Teh One Who Knocks
03-22-2017, 12:17 PM
By Harry Phibbs - Heat Street
http://i.imgur.com/yAcCS3Nh.jpg
The BBC has been desperate to skirt around the ‘T’ word. Their bulletins have been telling us that Martin McGuinness, who died yesterday, was a “senior IRA commander” who was involved in the “armed struggle”. Then they quickly go on to stress his commitment to peace – and how he was kind to children and animals.
The truth is, of course, that McGuinness was a terrorist leader. The voices of IRA victims – such as Lord Tebbit – got little airtime to state this unpalatable fact and their observations were received with a tone of scarcely hidden disdain. Yet contrary to all the “empathy” for McGuinness, there was nothing inevitable about someone from his background becoming a psychopath.
Perhaps the most revolting aspect of the tributes aired by the BBC was the way McGuinness’s involvement in terrorism provided a frisson of excitement.
Jonathan Powell, who was Tony Blair’s chief of staff in Downing Street, has scarcely denied the buzz he got from the now-dead terrorist. “You would definitely choose to go to a dinner party with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness rather than with David Trimble or Ian Paisley,” he has said in the past adding: “There’s a danger of a Stockholm syndrome happening when you spend time with terrorists.” Well quite.
Yesterday, the BBC couldn’t get enough of Powell. Newsnight actually handed over to him to narrate a gushing account of McGuinness and the Northern Ireland “peace process”.
If you switched to the radio, the adulation was equally dominant. On Radio 4’s The World Tonight there was no balance – only supportive voices were heard.
Not that the other networks distinguished themselves. Jon Snow of Channel 4 News sent the following revolting tweet: “A great loss; an extraordinary life that culminated in great service.”
Alastair Campbell, touring the TV studios, joined in and let it be known that he thought McGuinness a “great guy”.
Blair himself bobbed up to praise the “courage” of McGuinness. But as Tebbitt retorted:”The reason he suddenly became a man of peace, was that he was desperately afraid that he was going to be arrested and charged with a number of murders.”
The real courage was shown by those politicians who opposed the IRA – including Irish nationalists such as John Hume – and risked their lives in the process. The willingness of McGuinness to negotiate was not prompted by some pang of conscience. It had risks but it was a calculation. The IRA had been infiltrated and was in decline.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called McGuinness a “great family man” – not so great for those families in grief at the murder of loved ones who were murdered at the behest of McGuinness.
Not just murder, of course, but also the sadistic repertoire of instructions from McGuinness for torture, knee cappings and “punishment beatings” of Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, civilians as well as soldiers, women and children as well as men. Bombs that would go off and kill anyone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The BBC’s John Simpson compared McGuinness to Nelson Mandela, saying McGuinness should be seen “on that kind of side of the ledger” – an implicit comparison between Northern Ireland and apartheid South Africa.
One theme of the BBC’s coverage was constant tutting at the relatives of IRA victims who found it “hard” to forgive. Frankly if the ‘Butcher of Bogside’ had offered a word of remorse for the slaughter he ordered that might have helped.
Those with a background on the far Left – who include so many in the broadcast media – were seduced by the black beret. At best they have sought to ignore or explain away the violence – at worst they seem to have found it all rather thrilling. The same mood as those New York cocktail parties for the Black Panthers described as ‘Radical Chic’ by Tom Wolfe.
The honouring of McGuinness by the BBC contrasts with the hostile coverage it aired after the death in 2013 of Margaret Thatcher, that great democratic leader of our age who came so close to a much earlier death after the IRA’s 1984 terrorist attack in Brighton.
The BBC’s coverage has been a moral disgrace – it goes quite beyond a routine lapse of its supposed standard of editorial impartiality. How much longer will its licence fee payers be forced to fund this poison?
http://i.imgur.com/yAcCS3Nh.jpg
The BBC has been desperate to skirt around the ‘T’ word. Their bulletins have been telling us that Martin McGuinness, who died yesterday, was a “senior IRA commander” who was involved in the “armed struggle”. Then they quickly go on to stress his commitment to peace – and how he was kind to children and animals.
The truth is, of course, that McGuinness was a terrorist leader. The voices of IRA victims – such as Lord Tebbit – got little airtime to state this unpalatable fact and their observations were received with a tone of scarcely hidden disdain. Yet contrary to all the “empathy” for McGuinness, there was nothing inevitable about someone from his background becoming a psychopath.
Perhaps the most revolting aspect of the tributes aired by the BBC was the way McGuinness’s involvement in terrorism provided a frisson of excitement.
Jonathan Powell, who was Tony Blair’s chief of staff in Downing Street, has scarcely denied the buzz he got from the now-dead terrorist. “You would definitely choose to go to a dinner party with Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness rather than with David Trimble or Ian Paisley,” he has said in the past adding: “There’s a danger of a Stockholm syndrome happening when you spend time with terrorists.” Well quite.
Yesterday, the BBC couldn’t get enough of Powell. Newsnight actually handed over to him to narrate a gushing account of McGuinness and the Northern Ireland “peace process”.
If you switched to the radio, the adulation was equally dominant. On Radio 4’s The World Tonight there was no balance – only supportive voices were heard.
Not that the other networks distinguished themselves. Jon Snow of Channel 4 News sent the following revolting tweet: “A great loss; an extraordinary life that culminated in great service.”
Alastair Campbell, touring the TV studios, joined in and let it be known that he thought McGuinness a “great guy”.
Blair himself bobbed up to praise the “courage” of McGuinness. But as Tebbitt retorted:”The reason he suddenly became a man of peace, was that he was desperately afraid that he was going to be arrested and charged with a number of murders.”
The real courage was shown by those politicians who opposed the IRA – including Irish nationalists such as John Hume – and risked their lives in the process. The willingness of McGuinness to negotiate was not prompted by some pang of conscience. It had risks but it was a calculation. The IRA had been infiltrated and was in decline.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called McGuinness a “great family man” – not so great for those families in grief at the murder of loved ones who were murdered at the behest of McGuinness.
Not just murder, of course, but also the sadistic repertoire of instructions from McGuinness for torture, knee cappings and “punishment beatings” of Roman Catholics as well as Protestants, civilians as well as soldiers, women and children as well as men. Bombs that would go off and kill anyone who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The BBC’s John Simpson compared McGuinness to Nelson Mandela, saying McGuinness should be seen “on that kind of side of the ledger” – an implicit comparison between Northern Ireland and apartheid South Africa.
One theme of the BBC’s coverage was constant tutting at the relatives of IRA victims who found it “hard” to forgive. Frankly if the ‘Butcher of Bogside’ had offered a word of remorse for the slaughter he ordered that might have helped.
Those with a background on the far Left – who include so many in the broadcast media – were seduced by the black beret. At best they have sought to ignore or explain away the violence – at worst they seem to have found it all rather thrilling. The same mood as those New York cocktail parties for the Black Panthers described as ‘Radical Chic’ by Tom Wolfe.
The honouring of McGuinness by the BBC contrasts with the hostile coverage it aired after the death in 2013 of Margaret Thatcher, that great democratic leader of our age who came so close to a much earlier death after the IRA’s 1984 terrorist attack in Brighton.
The BBC’s coverage has been a moral disgrace – it goes quite beyond a routine lapse of its supposed standard of editorial impartiality. How much longer will its licence fee payers be forced to fund this poison?