BBC anniversary report on Mumbai massacre censors out Islamist responsibility for terror attacks
I have written many times on the subject of how the BBC airbrushes the anti-Semitism of Hamas out of its profile of the organisation on its website. But don’t be fooled into thinking this is just about Israel. Another favourite trick in the armoury of the politically correct ideology which holds sway in the Western world’s most powerful media organisation is to play down or ignore the Islamist roots of much of the world’s terrorism generally.
Today, the BBC website carries a story entitled “Mumbai Attacks: One year on”. The attackers are variously referred to as “militants” and “gunmen”. To wit:
“On Wednesday, a court in Pakistan charged seven people in connection with the attacks, including alleged mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi - head of the banned militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba.”
Well, yes indeed. That is one way of putting it. Lashkar-e-Taiba is certainly a militant group. But perhaps that is just a little less information than we need to form a rounded view of what motivated those “militants” to slaughter 165 people in cold blood.
It only takes a Wikipedia search to get that little bit extra that changes the complexion rather significantly. From Wikipedia we learn that Lashkar-e-Taiba is in fact “one of the largest and most active Islamist militant organizations in South Asia.” (My italics)
A few lines later we learn that the group’s “objective is to introduce an Islamic state in South Asia and to “liberate” Muslims residing in Indian-administered Kashmir.” (My italics) Hmm.
Now, there are those who turn their noses up at Wikipedia, but it certainly seems a more reliable and truthful guide, on this occasion at least, than the BBC which does not mention Islam or Islamism once in its article.
This is political censorship plain and simple: a clearly coordinated effort to airbrush the Islamist ideology which lay behind the attacks from public view. It is an insult to the victims and a disgraceful deception foisted upon the BBC’s readers and viewers. For shame…
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To read the article in full, click here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8379828.stm
November 26th, 2009 at 11:31 am
I saw William Shawcross being interviewed on BBC a couple of years ago. He used the term “Islamofascism”, as a substitute for “Islamism”. The interviewer asked him whether this was an excessively emotive term, and was clearly disapproving. From a position of great power, the agenda of the liberal left is subtly promoted day in, day out. The effect on people’s views is inevitably profound.
November 26th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
OT: Can you imagine the reaction if Israel had been responsible for this?
“Germany’s top soldier has resigned over the handling of a Nato air strike in Afghanistan in which civilians were killed, the defence minister said.
Wolfgang Schneiderhan stood down over the 4 September attack in Kunduz on fuel tankers hijacked by the Taliban.”
“It is not clear exactly how many civilians died. The independent Afghanistan Rights Monitor group put the number of civilians deaths at 70. The Afghan government later said that at least 100 people died, of whom 30 were civilians.”
http://tinyurl.com/yzdmzlv
November 26th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Robin Shepherd writes:
“That is one way of putting it. Lashkar-e-Taiba is certainly a militant group. But perhaps that is just a little less information than we need to form a rounded view of what motivated those “militants” to slaughter 165 people in cold blood.”
In a fairly lengthy profile of the group, the BBC does mention its origins twice but only in a rather oblique fashion:
“Pakistan’s then president, Pervez Musharraf, banned Lashkar-e-Taiba, along with four other Islamic groups, in January 2002 amid pressure that followed the 11 September, 2001 attacks in the US.”
“Spread over several hectares, the Markaz soon became known for preaching hardline views on Islam.”
How’s this for “hardline”? From the Wikipedia article on this terrorist group:
“The Lashkar-e-Taiba group has repeatedly claimed through its journals and websites that its main aim is to destroy the Indian republic and to annihilate Hinduism and Judaism. LeT has declared Hindus and Jews to be the “enemies of Islam”, as well as India and Israel to be the “enemies of Pakistan”.They see the issue of Kashmir as part of a wider global struggle. In a pamphlet entitled “Why Are We Waging Jihad?” the group defined its agenda as the restoration of Islamic rule over all parts of India.”
But it’s these two paragraphs in the BBC profile of Lashkar-e-Taiba that really strike me:
“India also says it was involved in the most audacious attack on Indian soil in December 2001.”
“Initially it was ignored by most other groups, but earned their respect once it introduced the concept of “Fedayaeen fighters” to carry out daring attacks against the Indian troops.”
“Audacious” and “Daring”? I somehow don’t think that the BBC would ever describe attacks against British troops as “audacious” and “daring”.
Source: Profile: Lashkar-e-Taiba
http://tinyurl.com/yeeszju
November 26th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
The attack network
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The attack was prepared operationally by Lashkar-e-Taiba branches in Pakistan, whereas the planning, reconnaissance and selection of targets were orchestrated from a covert L-e-T cell in Chicago, USA, which the FBI broke up this month. They found its members of Pakistani origin had been functioning for three or four years at least to orchestrate terrorist attacks on behalf of al Qaeda’s worldwide networks, the most spectacular of which was the Mumbai operation.
The many-tentacled network continued to unravel, when the Italian authorities in the northern town of Breschia detained two suspects of providing financial and logistic support to the L-e-T operation.
It’s also worth mentioning that the terrorists were instructed to make sure that no one was left alive at the Chabad center.
David Headley (49), a key suspect, in his travels for scouting locations for targeting, spent several nights at the targeted Mumbai hotels and the Chabad center, where he masqueraded as a religious Jew and at those sites he marked out the rooms to be seized by the terrorists as assault positions and arranged for munitions to await them there.
The “unbiased” BBC Network
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BBC’s airbrushing was exposed by Tom Gross in ‘The BBC discovers ‘terrorism,’ briefly’ following the suicide bombings in London in 2005.
http://www.tomgrossmedia.com/BBCDiscoversTerrorism.html
The BBC guidelines state: “The word ‘terrorist’ itself can be a barrier to understanding… We should try to avoid the term, while we report the facts as we know them.”
…as long as it’s not on their doorstep (“London Rocked by Terror Attacks”)
Earlier this year, The Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland said that the findings show that the BBC has an anti-Israel “bias”.
Of the seventeen documentary programs the BBC produced on Israel between 2001 and 2004, only one presented Israel in a positive light; the other sixteen were overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian, casting Israel as a brutal aggressor nation.
The senior BBC Arabic Service correspondent in Gaza, Fayad Abu Shamala, announced at a Hamas rally in May 2001 that journalists and media organizations, including the BBC, are “waging the campaign shoulder-to-shoulder together with the Palestinian people.”
The BBC network, which receives about £3 billion ($5.5 billion) in public tax money a year, is unwittingly encouraging violence against Israelis, Jewish and other targets.
The Israelis have learnt long ago that journalistic integrity does not guide the BBC front office, editors and reporters.
November 26th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Good point Joshua. No reports yet on those daring Taliban chaps and their audacious operations against the British occupier. Double-standards or what ?
BBC news and current affairs is a disgrace. I say abolish the licence fee, which is nothing but a compulsory subscription. No way is the BBC ‘free-to-air’.
November 27th, 2009 at 1:19 am
perhaps it’s time for a serious documentary to be made exposing the bbc, the guardian, channel four etc for it’s hypocrisy. misinformation and blatant anti semiticism. the only problem is it would be called a zionist conspiracy.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
wow…wikipedia more balanced than the BBC now that says something…