this interview with Major General Gordon Messenger. I find it repulsive listening to the mocking and hectoring tone from Humphyrs and his ilk knowing the gallantry and self-sacrifice that characterises our Armed Forces. The Taliban must tune in to Today regularly for this Brit-bashing Taliban worship.

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DAILY SKEW

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Following on from David’s post Defeated in Iraq…

Whatever your own view of the Iraq War, the BBC constantly campaigned against it. The BBC also loves Obama. So how to report the withdrawal of US combat troops from Iraq?

Clare Spencer, the left-winger who writes most of the Daily View pieces for the BBC website’s See Also column, is back from her holiday today. Her first post is Daily View: US troops leaving Iraq.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/seealso/2010/08/daily_view_us_troops_leaving_i.html

If you were a biased right-wing reporter, who would most want to ignore on this issue? Robert Fisk of the Independent probably. If you were a biased left-wing reporter, who would you go to first? Robert Fisk of the Independent probably. Clare Spencer goes first to Robert Fisk, quoting some of his usual anti-Western, anti-(this-)war bile.

After Fisk comes Steve Benen, a JournOLista at the Washington Monthly (Clare is fond of quoting JournOListas), who ‘balances’ Fisk by taking “some satisfaction” in this milestone being achieved. Bad war yes, but well done Obama!

After the left-wing Fisk and the left-wing Benen comes left-wing blogger Juan Cole of Informed Comment who synthesizes the two views to get the perfect BBC opinion:

What Obama has done is stay true to US commitment to get combat units out by September 1. That should reassure Iraqis – and Arabs and Muslims in general – about US intentions. It is a symbol of a turnaround in US policy, a repudiation of the Bush administration doctrine of preemptive war.

Fourth comes Roula Khalaf of the Financial Times who “argues…that the Iraqis have little to celebrate about the US withdrawal”. (This could be read as a criticism of Obama’s move, but isn’t.)

An article in Foreign Policy by John Negroponte, ex-ambassador to Iraq, is quoted next. His quote offers advice for the future, so it doesn’t really counteract the one-sided appraisal of the war of the article so far.

Clare then quotes the Daily Mail. That’s odd. But when you read the quote you find that the Mail article attacks Bush and Blair and calls the war “shameful, without any winners” – which is exactly what beeboids wants to hear!

The one bit (out of seven) that genuinely does provide balance comes from the Daily Mirror, where “the director of the Iraqi Association, a charity for Iraqi refugees in Britain Jabbar Hasan“ argues “that the Iraq war was worth it”.

However, it’s back to the far-Left anti-war campaigner Rose Gentle (who lost her son in the war and then joined Galloway’s Respect Party) to finish the article in the same Fiskian spirit as it began:

Life in Iraq hasn’t got any better. It’s got worse. Nothing has been achieved there which is very disappointing. There is still no stability despite thousands of innocent Iraqis being killed during the war.”


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DEFEATED IN IRAQ

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Anyone else catch THIS disgraceful commentary by Hugh Sykes on the news that the last US combat brigade has left Iraq. Note the sneering contemptuous tone he adopts, note how he mocks the US soldier that dares to suggest they won (Where’s Saddam today, Hugh) and note the clear suggestion that it was all a waste of time – in line with the BBC narrative even before we liberated that wretched country. For years the BBC opposed the notion we would want to remove a terror-enabling mass murderer in the form of Saddam and now that Obama has delivered them the retreat that they want, they put the knife in even deeper. Sykes is not balanced, he is not neutral, his miserable commentary could come straight out of a Guardian editorial.

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A BBC VIEW RARELY HEARD ON THE BBC!

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Despite the relentless opposition to the liberation of Iraq, just occasionally the odd sensible comment gets through the propaganda machine..

Frank Gardner, BBCsecurity correspondent tells us what he thought of the 2003 invasion of Iraq…46 mins in.

‘….a massive mistake on many fronts….but having been there we knew what ahorrible regime it was. One of Saddam’s cronies kept a mangle through which hewould feed his enemies feet first. The removal of Saddam and his odious sons removed forever the threat of thatregime ever getting nuclear weapons in the Middle East.This was a regime that invaded Iran invaded Kuwait and butchered the Kurds andyou need to remember that.’

Maybe Frank could spend a little more time updating his colleagues as they seem uniquely ignorant, or uncaring, of this perspective?

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DRONE DRONE DRONE..

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Sunday Morning Live replaces the awful Big Question. Hosted by the lovely pouting Susanna Reid, it kicked off this morning with the usual BBC mantra – time to get out of Afghanistan. In fact the line being debated was “Are our soldiers dying in vain”. The BBC is keen to use the loss of soldiers lives over there to whip up support for their militant pacifism and evidently care little for the impact these discussions have on the next of kin. It is an article of faith in the godless BBC that the British Army should never go to war and so it uses every opportunity to press it home. For good measure they had a guy on from the Muslim Public Affairs Committee to give his sage advice which involved cutting deals with the Taliban.

Next up for debate – should we be allowed to help kill our relatives? BBC not keen on the war on terror but very keen on advocating euthanasia. Then, Erin Prizzie to express her sympathy with child killer and child porn devotee Jon Venables.

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THE WAR ON THE CONSERVATVES…

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If it’s 8.10am and it’s the BBC’s TODAY programme, you can be sure a Conservative will be under sustained attack. Yesterday, Sarah Montague let rip at Michael Gove, today we had John Humphyrs doing everything possible to get William Hague to agree that British deaths in Agfhanistan were a complete waste of time. Humphrys was on full-on “We’re doomed and we shouldn’t be there in the first place” mode and Hague had to think very quickly to deal with it. I thought he did OK but it was interesting to hear Humphyrs to spout out his own theory about the “drugged out of their own heads” Afghans. I though the BBC rather approved of narcotics?

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THE BEAT OF DEFEAT…

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The BBC is opposed to war. In the mind of the State Broadcaster it is never right to defend a Nation by taking action against a foreign power. So, when we helped in the liberation of Iraq, it got very cross and still whinges about how “illegal” that war was. Of course even as it churned out a daily mantra of pessimism whilst our brave soldiers were doing their duty in Iraq, it pretended that the “good war” should be in Afghanistan. No sooner is focus switched to Afghanistan than the beat of defeat heard again. The BBC wants us OUT of Afghanistan and now runs almost daily stories informing us that we cannot win and that we should not be there. Here is a particularly vivid example from Kevin Connolly beating the drum as hard as he can. We’re doomed, I tell you, doomed. Retreat….

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STILL FIGHTING THE WAR…

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Long after Saddam’s corpse has rotted away, the BBC is still fighting the Iraq war. As you know, the BBC consistently opposed the idea that the UK should join in the fight to remove the Baghdad Butcher, and when we did do what was right, the BBC led the charge against it – with the dismal beat of defeat being a daily feature of the war coverage. Even now – with Afghanistan now being the major theatre of war (and also opposed) – the BBC can’t let go of Iraq. You see it needs to prove the war was illegal, and thus wrong. It ran this item today which is essentially the BBC continuing to press the case that removing Saddam was wrong because an academic says so. Plus ca change! The BBC is still stuck in some sort of John Lennon-esque “Give Peace a Chance” timewarp.

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