24 August 2013

Evidently, the BBC was not satisfied with the propaganda pieces I referred to in yesterday’s article, so it’s come out with another, equally audacious piece of fiction that reiterates, again without any proof, the same drivel it peddled to us yesterday (and the day before). But what ‘UN’s Angela Kane in Syria urges chemical weapons probe‘ (24/8/13) does is communicate a sense that it (the BBC’s) wishes might yet come true; that the Empire would once again unleash the dogs of war this time on poor, destroyed Syria.

The BBC really is a war junkie. What is really galling is that aside from a single reference to the Russian assertion (and itself a qualified reference), “Russia, Syria’s main ally, said earlier there was evidence rebels were behind Wednesday’s attack“, the views of scientists and experts assembled on WashingtonsBlog (‘Experts Doubt Syrian Chemical Weapons Claims‘) for example, are nowhere to be found. It’s one, big cry for war.

Yet assembling and deferring to informed and reliable opinion and analysis, instead of ‘belief’, is journalism one-o-one; talk to the experts, the media analysts, use some common sense for Christ’s sake! The BBC is always using ‘experts’ but can’t seem to find a single one when it comes to adding any fact to Hague’s ‘belief’.

Why the hell would the Syrian government, on the very day the UN inspection team arrived, gas hundreds of people just a stone’s throw away from the location of the UN inspectors? Why doesn’t the BBC piece even entertain, in the words of William Hague, the “vanishingly small” chance that it would be ‘an own goal’ for the Syrian government to do something so stupid?

Instead the BBC again quoted Hague that the Assad regime was so brutal, and hence of course stupid–everyone knows that brutal and stupid go together–that it would do something stupid like invite the Empire to finish off the job started by its proxies, by murdering hundreds of its own citizens and thus signing its own death sentence. It’s the Reichstag Fire all over again!

Again, I keep coming back to the point that the BBC’s ‘news’ coverage of events in Syria is in reality war propaganda for the government, a government that seems hellbent on killing some more ‘rag heads’, do a little more of the Western version of ‘civilising’ Syria, the cradle of civilisation. It really is disgusting. And to think we are all paying for it.

The US, meanwhile, is facing rising pressure to intervene.

Where is this ‘pressure to intervene’ coming from, aside from the BBC, that is? Well there’s France, just as gung ho to kill some more people of colour as the Brits are and of course, the usual assemblage of right-wing psychos and so-called liberals, and then there’s the BBC.

“France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Saturday that “all the information at our disposal converge to indicate that there was a chemical massacre near Damascus and that the [regime of Bashar al-Assad] is responsible”.”

Back in Mark Mardell’s piece of the 22 August, ‘Obama’s thick red line on Syria‘, Mardell lets the reader know that with his and his master’s help, he’ll get his way; war, war, war, not jaw, jaw, jaw:

“There may be a tipping point when moral outrage grows too strong.”

Whose ‘moral outrage’ is Mardell referring to? His own? The BBC’s? It’s outrageous but there’s worse. In the same piece, we get the ‘insider dope’ on the war to come (salivating, but spiked with a dollop of moral outrage):

“I am certain there are plans for the discreet use of special forces to secure chemical weapons – but it is not clear what the trigger would be.”

Ever so discreet is Mardell. Mardell writes as though it’s him that’s involved in planning the invasion (which in a perverted kind of way, he is) but he just hasn’t assembled all his resources yet. And once more, Obama is a dithering fool, who wants to go through the tedious and time-consuming process of making the destruction to come, ‘legal’ (he pants breathlessly):

“In either case, Mr Obama is likely to insist on going the full UN route to gather the maximum possible support for any action – and that means waiting for the inspector’s report on earlier incidents at the very least.”

Then, at almost the very end of today’s article on Kane’s UN visit, reluctantly included as it were, we read the following:

“Russia’s foreign ministry said Moscow had urged President Assad to co-operate with UN inspectors, but questioned the opposition’s willingness to provide “secure, safe access of the [UN] mission to the location of the incident”.

“It also said there was evidence that “this criminal act was clearly provocative”, referring to unsubstantiated internet reports that allegations were being made hours before the attack was supposed to have happened.”

It’s interesting how the Internet reports are “unsubstantiated” as opposed the BBC’s elevation of “belief” to that of fact. But be sure, the BBC, with its billions, will not be investigating any such ‘unsubstantiated reports’ anytime soon.

Are we really going to let them get away with yet another war on the innocents made possible by the likes of Mark Mardell and his bloodthirsty crew? What the fuck is going on! The fate of millions is effectively played out in the editorial rooms of the major media, and if they say yay, we wage war on the defenceless once again.