Mark Mardell’s Crisis of Faith Continues

BBC North America editor Mark Mardell is in a dark place these days. After his beloved Obamessiah turned out to be a cold-blooded assassin, he doesn’t know which way to turn. He’s tried blaming ugly United Statesians for forcing the President to kill because it plays well at home, refusing to call out the President Himself. Mardell never made much of a fuss about the fact that the current President has sent unmanned drones to kill far more people in Pakistan than the previous White House occupant did, so it’s not surprising that this particular targeted assassination has shaken his faith so badly. To their credit, the BBC has reported this elsewhere, but it’s remarkable that Mardell doesn’t seem to make the connection.

In his latest post, Mardell misrepresents reality to sing His praises for one last time.

From the very start of his presidency, Mr Obama’s administration has made it clear there is no such thing as an Afghan strategy. First it was an Af-Pak strategy. Then it became Pak-Af. Whatever you call it, there is an acknowledgement that Pakistan may be the more important country in the fight against al-Qaeda. Everyone in the know believes some members of the government and particularly the intelligence service are hand-in-glove with the jihadists and must have known what Bin Laden was up to.

This implies that Bush’s focus on Afghanistan was wrong and that he somehow neglected Pakistan. In fact, the only reason Al Qaeda had such a presence in Pakistan was because they had been largely forced out of Afghanistan by Coalition forces during the last several years of fighting. Even the BBC has admitted that in the past. Yet Mardell wants you to think that only The Obamessiah understood that Pakistan was a problem. Why would Bush have been sending drone attacks into the tribal areas if he didn’t also have an Af-Pak strategy of some kind?

In any case, Mardell’s crisis of faith continues. In fact, it’s getting so bad now that I think I’m nearly ready to stop with this “Obamessiah” business because I think Mardell and his colleagues are nearly done with their blind worship of Him. Mardell himself reveals why.

After talking about the problem of squaring the huge amount of cash and support we give to Pakistan with the fact that there’s clearly a major faction (at least) there who are in league with the enemy, he says this:

While this debate will go on, the Mr Obama doesn’t have to worry about some of the concerns expressed in the rest of the world about the legality or morality of killing Bin Laden. It has hardly been raised by anyone here in the US, and the president has said that anyone who questions taking the al-Qaeda leader out “needs their heads examined”.

Mardell questioned it and denegrated the US public over it in his last post, so this means that the President is actually saying that he, too, needs his head examined. The BBC North America editor must be questioning his faith now. What to do? We’ll see how he handles it.

Bin Laden’s Death: Illegal Assassination or Legitimate Target? Depends On Who’s President…..

Have Your Say, 2001:

Can state assassinations be justified?

US President George Bush has told the CIA to find and destroy Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda terrorist network.

The president has given the agency the green light to do “whatever is necessary” – which could include an assassination attempt – and has given it £700 million in funding to carry out the mission.

The operation will include the CIA working with commandos and other military units to act immediately on intelligence uncovered by American spies about enemy targets.

Should the CIA have been given the go ahead to assassinate Bin Laden? Can such actions ever be justified?

Have Your Say, 2011:

Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden dead: Your reaction

BBC News website readers in Pakistan and Afghanistan have been sharing their views on the death of al-Qaeda’s founder and leader, Osama Bin Laden.

Osama Bin Laden evaded the forces of the US and its allies for almost a decade, despite a $25m bounty on his head.

Enough said.

UPDATE May 3: Der Spiegel asks the question the BBC has curiously stopped asking:

Was Bin Laden’s Killing Legal?

BBC Correspondent Bridgette Kendall Tells A Little White Lie on the News

I just now saw BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridgette Kendall on the News Channel telling a lie to Sophie Long. It’s either a lie or a display of inexcusable ignorance. While discussing the very real concerns in nearly all corners about the legal and practical ramifications of arming the rebels in Libya, Kendall said that some people were wondering if it we could trust them.

“Some people in The States are saying” that they have links to Al Qaeda. No, BBC, it’s not just some people in the US. The leader of the rebel forces himself says so:

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasidi, the Libyan rebel leader, has said jihadists who fought against allied troops in Iraq are on the front lines of the battle against Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

In an interview with the Italian newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, Mr al-Hasidi admitted that he had recruited “around 25” men from the Derna area in eastern Libya to fight against coalition troops in Iraq. Some of them, he said, are “today are on the front lines in Adjabiya”.

Mr al-Hasidi insisted his fighters “are patriots and good Muslims, not terrorists,” but added that the “members of al-Qaeda are also good Muslims and are fighting against the invader”.

There is no doubt that there are Al Qaeda connections with the rebels in Libya. By suggesting that it’s only a concern put out by some people in the US, Kendall is either saying this man lied, the Italian newspaper created a false story and the Telegraph reproduced the fraud, or that she is simply unaware of this revelation. It also suggests a dismissive attitude towards certain factions in the US. Either way, it’s very poor behavior for a BBC correspondent, and indicative of a misguided attitude towards the realities of the Muslim world. It’s a pity, because the rest of her contribution was pretty straightforward stuff, clearly laying out the basic issues being discussed by the various politicians and advisers involved.

How can the BBC be trusted if the expert correspondent they bring out to explain things to you either doesn’t know the facts, or does know them and tells a fib to play down the truth? This is one of the most important international issues going right now, both for Britain and for the US, not to mention the rest of Europe and at least a dozen Muslim countries. Yet the BBC cannot tell the truth, or simply isn’t aware of it.

Your license fee hard at work.

TERROR FILES AT THE BBC.

Am I the only person surprised at the fact that when top secret files concerning Al Queda and Iraq are accidentally left on the London tube they are found by an ordinary member of the public and then handed over…to the BBC? Given the BBC’s opposition to the war in Iraq and its inability to understand that Al Queda is a terrorist group, I find it odd that such an organisation is handed such sensitive files. Would the London police not have been the obvious destination? I note that BBC’s security correspondent, Frank Gardner, immediately starts leaking the content, as we would expect. There is only one thing in the world worse than losing top secret security file and that is the BBC finding them!

MOHAMED THE BRIT AND GITMO

. Do you think it possible that statistically speaking ALL of the in-mates at Guantanamo Bay are innocent little lambs? That is the line repeatedly peddled by the BBC and I listened and read the latest items concerning the squealing from “British” inmate Binyam Mohamed. Mohamed follows Al Queda training manual instructions and claims he was tortured. When he was captured by US forces, this cleaner from West London was travelling between Pakistan and Afghanistan, trying to resolve his .. ahem.. personal drug problems. As you do. His only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and now those pesky Yanks have gone and charged him with conspiring to commit terrorist offences in the US, including plotting to plant a so-called dirty bomb to spread radiation. Naturally the BBC immediately undermines this by stating that a previous AQ terrorist suspect in the shape of Jose Padilla got off when the same charges were made against him. It deliberately OMITS telling us that Padilla was convicted by a US jury of conspiring to fund Jihad and the killing of people overseas. More BBC deceptions folk, giving you half the story in order to try and convince you that poor doe-eyed Mohamed is innocent. It strikes me that the BBC just loves providing airtime to the parasitic left-wing lawyers for these Gitmo captives who can then use this bully pulpit to further blacken the reputation of the US military and Presidency. In the case of this illegal Ethiopian asylum seeker – now labelled as “British” as they come – the BBC is merely continuing its own war on the United States. Don’t you agree?

LET’S TALK

. It is article of faith for the BBC that terrorism is best defeated through dialogue with the terrorists. Through the prism of leftworld, the idea that you might want to defeat terrorism by wiping out terrorists is a non-starter, hence the crusade against the Bush doctrine. So you can understand the delight of the BBC when the man tipped to become the next head of the Metropolitan police, Sir Hugh Orde, argues that we should be talking to Al Queda. Sir Hugh is the Chief Constable of the PSNI here in Northern Ireland and delights in the fact that convicted IRA bombers and bank-robbers now sit on his policing board. I’m guessing that his idea of the future for London might be when those masterminds behind the 7/7 attacks can be brought in from the cold and given a job running London transport. Orde’s views resonate perfectly with the BBC’ s views which is why he gets to make these outrageously craven comments with not one word of criticism from any other source. Perhaps the BBC could have asked the next of kin of those poor people slaughtered by Jihadists on that fateful July day if they share Orde’s enthusiasm for parlaying with deranged killers.