Last month the BBC’s John Simpson said that ‘General Petraeus will no doubt try to replicate his remarkable Iraqi success in Afghanistan.’ [1]
Perhaps because he read numerous complaints about attributing success to a man orchestrating an illegal and murderous occupation, Simpson said on BBC News last night that Petraeus “may not have achieved a victory, but a remarkable turnaround” in Afghanistan. However, he was still visibly in awe of Petraeus, the “A-list celebrity”, who in his interview with Simpson was apparently “visibly moved” by the prospect of losing more soldiers (loss of civilians wasn’t even mentioned). As part of the BBC’s commitment to balance and impartiality, no Afghans were interviewed by Simpson.
Why didn’t Simpson mention WikiLeaks, as John Pilger did in the latest New Statesman:
‘On 26 July, WikiLeaks released thousands of secret US military files on the war in Afghanistan. Cover-ups, a secret assassination unit and the killing of civilians are documented…WikiLeaks has acquired records of six years of civilian killing in both Afghanistan and Iraq…The WikiLeaks revelations shame the dominant section of journalism, devoted merely to taking down what cynical and malign power tells it. This is state stenography, not journalism.’ [2]
Simpson is a state stenographer, ‘licking the boots of government’. [3] ‘A true journalist’s job is to expose government wrongdoing and propaganda, skewer hypocrites, and speak for those with no voice’, but try telling that to Simpson, while he makes arrangements for his next love-in with a mass-murderer.
[1] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/10472555.stm
[2] http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/08/pilger-wikileaks-afghanistan
[3] http://www.lfpress.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2010/08/13/15017241.html
If it’s true that our species is alone in the universe, then I’d have to say the universe aimed rather low and settled for very little
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