Thoughtful and Informative writing from the BBC- if a little stuffily stuck in an old fashioned anglo-centric perspective. I apologise if I'm a bit one-track at the moment, and I don't believe we need to be fixated on every twist and turn from Iraq (see Mark Steyn below) , but obviously it's not overstating to say this is a crucial period in the coalition's efforts there. It'd be nice to make merry at the BBC's expense, and there were at least half a dozen stories that bore the heavy imprint of their bias today- but I find myself linking to a good one.

More exceptionally informative writing from Zeyad in Baghdad. Not only informative: moving too. Having been amongst my international favourites for a long while, he's now finally in my links as well.

A Revolt? Yes, but in Ramadi, by opportunistic Baathists. That's the likely scenario behind the deaths of twelve US marines. The BBC just calls them 'Iraqi insurgents', and states that Ramadi is part of the 'Sunni Triangle', whereas CNN makes clear the belief that they are part of the Baathist remnants. I guarantee that most British people will not realise that there is not a unified 'Iraqi revolt' but two quite different problems- the Baathists killing more US soldiers (marines, no less) in one engagement than Al-Sadr's revolt has claimed in several days. Al Sadr, meanwhile, calls for a general strike among Iraqis. Sounds almost like he's trying to climb back into the political discourse. On the subject of Al-Sadr- CNN makes clear he is wanted on murder charges; the BBC says his arrest has been ordered on charges 'unrelated to the current violence'. In fact Al-Sadr is suspected of the murder of one of his rivals: that's the kind of spiritual leader he is.

The BBC seems to think there is something catastrophic happening in Iraq (see below post). US Struggles To Quell Iraq Revolt, apparently. It is strange though that in the article linked they don't have a single fresh US casualty to report. I don't ignore the fact that casualties have occurred. I don't discount the fact that coaltion troops have been injured, or even that one Ukrainian died today. It just doesn't sound like the headline, that's all. (do whatever you do, read Steyn's Topical Take in the post below).

Steyn's Line: 'When the media say something catastrophic is happening, it means (drumroll please)

…IT ISN’T!!!'.


That, and other strokes of Topical genius freely available here.

The Slums of Sadr City are said to have quietened now. Andrew Sullivan weighs up the situation, and on balance sees opportunity not failure. It's hardly surprising that a place like Sadr city (formerly, and cruelly, Saddam City) should produce the violence we've seen. These are people who have been living en masse (over two million of them) in a state of deprivation due to their long-time perceived religious 'inferiority' to the ruling Sunnis, and that's not ameliorated overnight. Al-Sadr's faction (probably with the blessing of Iran) has arisen as a militant reflection of that rankling tension, exploiting nationalism and distrust of the Americans. Al-Sadr can't trust democracy (via Neverdock) to give him the power he craves, so this is his means of making an impact and building up his profile. As Zeyad demonstrates by his November post, al- Sadr has been hindering the monumental task of the coalition in Baghad's vast Shia area for quite a while now. If the Coalition can deal with him effectively, that will be a major 'coup-in-reverse' for them.


'They're not an army ...They're a bunch of looters'- the comment of one Iraqi policeman- certainly brings a little perspective to the 'uprising'. I suppose it's been a while since parts of the Shia had that magic rush of looting frenzy, and they've been missing it. The darker reality (apart from the carnage) is that the rhetoric obviously going around about the Shia areas being 'liberated' represents a potential major loss of face for the coalition in the short term. The deaths that have taken place were tragic, regrettable and possibly preventable- and will give a greater pretext for Shia grievances. They also demonstrate that Shia malcontents are serious enough to kill and be killed. It may be an opportunity, but it is also true that repeated failures to move forward peacefully cannot be sustained.


The real test is whether these disturbances prove to be unrepeatable. Some interesting perspective from the Telegraph here and a very fine account of the disturbances from the Washington Post here. Update Samizdata discusses the 'opportunity'. Meanwhile various sources indicate continued fighting in different parts of Iraq. I'm not sure if this is just catching up with events, or new events arising.

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?