Just as I was about to link to a range of articles illustrating 'moments of truth' in political life in the UK, the US and Iraq, I came across this WSJ article via Instapundit. I have to link it, partly because it makes some invaluable points about the proper response to the atrocities at Fallujah, but also because it makes explicit comparison between the events in Fallujah and 'lynchings'- citing occasions in the US in 1930. I hotly objected to the use of this word earlier- mainly because I felt the BBC had slipped it surreptitiously into an article. I still wouldn't see events like Fallujah as comparable to a lynching (implying, I have always thought, a sense of community judgement)- I would call it gratuitous murder and public humiliation- but obviously others do, or wish to.

'Talking Hoarsely' was feeling a bit faint this morning after hearing news of the Shias killing US troops in Baghdad and Najaf. It's something I've feared for a while, ever since I heard of this Al-Sadr guy on Healing Iraq, a pro-coalition Sunni-written blog by Zeyad an Iraqi dentist. When the Shia are the bad guys it's salutory to tune in to a Sunni perspective - especially one who was strongly opposed to the Baathists.

The question for me is just how spontaneous this is, and what it portends. It makes molehills out of many of the lurid headlines that have been run by the BBC and other media- while you are busy swatting flies you are stung by a wasp. Andrew Sullivan echoes my hope that Sistani and the older Shia can isolate and deal with an upstart like Sadr- but that's what I'd been hoping all along, so it's quite late to be starting now. It really is awful that the goodwill towards the coalition for toppling Saddam hasn't neutered the influence of Al Sadr, but Zeyad predicted that Sadr would be trouble. He ended that particular post 'are you listening Mr Bremer?' Uncomfortable stuff.

Politics and death are not far apart in Iraq- and that's a long-term trend. Deaths are rated higher than votes in the battle for political supremacy. Who knows but that this violence might actually be a ploy on the part of the Shia? If Sistani wanted to crush Sadr it seems he has the authority to do so. What better way to increase your leverage with the Americans than not to condemn a situation only you are qualified to resolve? According to the NYT, Sistani 'appeared eager not to distance himself from a cause that had attracted popular support'. True, it's said he hates Al Sadr, but it doesn't sound like real cooperation to me. I always come back to what Mark Steyn, borrowing from Osama Bin Laden, said about 'the strong horse'. You've got to prove that's what you are time and again in a country like Iraq where the young men have madness in their eyes. (According to the Iraqi foreign Minister quoted on the BBC lunchtime news, it's part of the 'expected jockeying for position' ahead of the scheduled transfer of power from the coalition at the end of June. Some 'jockeying', some 'position'.)

Surely This horse has been well and truly 'lynched' by now by the Beeb? Yawn.

Tim Blair Shares Christopher Hitchens 'Seven Simple Question' tonic for the Beeb-weary. The comments are shaping up well too.

Neverdock points out a Panorama article for BBConline reckoning up the world's failure over Rwanda. As usual the Beeb blames the US. Criticism of the UN is just matter-of-fact, or is deflected onto the actions of participating governments, but criticism of the US goes right into the culture of its government. No mention though is made of Clinton or the Democrats -crucial historical background that's subsumed within a general anti-American theme. Another historical pill I found hard to swallow was a reference to 'Allied planes flying over the Nazi death camps' which implied UK/US complicity in the holocaust. Like, could you send me the treatise for that one please?



Fundamental Issue. What's always conveniently forgotten is that the US are the biggest financial contributor to the UN by far. Without them and their leadership of Nato, there would be no blue helmets at all. This should surely temper some of the criticism, but it almost never does.


Who's Responsible? According to the article 'This was not tribal frenzy, not anarchy, but the work of an organised, hierarchical and obedient society'. Yeah, well, if it was an organised society I'd say that their own society was responsible, rather than the 'West'. No mention is made of the depravity of the killers, or the responsiblity of their leaders. The article is entitled 'When Good Men Do Nothing'. Who said anything about the men who comprise the UN being 'good' (apart from the BBC)? Or any country having no self-interest? And in any case the title is a distortion of the dictum that all it requires for evil men to triumph is for good men to do nothing. It leaves out the vital part of the Rwandan genocide: 'evil men triumphed'- and they are the villains.


What The Beeb are Playing At. They don't lie down for long. They lost over Iraq; they lost over the Hutton report. Now they're trying to enforce a long guilt trip on the US, to get them to prioritise the UN and work for a transnational world order under the UN which would give humanistic agencies like the Beeb pride of place.[I should add here: I refer to the underlying issues currently part of the BBC's reporting agenda. See here and here for mild examples from today's BBC news] To confuse Iraq and Rwanda is quite wrong, and indeed it's important to state explicitly in the circumstances that no comparison could reasonably be drawn, and unfortunately the BBC is obliquely pursuing the old grievance that the war on Iraq was justifed by a false premise: that of Iraqi WMD. The argument that the 'West's' moral failure over Rwanda invalidates a moral justification for the war in Iraq is one familiar from Chomsky that has very much done the rounds. However, concern over WMD was not a false premise and it wasn't the only justification for war with Iraq that will stand up- providing we don't get caught up in the waves of self-hate generate by BBC-type approaches.

Numbers can be manipulated, but the numbers quoted in this analysis by the Telegraph's Philip Johnston are quite impressive. One has to read carefully, but the general trend suggests that the Government needs to be razor sharp at differentiating the cases and analysing applications of different sorts that are coming thick and fast. The fact that they're not is, according to David Davis the Shadow Home Secretary, dangerous:

'from the security-service point of view, the more there are, the easier it is to hide amongst them. So, if you have got one terrorist, it is easier to hide amongst 200,000 than 1,000 - and you have just got to focus on that." '


And dangerous too when both Government and media are happy to collude in massaging the public understanding of this. The BBC, needless to say, is guilty of playing, shall we say, the 'Right Wing Card' on this issue

Change Afoot. Here's Andrew Marr on the Today Programme discussing the appointment of Michael Grade as Chairman of the BBC. Seems Andrew thinks the BBC has been 'wallowing round a bit' over the last few months. Mmmm.

I have to say I don't think they could have made a better choice in the circumstances. This will probably make the BBC a smoother operator, as it had to become in the light of some of its hamfisted errors. Hopefully it will be too smooth for the likes of Orla Guerin or Matt Frei- that would be an outright improvement. Grade would at least have the charisma to tackle some of the ideologues in the arenas of politics and foreign affairs, and if he has a firm ideology himself it's not terribly obvious (I stand to be corrected on that). See also this from the Guardian. PS- I'm not sure the first link is working. It worked on the test I did. I will investigate. PPS. Ok now, I think. PPPS 'Talking Hoarsely' has made the discovery that the audio link stays open only for a short time- can it be they don't want others to keep a record of important items? Apologies for those disappointed, but you live and learn. Here's a link to the Today Programme Website instead.

Looks like I was right about the Government being in trouble over immigration, and Andrew Marr was, ahem, slightly off beam in considering that Michael Howard messed up Prime Minister's Questions yesterday.

Needing a tonic? Read Mark Steyn, who honours the dead in Fallujah and rounds on the contractors' detractors who make their deaths appear dishonourable.

'Adults and children hacked the bodies to pieces, before lynching two of the charred remains from a bridge spanning the Euphrates River.'- words from a BBC report on the Fallujah atrocities.


Bad Word Selection. Un-r-us drew my attention to the BBC's use of the word 'lynching' to describe the stringing up of the already dead and dismembered bodies of the contractors murdered by Fallujans yesterday. I thought it was poor word selection, but when I consulted a dictionary I was really dismayed. You see, my casual British understanding (the general sense here I think), is that 'lynching' is simply another word for 'hang in order to kill'. However, that's not what my dictionary says. It describes it as 'to judge and put to death without the usual forms of law'. It has nothing to do with hanging per se.


So was that what was going on in Fallujah yesterday: an extra-judicial killing? Not even that. Was a kind of discernible judgement taking place among the local people and the only thing missing a courtroom for full justice to be served?


Of course, the Beeb couldn't have meant that, could they? Only someone inclined to believe that Fallujan hangers-around-street corners with guns represent some kind of default, popular Iraqi authority, could take the word 'lynching' in this literal sense. But as I've already stated, the uneducated view of 'lynching' was the one I lazily held. If they were lazy, like me, or uneducated, they would never have used it. That leaves us with only one option: they knew what they were implying and they meant it that way- even if the use of it contrary to a popular misunderstanding of it tempts people like myself to dismiss it as a slip.


The Beeb just couldn't be as stupid as to use such a meaningful word so meaninglessly. Why choose it in the first place when the simplest word by far would have been 'hung'? Why, when they used the word 'hung' through most of their coverage, did they interject the word 'lynching'?


To be fair, to have used the word in this way would only be consistent with the BBC's refusal to refer to Palestinian suicide bombers as murderers and terrorists. What else can we expect?

More Bloggies. Natalie has pointed this media scrutinising blog out at BBBC. One of the things you will discover about The Ultra Moderate is the author's good taste in templates. Additionally I formally welcome Dan, or Max the UN dignitary, as I must come to see him, to the Fellowship of the Beeb-Bash.

Marr's Whitewash. I caught PMQ's this lunchtime, and sure enough Michael Howard led with the subject of immigration. As the six questions unfolded the Labour Backbenches became a wall of intimidated MP's, and the Labour Frontbench was lined up against it as though facing a firing squad. Howard was executioner, firing off round after round. Andrew Marr, chief BBC political correspondent's comment? Howard went off the rails after the first few questions.
That would be when the opposition benches were in uproar and Mr Blair looked fit to faint, I suppose.

Something I missed: Some commentary on the latest polls from the Beeb, drowned out (for me) by all the droning about Bush's 'populist' 'U-turn' over Rice's public testimony. Apparently Bush's 'narrow lead' can be attributed to 'the fact that for many people Mr Clarke's allegations have been drowned out by millions of dollars that the Bush campaign has started to spend on advertising.'

Of course the truth is that Clarke's testimony had the best exposure possible: oodles of air-time from supposedly impartial broadcasters like the BBC. CNN for instance gave it massive attention. That's why Clarke's laughing all the way from the bookstore to the bank. The only trouble has been that after their initial impact, people have seen right through his allegations to the self-interested man behind them.

Nick Fisks Orla(Guerin). It's fast becoming one of my favourite confrontations. She's probably not aware of it, but this man is well and truly on her case.

The Beeb and Pushing the Envelope. It seems that the Beeb is generally in the vanguard of sensationalising stories relating to its bugbears: GWB, Iraq, 'Racism', 'Poverty' and so on. According to the Beeb, the decision made that Condeleeza Rice should testify to the 9/11 commission is a 'Whitehouse U-turn on 9/11 Enquiry'. No, Beeb, it's a 'u-turn' on the issue of Condeleeza Rice's public testimony, or lack thereof. The enquiry itself has not been at issue. Furthermore, if you call this, as Matt Frei does, a 'U-turn of breathtaking proportions', what language are you going to use for a really shocking about turn?

'According to polls', the Beeb says, 'constitutional nit-picking' over Rice's testimony was unpopular. Might these be the same polls, that have gone unreported by the Beeb, which show Bush's general stock rising among Americans?

The Beeb and Immigration. I think it was DumbJon who said something about BBC journalists who viewed Conservative leaders like Michael Howard as the type who went round eating babies. Cracking post, that- because just short of being true. In this context it’s important to remember (or read up on) Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech in 1968, which is indelibly branded on any true liberal’s mind as permanent proof that the Tories are eeeeeevil.


Now, in the context of immigration controversy, we find language used by the Beeb in most interesting ways. I could concentrate on the subtle way the Beeb presents the actual issues at stake, but to me the stand out feature is the mudslinging language.


In this article, we read ‘The Tory party scents blood over the immigration row’. David Davis, Tory spokesman, is ‘seeking a scalp’. He has been ‘after’ Beverly Hughes (after in the sense, well, you know, not like that), and believes he has her ‘firmly in his sights’. This atavistic presentation essentially tells you one thing: the Tories are viciously and selfishly pursuing their agenda- the same old Tory party of Enoch and The Sun. Incidentally, the very name ‘Tory’ is often applied when the Beeb wants to imply something highly party-political. In doing this the Beeb are shielding the Labour Government from the scrutiny that it desperately needs, in the context of an issue that is vitally important at the moment.

Update: Peter Cuthbertson makes a thoughtful foray into the general area in this posting on England's Sword.

Alistair Cooke has died. That's very sad, although he was a great age. Now I wonder if he could be persuaded to run a new series of letters... 'Letter from Elysium', perhaps?