15 Comments

1. Buddy Larsen:

Somebody–was it VP Cheney?–made that point during the campaign. It’s not a glib device, either, it means exactly what it says, Saddam was a Weapon of Mass Destruction if there ever was one. Great letter from President Talabani–and great idea to post it!

Apr 26, 2005 - 8:29 am 2. RBMN:

I wish American liberals had Talabani’s common sense. To believe that a majority of the Iraqi people wish that the war never happened–believe that Iraqi “insurgents” speak for Iraqis–is to believe that John Wilkes Booth spoke (and acted) on behalf of America’s newly-freed Southern blacks. Only a university professor or a mental patient off his meds believe that kind of stuff.

Apr 26, 2005 - 8:35 am 3. Kyda Sylvester:

Same side as Parts 1-34722.

Terrific letter. I like this Kurd. More and more as time goes by.

Apr 26, 2005 - 8:35 am 4. thibaud:

No mention of this letter anywhere on the BBC’s website. Instead we have:

US closes book on Iraq WMD hunt

The chief US weapons inspector says the search for weapons of mass destruction has reached its end.

OTHER TOP STORIES

–Italian hostage blasts US report

–US ‘presses Iraq on government’

–Demand for Rumsfeld inquiry

–Iraqis killed in market attacks

–Top brass cleared over abuse

Rebuilding Iraq

–Maps, charts, facts and figures about life in post-Saddam Iraq

River of death

–Things may not be what they seem in the Tigris corpses case

Books amid bullets

–Schools suffer under the continued conflict in Iraq

Apr 26, 2005 - 8:43 am 5. thibaud:

So an eloquent, heartfelt official letter to the UK PM from the new Iraqi leader– a Kurdish human rights champion!– of a democratically-elected Iraqi government, which is the first one in nearly half a century, isn’t newsworthy.

But of course, this letter doesn’t fit into the prevailing BBC memes that so clearly dominate the selection and presentation of Iraq news:

- US errors, wrongdoing, abuse, and lying (4 of 6 lead stories).

- Carnage, mayhem (1 story, 1 of 3 feature stories).

- Iraqi government’s weakness and/or illegitimacy (1 lead story, 1 of 3 feature stories, ie the “not what they seem” story).

- And a general situation assessment that reprises the above memes.

Shameless.

Apr 26, 2005 - 8:50 am 6. Buddy Larsen:

You know, thibaud, we get used to this…it becomes sort of routine…but, it is SO incredibly dishonest, SO powerfully in service of human bondage, that…that…well…language fails. All I can say is BOO! HISS! Up the BBC, the dirty, low-down, sorry sonsabitches.

Apr 26, 2005 - 9:05 am 7. thibaud:

One problem: the organisation in question gets IIUC a thousand-pound subsidy from every UK household each year. The BBC staff see themselves as one of the pillars of the government– not Blair’s government, that is, but a separate political institution entirely, like Parliament or the judiciary/Queen’s bench.

This institution’s mission and prerogative are to oppose the government vigorously, particularly when it goes against the Beeb’s core institutional views on foreign policy. Q’s: What democratic control or review is there for this fourth pillar of government? And why in the age of the internet does any media organisation in a democracy arrogate to itself a role that didn’t exist even in the pre-internet era?

Is it that the British public are so full of hatred and loathing for their political class that they actually welcome this self-designated, unaccountable, unelected, uncontrolled fourth branch of government? After all, if they really hate Blair so much, they can vote him out. There is no other explanation for the continued existence of such an unbelieveably biased and amateurish operation as the BBC’s foreign reporting.

Apr 26, 2005 - 9:39 am 8. Syl:

re the BBC, I think most Brits feel the same way about the BBC as most Americans feel about our MSM. They sorta watch but sorta don’t pay attention and sorta dismiss it. And always bitch that they have to pay for it.

The scary part, though, is that the pov does filter through into society.

re Talabani, I think he has such a wonderful face. Expressive and non-threatening.

Apr 26, 2005 - 11:14 am 9. flenser:

thibaud

All those comments and questions all apply to American media, yes?

Living in Britain, I found that people there are much more passive and accepting of what “the authorities” say than here in the US. The BBC, which is a branch of government, gets the same automatic deference. Dalrymple believes that this is due to generations growing up under the welfare state.

OT

Tom Sowell has an article about redneck culture that should interest many here.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006608

Apr 26, 2005 - 11:30 am 10. Buddy Larsen:

Flenser, that Sowell essay is wonderful, thanks. It’s not o/t at all, not to me, anyway. It relates exactly to BBC and this Dalrymple…in both cases the point is to ask, “What is ‘help’, and who is helping who?”

Apr 26, 2005 - 11:49 am 11. flenser:

I’ll see your Dalymple, and raise you one!

http://www.city-journal.org/html/15_2_oh_to_be.html

Apr 26, 2005 - 11:55 am 12. Buddy Larsen:

Thanks, flenser…what a great opening (will have to fini tonite), even redacted for blog-brevity (snip below cut and emphasized a bit):

“People in Britain who lived through World War II do not remember it with anything like the horror one might have expected. In fact, they often remember it as the best time of their lives…what could possibly have been good about it? The answer, of course, is that it provided a powerful existential meaning and purpose…A unified and preeminent national goal provided respite from the peacetime cacophony of complaint, bickering, and social division. And privation for a purpose brings its own content.”

Hear, hear! With a war to win, the people pulled together.

Apr 26, 2005 - 12:32 pm 13. Terrye:

I would hope this would help Blair, but the Saddam Hussein fan club that comprises the British left will have no respect for this Kurd. In fact it would not doubt be ok fine with someone like Galloway if Saddam had managed to kill him.

Apr 26, 2005 - 2:18 pm 14. M.J. Smith:

Roger–thanks for linking to this.

Along similar lines, you might want to have a look at “An Open Letter to George Galloway: Re Salam Pax,” from someone who appears to be a Kurdish blogger and addressed to the fanatically anti-American ex-Labour MP.

Likewise an article from the Financial Times:

“At the end of last month, a small group of British trade unionists came here for a week-long trip. It was the first union delegation to travel through Iraqi Kurdistan since the 2003 war, although short visits had been made to Baghdad in the immediate aftermath. [. . .]

“Everywhere the British unionists go, they are congratulated on the virtues of prime minister Tony Blair. They, of course, are not fans. The trade union movement, especially on the left, takes the view that this government, if possibly better than a Conservative one, is not real Labour. ‘It’s all very well going on about Tony Blair,’ says Davis, half drolly, half irritably, at one of the group’s lengthy feasts. ‘We don’t think he’s so wonderful.’ (Davis’s British Communist Party and its paper, the Morning Star, are fiercely hostile to New Labour.)

“The trip does seem to make a difference to the group’s views on the war. During a meal in a restaurant towards the end of the week, David Green, the younger of the two firefighters’ union leaders, says: ‘I was against the war. I thought it was a bad idea and it shouldn’t have been done.’ I ask him about his thoughts now. ‘Well, you see a different perspective. You see what these people have done.’”

Both of these pieces were excerpted and linked to at Harry’s Place (here and here).

I’m glad Harry’s Place is posting on the gratitude of the Kurds toward the British, because, although the bloggers at Harry’s are pro-Iraq war, British lefties might be more willing to read Harry than they would be willing to read the Sun or the Financial Times or the Kurdish blogger. It’s the Guardian/Independent/BBC/Channel Four crowd–the ones who are right now considering voting for Respect or the Lib Dems in order to punish Blair–that we have to break through to.

Apr 26, 2005 - 7:47 pm 15. notherbob2:

What is the big deal? Our very own NYT has a similarly dishonest editorial comment this very day that repeats charges that have been thoroughly discredited and facts that are not facts: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/27/opinion/27wed1.html?ex=1272254400&en=4281cf4b0871d5e9&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

Perhaps they read the Guardian?

Apr 27, 2005 - 8:37 am

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