Stoppers

“Consistently Pro War BBC”

From a report of the protest against the BBC’s shameful pro-war coverage from the marvellously titled website Global Echo.

Andrew Bergin, the press officer for the Stop The War Coalition, said: “The consistently pro-war coverage from the BBC is damaging to our democracy. We find it difficult if not impossible to get our message or spokespeople airtime, it is an utter disgrace”.

I can hear that Twilight Zone theme tune again.

And the same sound echoes globally from the Murderlens readers who rage about the Guardian’s editorial today which shockingly was critical of recent atrocities in Iraq.

And from David Edwards, Medialens editor, writing for some reason in the New Statesman, do I detect the emerging Stopper line ahead of the elections which will hopefully take place on January 30?

[H]ow, given the price paid, we are to take seriously the claim that the world’s superpower will allow genuinely democratic elections in January. In other
words, how are we to believe that Iraqis might be allowed to elect a
government actively hostile to all further US involvement in the country?

In other words, for David Edwards, the only way that genuinely democratic elections will be judged to have taken place in Iraq will be if they elect an ‘actively hostile’ government.

And if, perish the thought, the Iraqi people elect a coalition government that for some reason prefers to prioritise rebuilding the economy and strenthening civil society over being ‘actively hostile’ to the US or anyone else?