The BBC is having a crisis. It hasn’t been able to settle on a position yet on how to report the case for military action against ISIS.
Its natural stance would be to oppose any military action as it did with Afghanistan and Iraq but with ISIS displaying unhelpful signs of being out and out evil and a vast majority of MPs voting in favour the BBC has had to hold its tongue.
That of course will only last until the first civilians get killed by allied bombs or ‘boots’ appear on the ground and ‘mission creep’ sets in.
For now the BBC settles for making sure there is no definitive answer as to whether military action is the correct course to take by continually raising ‘for and against’ questions. keeping the waters muddy. Good job the same bunch of BBC people weren’t around in WWII…Hitler would have his own show to justify his actions.
However the BBC does still like to keep up its own mantras that it nurtures and propagates, mentioning them as often as possible…..
- The Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France ‘carved up the Middle East’ and caused all the problems we see now.
- Islam is the religion of peace.
- Iraq 2003 gave birth to ISIS.
- And you can’t fight an ideology.
All of those claims by the BBC, stated frequently by its journalists, can be disproved with very little effort. Which might go to show that the BBC’s position is more political than journalism based on integrity.
John Humphrys many years ago scoffed at the idea that we could have a ‘war on terror’ claiming…‘The ‘War on Terror’ is a misnomer isn’t it? How can you have a war on an idea?’
This was a frequently repeated bit of semantics trotted out by opponents of that ‘War on Terror’.
On Saturday he repeated that claim that you can’t fight an idea with a bullet….and it was the first question on ‘Any Questions’…..‘Can you bomb away an ideology?’.
The trouble is of course you can…..if you don’t fight the ideology it will only become more established and will grow ever stronger.
And the Jihadists don’t have a problem propagating that ideology with a bullet…after all they are only doing what Bin Laden said they should do….
‘The confrontation that we are calling for with the apostate regimes does not know Socratic debates…Platonic ideals…nor Aristotelian diplomacy. But it knows the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine gun.
…Islamic governments have never and will never be established through peaceful solutions and cooperative councils.’
We spent 40 years fighting Communism with hundreds of thousands of troops based in Europe facing off the Soviets. Diplomacy and fine sentiments didn’t keep the Russian hordes at bay….tanks, guns and nuclear weapons did.
An ideology is only an idea when it is in someone’s brain…put a bullet in that brain and that kind of puts a stop to things….at least to the people with intentions to impose that ideology using violence.
So you can fight an ideology. It’s really very simple in concept unless you’re a smart arse journalist with an axe to grind because you’ve been caught lying about what Blair said.
Of course you have to remember that the BBC once claimed Al Qaeda didn’t exist, it was a ‘nightmare’ dreamt up by the American government, and therefore it was only an ‘idea’, a figment of the imagination…the ‘war on terror’ was therefore based on a lie fighting an imaginery foe.
The BBC might like to revisit that claim and whilst there they might like to think again about declaring ISIS ‘unIslamic’… even Muslims realise this isn’t true:
The current US strategy negates the cultural and social underlying causes for the rise of terrorism in the Middle East. The US decision-makers should realise that IS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra Front and similar groups are not just a terrorist group but also an ideology coming from the heart of the Wahhabi-Salafi-Hanbali doctrine.
This school of thought enjoys a deal of support amongst Sunni-Arab countries. From their perspective, the US is practically re-launching the post-9/11 “war against Islam”. The fact is that the US cannot fight an ideology through air strikes.
So the religious ideology of Al Qaeda et al is one happily embraced by many Middle Eastern countries….what a surprise.
Shame the BBC doesn’t read its own material.
Speaking of which today we had this from the BBC:
Karen Armstrong on War and Religion
Karen Armstrong argues against the notion that religion is the major cause of war.
Listening to this programme you hear many facts that you can agree with but then there comes the interpretation, an interpretation which is often distinctly at odds with the facts the same person has just laid out before us….the problem, as with the BBC, is that they allow their own prejudices and views to colour that intepretation.
Armstrong seems to have a particular dislike of Israel…she claimed the Jews for a thousand years had a taboo against going to the Holyland and setting up a state [Clearly a claim intended to undermine the existence of an Israeli state]…..and that peace for Israel means others being subjugated with merciless violence.
She also blamed the West for all the ills in the Middle East…the humiliation of Muslims subjugated by the colonialists practically overnight leading to their desire to fight the world.
She of course doesn’t even consider that Islam conquered, colonised and subjugated the populations of the Middle East and that that colonisation has been the ultimate cause of all this upheaval….as well as the medieval backwardness of those countries.
We also heard that Iraq 2003 is the cause of the Shia/Sunni rift…according to Armstrong a modern phenomenon….never mind 1400 years of conflict…or indeed the Iran/Iraq war.
Also that Iran is the key to defeating ISIS….so we must join forces with them.
Oh, and suicide attacks were invented and exported by the West.
Only 25% of Muslims really understand the Koran Armstrong suggests…curiously Armstrong tells us that it is only when Muslims go to prison that they have the time to get to know the religion in depth…and whent hey do they realise God is good and wants you to be good…hmmm…does she mean as with fundamentalists Qutb and Maududi, and oh yes , Hitler who wrote ‘Mein Kampf’ in prison…. “the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message.”?
So that kind of nullifies her point that Jihadis don’t know their scriptures…. so many having come out of prison radicalised even more so.
The programme was in many respects quite surprising in its admissions about religion and violence…..however, as said, they seemed to rush back into the safety of the ‘narrative’ that the BBC also likes….Islam the religion of peace, The West the cause of all the evil in the ME, and Muslims as the victims of Western oppression, their violence merely a reaction against that oppression and humiliation.
Another surprise might be this clip on 5Live Drive [whole report from 2 hr 22 mins] the BBC played of George Bush in 2007 predicting the rise of terrorism if there is a failure to completely deal with the Jihadists in Iraq…as when Obama chose to withdraw the troops……but listen to Anna Foster trying to blame both Bush and Obama for the rise of ISIS whilst the ‘expert’ clearly blamed Obama….Bush pumped in 30,000 troops in a surge that successfully cleared out Al Qaeda….the troop withdrawal by Obama gave the Jihadists room to come back….along with Assad helping them.
Here is the Telegraph’s take on Obama:
Obama is rewriting history on Isil. It won’t wash
Given how completely Barack Obama’s foreign policy has been upended by the rise of Isil in Syria, it is not surprising that the president should try and gloss over the scale of his own miscalculation when it came to the threat posed by the jihadists – but that doesn’t mean he should be allowed to get away with it.
This weekend Mr Obama had the cheek to blame his intelligence agencies for the fact that the White House was “caught by surprise” by the sudden rise of Isil.
Some spooks are already challenging the basic truth of this, but intelligence aside, what Mr Obama conveniently glosses over is that it was his decision to let Syria burn that created the chaos – and that a good many people, from his Secretary of State Hillary Clinton downwards, warned him loud and clear of the risk he was taking by doing that.
It was Obama’s decision to let Syria burn.…and Ed Miliband’s…who influenced Obama.
It is curious how Miliband rarely seems to get a mention in all of this. Just how much blame can be attached to him for the rise of ISIS?
The BBC doesn’t ask.
Others do…..
French President Blames Ed Miliband For ISIS
Many more and much greater issues behind the whole ‘bomb, don’t bomb’ last year (I thought it was more the British people who swayed that one, and Miliband merely stumbled across a bandwagon where for once he wasn’t on the wrong side of public will), but again the BBC is in dilemma territory if one of the favourite sons is being dissed by one of their favourite garçons.
On the back of Obama doing just what Netanyahu did, only with a much less defined national self-defence path in justification, quite how the world’s most predictable PR agency is going to juggle all these tricky exceptions is going to be interesting.
Karen Armstrong! sheesh! (hands in the air!).
BBC!, too ludicrous for words
9/11 British Empire Blowback Thesis
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/andrew-harrod/karen-armstrongs-911-british-empire-blowback-thesis/
There is a world of difference between the BBC and the military. The BBC thinks wars are a thing of the past; that all races and cultures can peacefully co-exist under an umbrella of fluffy diversity and daisychains; that when to groups are heading toward conflict, the guilty group will never be the non-white, non-Christian, non-Western group, and that extremists on the non-white side are oppresed, whilst the moderates on the Western side are the oppressors and the extremists.
Unfortunately for the BBC, their kindergarden outlook guarantees only one thing. War. And when the war comes, the military, who actually understand what is going on, will fight not just for their country and democracy, but also for the very BBC types who formented the war and wil never thanks the military for subsequently defending them.
The military are grown-ups, the BBC are idiotic children.
From memory in the “Song of Roland”.At the battle of Roncevalles with the Christian Franks holding against the Muslim armies Bishop Turpin tiring of arguments just says pick up your swords. We are right they are wrong.
The same today.
Isis has chosen war. Not the West. Cultural relativity and a complete loss of confidence in his own culture has rendered the liberal defenceless . Time for the liberal world to make way.
Isis will come for Europe .It is the great prize. First Constantinople and then Rome. Read your history books. We must stop them. Dimly our leaders are starting to understand what many of us have known for years.
By the way Syria has little to do with it. This is a existential struggle between the West and the fundamentalist Muslim world. There is no why to this. It is what happens in the world. The way of it and the reality of it.
dave s
I’m glad you reminded us what this war is about.
Muslims,quite rightly in my view, regard this war as a continuation of the war against Christianity. They see, what we seem to have forgotten – that our civilisation rests on Christianity – art, music, literature, morality, secularism, compassionate justice, architecture, engineering and science. All of it. Even the Chinese, recognise it. Destroy Christianity and the rest follows. So I plead to those who are not Christians, to stand together, while the war continues.
First Constantinople then Rome, as Muslims state it, encapsulates this war.
Remember that Liberals have no culture.
dave s
Have you read Ernle Bradford’s “The Great Seige”.
An absolutely riveting account by Bradford of the seige of Malta by the Suleiman the Magnificient. I found it difficult to put it down.
Justin Tapp- The Seige of Malta is probably the greatest war story you’ve never heard. It is definitely one the greatest, most important battles in European history.
Bradford was a naval office serving with the RN at Malta in WWII. He knows his stuff.
Unfortunately it is not just the ‘BBC’ who are idiotic children, it is also the millions of intelligent middle aged folks who have been brain washed by the BBC and the Liberal left Elite over the past 30 years into believing this multicultural ,moral equivalence lie.I don’t see how with the BBC being so powerful and able to dictate the news agenda , the truth can be heard by the population as a whole. Unless and until the BBC is got rid of the truth will not be heard and until it is nothing serious will be done to curb the islamification of Britain. How long have we got before Islam is too powerful to deal with in the UK by a liberal democracy? Not long. How long before somebody gets rid of the BBC ? Too long.
What’s INBBC’s political line on Islamic jihadist, al Nusrah?
Does INBBC see it, as it should, as a military threat to the West, including Britain?:-
“Al Nusrah Front leader says Americans and Europeans will pay the ‘tax’ of war.”
By THOMAS JOSCELYN.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/09/al_nusrah_front_lead_1.php
We are in a major war that is going to last around 50 years or so. The entire Western world is involved. There is no question that the BBC can go it alone. It is a public broadcasting organisation, and it will do what the government tells it to do. Our government will do what is necessary to do as decided by NATO. Of course the BBC will do it, so it appears independent and impartial. That suits government policy as well.
So far, the BBC has been doing the right thing by demonising groups such as the EDL, and appeasing Muslims and Islam. This suits the government, as it increases public anger against Muslims, while keeping the peace at home.
The situation is changing quite rapidly though. The BBC will get its orders, and it has to follow them. It is war time – not declared but still war..
Thanks for the lead on the Siege of Malta. I shall find it and read it.
Over twenty years ago I first came across the notion of the forthcoming war of civilisations. It was inevitable then and what is happening now was predictable.
According to my information the fear of it was one of the main drivers to rid the USSR of communism and to create the Russia of today.
We are still very close to these events and it is hard to see the pattern but pattern there is and all the liberal fantasies are not going to change anything.
How it will end is impossible to predict but to underestimate the power of militant Islam is very dangerous.
The West has made the mistake of assuming it is invulnerable and the end product of history. It is not.
I have nothing against the young men flocking to the banners of militant Islam. We cannot stop them doing so or change their minds. It is a waste of time. Only by accepting their motivation will we be able to defeat them.
We have only one real course of action and that is to make it clear that we will defend our civilisation come what may.
I am still of the opinion that Russia is the key to our survival and that we need them far more than we think.
I firmly believe this was why the USSR was dissolved so that Russia could become the ultimate protector of European civilisation.
Over the next fifty years we will find out.
dave s
You are making salient points. I agree with all you say.
Yes we cant change Islam. Thus the only we can save ourselves is to have complete separation from Islam. That means banning all Islamic practices not consonant with our own values. NO multiculturalism.
Total ban of Halal. This is deeply offensive to me on several levels
1. The cruel slaughter of confused animals, while the killers manifestly enjoy the suffering.
2. I object to meat being served to me which has been sacrificed to allah, who requires my throat to be slit( in the normal Halal way)
3. As Halal certification requires money to be paid to Islam, part of that money is required by law to sustain the Jihad.,
Withdraw citizenship of Muslims who insist that Islam is more important to them. Deport Muslim criminals. Reverse immigration of Muslims. All these for a start.
This has been my position for atleast twenty years.
I agree that we need Russia in this war. Russia has had an unfortunate history. Invaded by the West a couple of times, and then taken over by Marxist revolutionaries- again a Western enterprise. Each of these invasion led to a catastrophic loss of Russian lives and property. Russia is a deeply conservative country, and the communist coup was the last thing that the ordinary Russian wanted.
If you cant buy The Great Seige By Ernle Bradford, you can get it from the library.
Were it not for those brave Christian knights, just around 900 of them, mostly middle aged or older, and 8000 poorly armed and untrained militia, the Renaissance would have have been stillborn.
We take all of Western civilisation far too lightly, and do not consider the high price that was paid for it.
I cant recommend this book enough.
I agree that we need Russia with us against Islam……we pussyfoot with fighters, using hugely expensive ordnance against pick-up trucks!!…..send in a dozen Hind H attack helicopters from Russia, they will shoot-up whole columns of Isis transport using more cost-effective 30mm cannon shells…..same with the States’ A-10 tank-busters, they will obliterate the Islamic idiots with little relative cost…..
Good. But we need to take action where the real danger is. Here, at home.
Do you really expect action to be taken?….dream on. The only way to get action…is for the forming of patriotic, secretive, armed groups, wind the muslims up….like they do us…..destroy mosques, one after the other, the muslims will revolt, the govt has to act, troops and police in……keep the pressure on, the muslims will retaliate with atrocities, further alienating them……then finish them, proscribe Islam, mass deportations to muslim lands….it will be bloody, messy and expensive….but sadly essential, just blame the stupid politicians for starting this nightmare. Extreme? Not a bit of it……it will come, as sure as the sun rises tomorrow.
INBBC’s political agenda is close to that of Islamic supremacists.
INBBC criticises British history, but endorses Islamic violent imperialist history
of past 1,400 years, and continuing.
INBBC demonises EDL and other opponents of Islamic jihad, but INBBC is empathetic
towards Islamic jihadists from Britain joining our barbaric enemy of savages,
the Islamic, Islamic State.
‘Can you bomb away an ideology?’.
Answer
Where is there a Nazi state now?
Bombing alone didn’t defeat the nazis, it took millions of ground troops of which many thousand were casualties. It won’t be nice, but it is apparently looking inevitable unless we surrender quickly (as our politicians look capable of doing).
My point was that ,contrary to the BBC’s assertion, an ideology can and has been defeated by force.
As to whether the west can be saved by bombing alone. I guess it depends on what sort bombs are used
Nuclear is not an option. Pakistan already has them and we would be targetted (and we don’t have a robust enough defence due to successive governments). Therefore conventional bombs alone would be the only option, and to win would mean to commit troops on the ground in a full-scale WW3 way. Tens of thousands of casualties, at least, on our side alone, but we must win or we’re doomed. We need to have the whole world on board with us too to share the burden.
“we don’t have a robust enough defence”
Then we have problem surviving at all ,as it can only be a matter of time before a nuclear device is detonated in an english city by moslem terrorists
I agree. It’s frightening.
I guess it depends on what sort bombs are used
Ummm.
the bind that unites the left and the islamists in the uk is the total destruction of christianity and western democrasy.today radio 5 live leftie presenters have been falling over backwards to attack are home secratarys theresa mays new proposal to defeat the isis/hamas supporting islamic enemy within.tony livesy was the worst with his comparing of the bible to the koran in its extremist texts,you leftie idiot livesy,no christian in this country is going over to iraq and syria beheading children and quoting texts from the bible.you total idiot livesy by trying to use that false comparision,it was just sickening to listen to this appeasement of radical islam on radio 5 live today,just sickening.
‘The BBC is having a crisis. It hasn’t been able to settle on a position yet on how to report the case for military action against ISIS. For now the BBC settles for making sure there is no definitive answer as to whether military action is the correct course to take by continually raising ‘for and against’ questions.’
So, in other words providing a platform for a range of views in a balanced and impartial way!?
Same old regurgitated garbage Alan:
‘Of course you have to remember that the BBC once claimed Al Qaeda didn’t exist,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_of_Nightmares
“it argues that the threat of radical Islamism as a massive, sinister organised force of destruction, specifically in the form of al-Qaeda, is a myth perpetrated by politicians in many countries—”
Personal attacks from the Beebots again.
There are many examples through the ages of ideologies being defeated and the most recent example being Sri Lanka vs Tamil Tigers.
The thing with defeating an ideology is that one has to be prepared to go balls deep and take the gloves off because no quarter can be given.
Mailman
Correct mailman….see my post earlier….i will be pilloried for it by the weaker, scared readers of this blog but i care not….i care for this country, now being sold out by the govt and the left.
Israeli PM Netanyahu must have given the BBC cognitive dissonance nightmares when he equated ISIL with Hamas.
So to slightly misquote Humphrys, …‘The ‘War on Fascism’ is a misnomer isn’t it? How can you have a war on an idea?’
Oh, I forgot, Muslim Terrorists are not Right Wing are they, and that makes all the difference to attitude of the BBC.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/30/Oklahoma-Beheading-Suspect-Charged-With-First-Degree-Murder-Not-A-Religious-Act-Race-Related……race related and not religious huh ?
As with Dave & Teresa, looks like Barry’s placem.. persons are sticking to the “tell it often” enough plan.
Trouble is, tell it often enough when reality is rather clear to anyone with their own lying eyes, and you take what is bad, apply a soiled plaster, and really let the corruption take hold.
“TEN POINTS ABOUT ISLAMIC JIHAD IN AMERICA
Beheadings at home force us to face facts.”
By Scott McKay
http://spectator.org/articles/60531/ten-points-about-islamic-jihad-america?
Even Beeboid political clone, ‘NYT,’ has this (headline amended)-
“Europe Tries to Stop Flow of *Citizens Joining Jihad.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/world/europe/isis-europe-muslim-radicalization.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
* (Muslim Citizens)
Islam Not BBC (INBBC) sees the growing numbers of Islamic jihad Muslim recruits from U.K (and West) to Islamic State as ‘victims,’ not as our enemy, which is what they are.
Even PM Cameron has now used these (empty) words-
“David Cameron: ‘Britons who join Islamic State are enemies of UK'”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-29440577