Category Archives: BBC bias

The BBC likes to drum up a vision of a nastier, more racist Britain due to Brexit but is not so keen to suggest that maybe Europe is a nastier more racist, homophobic, sexist place after so much Muslim immigration.  Is it not a discussion worth having when so much of that immigration is occurring…surely the consequences should be considered and the citizens of Europe warned as the BBC warns of the rise of the Far Right?

The reality of the Muslim immigrant flow is not the Swedish one as illustrated in the previous post where homosexuality etc are celebrated and encouraged, the reality is more one where Gays had better watch their backs so to speak…however the BBC is being rather coy about that reality as it reports on an attack in Holland upon two Gay men [H/T Craig at Is the BBC biased]…

Dutch protests against attack on gay couple holding hands

No mention that the attackers were Moroccan…no mention in this BBC report either..

Jasper Vernes-Sewratan, 35, and Ronnie Sewratan-Vernes, 31, say they were attacked by a group of men in the early hours of Sunday morning in Arnhem, in the country’s east.

Their story was widely publicised and they appeared on Dutch talk show Pauw earlier this week, where they described being set upon after holding hands.

Even the Lefty New York Times has edited out the truth as it reports what the victim said…or some of what he said….

Then suddenly six to eight youths set upon them, he said, and “before I knew it, I was on the ground fighting with three men on top of me.”

What’s missing?…..

‘And then suddenly there was a group of six to eight Moroccan youths. Before I knew it I was on the ground fighting with three men on top of me.’

Curiously no one is mentioning that Geert Wilders has been campaigning against Moroccan immigration and been convicted of a hate crime as he did so.

What’s also curious, or not, is that the BBC should be so quiet about the identity of the attackers and why they may be homophobic….perhaps it’s something they have been radicalised about on anti-social media but definitely not in the Mosques.

The BBC ranted and raved about the attack on an Asylum seeker recently and instantly labelled it a hate crime, despite some of the attackers being black and the motive completely unknown  at the moment despite suggestions that it was an argument about cigarettes…the claim that the attackers asked whether the youth was an asylum seeker is completely unsubstantiated and probably came from his two friends…so hard to believe.  Will this attack on gays in Holland, one of many (allegedly a rise in attacks from 400 in 2009 to 1,600 in 2015…#DuetoBrexit?), merit a similar wave of BBC angst driven reporting?

Note that a Dutch near equivalent of the BBC, RNW, reports..

Moroccans agree with Wilders about violent Moroccan-Dutch youths

Many Moroccans agree with Geert Wilders, the leader of the populist Freedom Party, who recently stated that the violence being committed by Moroccan-Dutch youths in the Netherlands is a “Moroccan problem”. The assertion is based on reactions from people who read an RNW article about a linesman who died after being beaten up by a group of Moroccan-Dutch teenagers.

The article was reprinted by Hespress, a popular Moroccan website, and sparked dozens of reactions from Moroccans living in Morocco and abroad. 50 of the 60 people who reacted agreed with Geert Wilders’ remarks.

“The truth has to be told”, wrote ‘a commentator from the Netherlands’. “Moroccan youths here in the Netherlands are causing numerous problems. They carry out hold-ups, rob old people and attack bus drivers and gays. These incidents are occurring on a daily basis. In my opinion, the Dutch have a lot of patience with these criminals.”

According to another reader, “I have been living in the Netherlands for the past 22 years, and I have never had any problems with Dutch people. From what I have seen, whenever there are problems of vandalism or theft in public transport, Moroccans are involved. Anyone who wants to succeed in the Netherlands can. The opportunities are there. You just have to want to seize them.” 

Be aware that the following post contains graphic illustrations of a sexual nature….

Came across this after following link on previous post……Swedish safe sex guidance for immigrants, all very inclusive…….welcome to Sweden….

Sexual health is an important part of most people’s lives and you need to know what healthcare services are available, and how you can protect yourself and others from hiv and sexually transmitted diseases (also called std:s). This brochure is a guide for you who are newly arrived in Sweden and identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans or queer (lgbtq)

Read more about protecting yourself from sexually transmitted diseases, living with HIV, taking care of your sexual health and your rights in Sweden.

Welcome.

I think this deserves a higher profile…thanks to Mice Height…..

And there are still some out there that say "white privilege" doesn't exist. pic.twitter.com/I0RDuKPmEd

— Black Pigeon Speaks (@navyhato) April 2, 2017

‘G’ in the comments notes that the BBC corrected an article that stated ‘Thousands of EU laws on everything from workers’ rights to the environment are to be scrapped or replaced with UK equivalents in a new plan.’  and replaced it with this ‘Thousands of EU laws on everything from workers’ rights to the environment are to be transferred into UK law as the country gears up for Brexit. ‘

‘Brexit‘…or the ‘Scrapheap Challenge’ as the BBC prefers to call it.

How the BBC presents the negotiations is important….the BBC and Remainders are pushing the narrative that negotiations and any trade deals will be extraordinarily complex and will take years, perhaps over a decade, to complete.  It is all part of their anti-Brexit campaign…keep up a negative barrage of comments about how difficult and complex Brexit will be and how the supposed advantages of it will in fact be almost impossible to negotiate….they are still fighting the referendum whatever Nick Robinson spins about it all being over.  He, and the BBC, should actually listen to the Public…as Lord Ashcroft points out…they want to get on with it….

For an event that was supposed to change everything, Brexit has made strikingly little difference to domestic politics. The single biggest reason, according to my latest research, is that most people, however they voted in the referendum, think a democratic decision has been made and needs to be implemented: even among remain voters there is very little appetite for trying to block or delay our departure.

The fact that we are already in the EU and comply fully with all their rules and regulations already would, to an impartial observer, seem to indicate that any deal must be relatively simple and quick to cobble together…but again the BBC seems to want to paint a different picture…that opening line, ‘Thousands of EU laws on everything from workers’ rights to the environment are to be scrapped or replaced with UK equivalents in a new plan.’  was clearly totally wrong as a paragraph later on the BBC itself proves as it quotes David Davis…’It also meant workers’ rights, environmental protection and consumer rights currently enshrined in EU laws would continue when Britain left, he added.’

Interesting of course that the BBC cherrypicks workers rights and the environmental laws to claim they are being ‘scrapped’…..a Remainders’ alarmist theme.

What is remarkable is how many versions of this report there are, it is constantly updated [News sniffer] and many of the updates seem to be designed to put a negative spin on Brexit and a positive spin on the EU’s own stance..and indeed that claim that laws are to be emotively ‘scrapped’ itself was a later addition, the first version being ‘The government will set out how it plans to remove EU law from the statute book later by publishing details of its Great Repeal Bill.’

This was also added…‘Asked if the PM’s comments amounted to “blackmail”, he replied: “I try to be a gentleman, so towards a lady I don’t even use or think about the word ‘blackmail’.”

As was this ‘The prime minister’s words sparked an angry reaction from some EU officials who said security was too important to be used as a bargaining chip in trade negotiations. ‘

This ‘She called for a “deep and special partnership that takes in both economic and security co-operation”, and also warned the failure to reach a deal could weaken the joint fight against crime and terrorism.’ was changed to this more alarmist ‘blackmail’ version ‘ In her letter on Wednesday triggering Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, Mrs May suggested cooperation with the EU on the fight against crime and terror was at risk if Britain did not agree an overall Brexit deal within the two year time limit.’

A bit of positive news about the EU…it won’t ‘punish’ us, they’re lovely really...’He said the “fear” that the EU would punish Britain for leaving, in order to deter other countries from going down the same route, “has reduced” although it had not disappeared altogether.’

Oh and the Public are ‘apprehensive’ about the deal …‘Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson admitted to public “apprehension” over the outcome of a deal, but said Mrs May was “wise” to wait until now to set out her negotiating position.’

And so on…many, many changes as the article is extensively rewritten over the space of a day but don’t forget…‘Get news from the BBC in your inbox, each weekday morning’...and remember to keep checking every hour as the story is rewritten to suit as the agenda changes and they think of new and interesting ways to slip in a few Brexit slanders.

The BBCers and Teachers….brothers in arms….reading this description of how educational ‘progressive trolls’ patroll the internet you’d easily recognise it as a description of the BBC itself…it may not be able to back up an argument but it has the moral highground…and so it is right anyway….and all their opponents are Fascists….

The Rise Of The Progressive Trolls

When I started blogging, it was at the height of the control of policy and institutions in education by educational progressives, and I used to get a lot of personal attacks. It was seen as close to blasphemy to dissent, or even to express opinions like saying INSET is often a bit boring, that you can hear in almost every staffroom. There was very little professionalism or restraint from those who just wanted me to shut up.

As time went on, more classroom teachers joined Twitter, my following grew, and I saw less of that kind of intimidation aimed at myself, although I saw plenty of it aimed at newer voices, like Quirky Teacher. They’d be witch hunts every so often, when the great mass of progressives saw a target, but less in the way of actual abuse, and what there was tended to happen only when somebody lost their temper having already lost the argument. I mainly experienced a lot of tut-tutting from those convinced they had the moral high ground, and that even if they could not show my opinions were wrong, they were at least convinced my tone was not what it should be, and that their own motives, behaviour and compassion were beyond question. Every so often a troll, by which I mean somebody who hurls insults and threats on social media, would pop up and be blocked but it was the exception.

Over the last few months things have changed. Having spent years trying to claim the moral high ground in the debate, a new faction seems to have emerged. The progressive trolls. They have appeared to tell us that traditionalists are evil, selfish fascists up to no good (although they sometimes claim not to be terribly progressive themselves). They congratulate each other on being blocked, and subtweet personal attacks and conspiracy theories about those who have blocked them. They put a lot of time into telling anyone who listen that traditionalists are extremely right-wing.

‘The left would be wise to try to incorporate the findings
of behaviour geneticists into their political philosophy rather than
continue to deny them. Why? Because they’re almost certainly right.’

The BBC was right all along, we are heading back to the Thirties…who’d have believed it…the BBC, in its hatred of Brexit and Leave voters, is broadcasting a programme that says genetics, biology, makes the ‘lower classes’ stupid [and thus they know not what they vote for]…natural selection…perhaps we should be practising Eugenics…Toby Young should know better than to peddle this tripe for the very nasty BBC…

The populist movements that swept Britain and America last year in which angry, often working class, voters rejected the political hegemony of highly-educated, liberal elites were uncannily like the one imagined in The Rise of the Meritocracy – a dystopian satire written almost sixty years ago that imagined a modern society much like our own that collapses after an anti-Establishment revolt in 2034.

Michael Young’s son Toby, a journalist for the Spectator, asks if his father’s dark prophesy is correct and whether the Brexit and Trump votes signal the death knell for the popular political vision of a modern meritocracy.

A new open thread for those whose lack of an opposing digit doesn’t restrict their ability to type…..

‘It will be vital to challenge apologists for terrorism.’    

Prevent Programme

 

Andrew Neil asks…

Perhaps he should have listened to the likes of Tommy Robinson instead of showtrialing him at the behest of the Islamist Mehdi Hasan……they don’t need a reason other than you’re not Muslim…..

Islam the religion, in Ms. Hirsi Ali’s view, is a Trojan horse that conceals Islamism the political movement. Since dawa is, ostensibly, a religious missionary activity, its proponents “enjoy a much greater protection by the law in free societies than Marxists or fascists did in the past.”

Ms. Hirsi Ali contends that the West has made a colossal mistake by its obsession with “terror” in the years since 9/11. “In focusing only on acts of violence,” she says, “we’ve ignored the Islamist ideology underlying those acts. By not fighting a war of ideas against political Islam—or ‘Islamism’—and against those who spread that ideology in our midst, we’ve committed a blunder.”

A whole new ballgame…and it’s here, according to Tommmy Robinson in a very unPC video as he ‘exposes and opposes’ Islam and criticises the MSM and the Establishment for turning a blindeye to the real threat as he sees it, not terrorism but cultural Islam…he says there are two types of people…those affected by Islam and those who will be affected by Islam.  I’m guessing he won’t be given the same freedom to express his views on the BBC as they give the Muslim fundamentalists from the likes of Cage, MPACUK and the MCB.

At least one MSM publication is not turning  a blindeye….The Wall Street Journal...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Islam’s Most Eloquent Apostate

The West’s obsession with ‘terror’ has been a mistake, she argues. Dawa, the ideology behind it, is a broader threat.

The woman sitting opposite me, dressed in a charcoal pantsuit and a duck-egg-blue turtleneck, can’t go anywhere, at any time of day, without a bodyguard. She is soft-spoken and irrepressibly sane, but also—in the eyes of those who would rather cut her throat than listen to what she says—the most dangerous foe of Islamist extremism in the Western world. We are in a secure room at a sprawling university, but the queasiness in my chest takes a while to go away. I’m talking to a woman with multiple fatwas on her head, someone who has a greater chance of meeting a violent end than anyone I’ve met (Salman Rushdie included). And yet she’s wholly poised, spectacles pushed back to rest atop her head like a crown, dignified and smiling under siege.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, born in Somalia in 1969, is Islam’s most eloquent apostate. She has just published a slim book that seeks to add a new four-letter word—dawa—to the West’s vocabulary. It describes the ceaseless, world-wide ideological campaign waged by Islamists as a complement to jihad. It is, she says, the greatest threat facing the West and “could well bring about the end of the European Union as we know it.” America is far from immune, and her book, “The Challenge of Dawa,” is an explicit attempt to persuade the Trump administration to adopt “a comprehensive anti-dawa strategy before it is too late.”

Ms. Hirsi Ali—now a research fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, where I also work—is urging the West to look at Islam with new eyes. She says it must be viewed “not just as a religion, but also as a political ideology.” To regard Islam merely as a faith, “as we would Christianity or Buddhism, is to run the risk of ignoring dawa, the activities carried out by Islamists to keep Muslims energized by a campaign to impose Shariah law on all societies—including countries of the West.”

Dawa, Ms. Hirsi Ali explains, is “conducted right under our noses in Europe, and in America. It aims to convert non-Muslims to political Islam and also to push existing Muslims in a more extreme direction.” The ultimate goal is “to destroy the political institutions of a free society and replace them with Shariah.” It is a “never-ending process,” she says, and then checks herself: “It ends when an Islamic utopia is achieved. Shariah everywhere!”

Ms. Hirsi Ali contends that the West has made a colossal mistake by its obsession with “terror” in the years since 9/11. “In focusing only on acts of violence,” she says, “we’ve ignored the Islamist ideology underlying those acts. By not fighting a war of ideas against political Islam—or ‘Islamism’—and against those who spread that ideology in our midst, we’ve committed a blunder.”

The way it will go…

From this…

To this…

To this….and note how the man stays the same……it’s the woman, Janet Jackson, who is changed by Islam the most….

Divorce seems to be the only answer.

After Trump’s strike on Assad the BBC contacted Peter Ford, a former British ambassador to Syria, and led with his views on many news bulletins today…that the gas attack was a false flag operation by Jihadis….without telling us that he is ‘a vocal critic of UK policy in Syria’ who also happily appears on RT with the Iran stooge George Galloway….how the hell did this guy get to be a British Ambassador?…why did the BBC give his views so much airtime when, as in the interview above, it is acknowledged that his views chimed with Russia’s, but otherwise remained unchallenged?…The BBC also gave the views of Tory Crispin Blunt, that it was illogical for Assad to do this, a high profile….never mind that it was almost impossible for IS to have done it….

If the operation was an IS false flag operation how did they manage to get hold of nerve agent?  Next to impossible for them to do so…and did they then bomb the hospitals and aid centres immediately after the gas attack?  They don’t have aircraft so who did that?  Good that the BBC interviewer not raise such awkward questions.

A video of Jacob Rees-Mogg giving the EU what for and telling a few home-truths that the BBC doesn’t dare voice…he mentions the rise of  extremist parties [left included] but blame sit on the EU’s lack of democracy.  Pretty damning stuff.

And here’s Simon Jenkins in the Guardian of all places giving a pretty accurate take on the BBC’s bias with a very revealing comment about Lord Hall’s views…..though have to disagree with the usual narrative that the BBC’s referendum coverage was very balanced….

The best way to tackle BBC bias is make it plain for all to see

Though the corporation had a good Brexit, it must still address the narrow monoculture that skews key decision.

After the Brexit vote last June, Robinson’s boss, Lord Hall, went round the London dinner circuit wailing that BBC balance had “lost us the election”. It had given too much credibility to leave. I disagree. The BBC may have “lost” the election, but it was not during the campaign – rather through its years of brazen pro-EU bias.

The campaign was ironically its finest hour. Amid a deluge of lies from both sides, the corporation kept a clear head. Nothing and no one was left unchallenged. [LOL]

The BBC’s former director general Mark Thompson makes a valiant attempt to chart these rock-infested waters in his book on political language, Enough Said. He had to wrestle with a BBC which is palpably left of centre, never challenging any plea for public money or any demand that “something must be done” about the world’s ills.

The doctrine of due impartiality thus allowed producers discretion in their casting.

  As [Nick Robinson] rejects all suggestion of bias, except that old cliche “the bias against understanding”, we must ask, yes, but who is to be the judge?

I like the BBC’s familiar cast of two antagonists, of “A v B”……But it is also dangerous. It can reduce debate to stupidity, to false opposites and excluded views. It vests extraordinary power in the producer to orchestrate – and distort – debate.

There is no such thing as “pure” news. Everything you read in a newspaper or hear on a radio, every question asked and answered, is the outcome of a human decision to accord it priority over another item. That even applies to humans who program computers to privilege certain stories. All information is “edited” by someone claiming a right to choose, a licence to bias.

We can accept the BBC view that any opinion must be weighed in the scales of significance before being unleashed on the public. But we must ask who is doing the weighing, what is their inherent bias.

I may love the BBC and defend its independence to the death, but it is an alarmingly narrow monoculture. Politically, it is not diverse. It staged a good Brexit debate, but by then its past bias had loaded the outcome. I am all for “due impartiality”, but to whom is impartiality paying its due?

 

Why was BBC 5 Live News telling us that Britain, France, Germany and ….Israel supported the strike on Assad?  Why no mention of Saudi Arabia and Qatar and Turkey?  Is the BBC feeding into the conspiracy theories…ISIS…the ‘Israeli Secret Intelligence Service’? Is the BBC deliberately trying to stir up Muslim anti-Western radicalism?

 

Trump is to blame for Syrian gas attack and no doubt will be getting the blame for the terror attack in Sweden…didn’t he put the idea in their little heads?  Only on the BBC [and possibly RT] could it be possible to blame a man who has only been President for two months whilst the sainted Obama, president for 8 years, is applauded…and this from a BBC that for years utterly refused to mention Ed Miliband’s name when discussing the 2013 vote and his responsibiity for the betrayal of the Syrian people….

Syria chemical ‘attack’: Is Trump partly to blame?

There is an argument that the Trump administration’s “hands-off” approach to Bashar al-Assad emboldened the Syrian President to carry out atrocities like the chemical attack for which he’s being blamed.

Years of Obama grandstanding as a moral fence sitter with the BBC cheerleading that policy and only two months into Trump’s administration does the BBC suddenly find such a policy might have its faults?

The BBC has only just woken up to the fact that Ed Miliband betrayed the Syrians with his own cowardice dressed up as moral grandstanding and in effect was a major contributor to the half a million deaths in Syria, the rise of IS and the millions of refugees that flood Europe and the Middle East….naturally the BBC forgets its own role in that vote in 2013 when it refused to release the video of a chemical attack on a school until after the vote had happened knowing that if released the MPs might well be influenced to vote for some kind of military action.

The BBC is a disgrace….Obama’s role is being whitewashed out of history…his ‘quiet’ policy [ie refusal to commit and take responsibility] being applauded and Trump blamed for saying what everyone else was saying reluctantly…maybe the best solution is to leave Assad in power in order to deal with IS first….yes Obama sat back and let it all happen…but there’s a difference….

Obama’s policy on Assad evolved, shaped by Russia’s entry into the war on the side of the Syrian regime, and by his administration’s growing focus on the fight against the Islamic State group.

“Everything is done through a counter-terrorism lens,” a US official who worked closely with these issues told me in December. “Would they like Assad to go away? Yes, but only if they feel that wouldn’t undermine US interests as they define it.”

Given these realities, Obama’s Secretary of State John Kerry concentrated on what he thought was achievable – de-escalating the violence and getting some sort of political process off the ground in co-ordination with the Russians.

He crystallised this quiet policy shift in December 2015, when he accepted Moscow’s demand that Assad’s fate be determined by his people.

Noting that the removal of the president was a “non-starter” as a pre-condition for talks, he said the focus was on facilitating a peace process in which “Syrians will be making decisions for the future of Syria”.

Sound familiar?

Yes, but there’s a difference.

The Obama administration, especially Kerry, continued to emphasize that Assad was responsible for the bulk of the violence in Syria, that his brutality fed the extremism that spawned the Islamic State group, and that there could be no peace if he continued in power.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, has been ambivalent, very publicly washing his hands of the issue.

Others have a different view….The Telegraph…

John Kerry and Sergei Lavrov: The handshake that removes any chance of Assad’s fall

Any prospect of Britain and America taking military action against Mr Assad ended, though, when Mr Cameron lost his Commons vote and Mr Obama lost his nerve.

Since then Mr Assad has enjoyed a remarkable revival in his fortunes, especially after Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to fill the void created by Western inaction and deploy his own forces to Syria in support of the regime in Damascus.

More to the point, Assad has continued to use chemical weapons against his own people. Only last week Boris Johnson, our Foreign Secretary, was railing against the Russians, calling on them to end their “indefensible” support for the Assad regime. Now he finds himself having to offer British support for the ceasefire that Mr Lavrov has brokered with Mr Kerry – an agreement that is guaranteed to keep Mr Assad in power for the foreseeable future.

From Orient-News…

The Obama administration has watched Iran devastating Syria to keep the bloody Assad regime in power without objecting to the war crimes perpetrated against Syria and its people. Even when the Assad forces used chemical weapons against Syrians, the Obama administration created the proper nasty scenario to keep the criminal safe by punishing the weapon not the user. Part of the scenario was handing over the whole Syrian affair to Putin to finish what the Assad and Iran militias could not. It even gave Russia the chance to veto any proposal or resolution to put an end to the Syrian tragedy. All was to keep Assad in power; it was said that Assad has always been under the implicit protection of the American eye. Obama should be proud of such a human rights and human protection record in the history of a country that claims to be the land of the free.

From US News…

Report: Obama Sees Assad in Power Into 2017

Documents show the administration has backed off its insistence that the Syrian leader step down immediately.

President Barack Obama has softened his position that Bashar Assad must step down as a condition for Syrian peace talks, acceding to Russian demands and ensuring that the dictator’s tenure will outlast that of his own, according to documents obtained by the Associated Press.

From Think Progress…

Syria haunts Obama and it could haunt his legacy, too

It might be a stretch to say Obama supports keeping Assad in power, but it’s hard to argue that his administration’s policies haven’t been doing exactly that.

After more than five years of war and 450,000 deaths, the Syrian civil war will surely add an asterisk to President Obama’s legacy. Obama has said the mass destruction and loss of life “haunts me constantly,” but he has also told reporters he is skeptical that any other decision would have changed the status-quo in Syria today.

Obama’s skepticism, however, is not enough for many Syrians who feel the United States has let down the Syrian people in the face of starvation sieges, chemical weapon (mostly chlorine) attacks, and repeated airstrikes on civilian targets perpetrated overwhelmingly by the Assad regime and their allies.

From Breitbart…

Hayward: Obama Loses to Bashar Assad, a ‘Tyrant’ Who ‘Massacres Innocent Children’

Obama himself has been calling the Syrian dictator a monster for years. He just doesn’t do anything about it. Having abdicated all responsibility for global leadership, deliberately weakened America abroad with his noxious “smart power” and “lead from behind” philosophy, and created a power vacuum like nothing seen since World War II, Obama has been effectively leaning against the Oval Office wall and wondering when someone else will come along to rescue the Syrian people from Assad.

Oh and best of all…the BBC’s Nick Bryant…so very off-message…

One of the reasons why the world has become so disorderly is because America is no longer so active in imposing order……Washington has lost its fear factor.

World leaders nowadays seem prepared to provoke the wrath of the White House, confident that it will never rain down on them.

It explains why the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, after unleashing chemical weapons against his people, continues to bombard them with barrel bombs.

Assad’s flouting of American warnings is especially noteworthy.

In killing so many civilians with chemical weapons, he flagrantly crossed the “red line” imposed by Obama, but escaped punishment.

The president was unwilling to carry through on an explicit threat, in what was the biggest foreign policy climbdown of his presidency and also one of the most significant in the past 50 years.

Even supporters of Barack Obama believe he made a fatal strategic mistake, because it demonstrated endless flexibility and a lack of American resolve.

Needless to say, despots around the world took note.