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sirjohnwood

Listed below are comments made by sirjohnwood between Monday, 19th October 2009 and Thursday, 29th October 2009.

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Reporting in Kabul 7:25pm on 29 Oct 2009 I'm all for journalists on the ground in Kabul. Especially if they get their noses down and do some real investigatory journalism, even if it's just to prove to us they're not compromised embeds.

It is interesting that it's not journo's on the ground but hacks in air-conditioned NY offices that have brought us the biggest 'Afghanistan' headlines today.

I thought this article by George Packer of the New Yorker magazine was fascinating: I had no idea that one of Obama's chief advisers on Afghanistan (Holbrooke) was one of the very banksters responsible for the massive Wall Street debacle.

There are a lot of reasons to worry about Richard Holbrooke, apparently. He was on the board of financial firm AIG from 2001-08, when the company almost ruined the world economy with its crazy deals.

Thanks to Holbrooke's leadership, AIG needed a multibillion-dollar bail-out.

But it's his Vietnam experience that should worry us most.

Next to his White House desk Holbrooke has a picture of himself standing in the Mekong delta next to Vietnam war architect General Maxwell Taylor.

Holbrooke says: "I lived, slept and ate Vietnam."

And what was Holbrooke living, sleeping and eating?

According to Packer, "in Ba Xuyen, Holbrooke distributed cement, cooking oil and roofing thatch to villagers, built schools, helped train and arm the militias of the local strategic hamlets."

This means he tried to win the Vietnam war by doling out the Corn Flakes and Crisp 'n' Dry while arming vicious killers to run outdoor prison villages.

He did this as an official for the US agency for international development, because arming militias is what the US tends to call aid.

Jon Williams, as a journalist, as a citizen of the world, what do you make of all this?
Reporting in Kabul 08:46am on 29 Oct 2009 Meantime, that Man of Peace, the Nobel Peace Prize Winner, Mr Obama, has just 'personally intervened' in a bloody war by overseeing the funnelling of another $1.5 billion of US taxpayers' cash into the war machine of that paragon of democracy and freedom: Pakistan.

New York Times journalists are on a roll at the moment.

"U.S. Quietly Speeds Aid for Pakistani Drives on Taliban"
By ERIC SCHMITT of New York Times

"... the United States has quietly rushed hundreds of millions of dollars in arms, equipment and sophisticated sensors to Pakistani forces in recent months, said senior American and Pakistani officials.

"President Obama personally intervened at the request of Pakistan’s top army general to speed the delivery of 10 Mi-17 troop transport helicopters...etc. etc ".

You can't make this stuff up.
Reporting in Kabul 08:36am on 29 Oct 2009 There are reports that under the Taliban, opium growing was limited and some sort of control over opium was being reached. After the invasion of Afghanistan, poppy-growing and opium production has apparently grown exponentially.

What's up with that?

There are those who say when the CIA money flows in, drug money flows out. (ref: South America). Now that may be an utter fallacy, so it would be good if brave BBC journalists could investigate and write up a definitive, factual, rigorous article on the opium trade in Afghanistan?

You have to wonder whether BBC journalists in Kabul ever step back a few paces and ask - what are we doing here in the first place? Okay, it was 'bloody revenge' for '911', in the first instance. Saudis and Egyptians planned '911' in Hamburg and Florida, so why on earth are Western armies tramping around Afghanistan, terrifying and alientating future generations of Afghan children?

I've heard a few reasons for western troops being there:
- soldiers are hunting for Bin Laden. (Trash the haystack, looking for the needle?)
- soldiers are bringing democracy to Afghanis (at the end of a gun?)
- soldiers are liberating oppressed Afghani women (tell that to the mothers of dead Afghans and bridal couples bombed at wedding parties)
- soldiers are looking to make the space safe for an oil pipeline (ok, let's follow the money)

Anyone heard any other reasons?
Reporting in Kabul 06:41am on 29 Oct 2009 Mr Williams, it is good to hear the BBC tries to keep guys "on the ground" in difficult circumstances.
But having heroic guys on the ground does not automatically translate into adequate journalism.
For example, it wasn't BBC's 'guys on the ground' that broke the big story about the close relationship between President Karzai's suspected opium runner brother and US officials. This story was broken by journalists Filkins, Mazzetti and Risen tapping away in a New York office (NY Times)

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/world/asia/28intel.html?_r=1&hp

Headline: Brother of Afghan Leader Is Said to Be on C.I.A. Payroll

"Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming illegal opium trade, gets regular payments from the Central Intelligence Agency, and has for much of the past eight years, according to current and former American officials.

"The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home.

"The financial ties and close working relationship between the intelligence agency and Mr. Karzai raise significant questions about America’s war strategy, which is currently under review at the White House."
Nick Griffin on Question Time 2:45pm on 25 Oct 2009 #203 diamond-cutter wrote: "Now we have had 200+ replies to the original article by Gavin Allen, will he write a follow-up responding to the comments above?"

I wouldn't hold your breath. There were in excess of 5 600 replies to Mike Rudin's blog and he only ever popped in once (well after 2000 had clocked up, if I recall) and then never again before it was shut down last week.
Updated editorial guidelines 09:53am on 24 Oct 2009 Steve Hermann, thanks for the opportunity to comment on BBC editorial guidelines. The BBC is highly regarded around the world. BBC journalism is often held up as a sort of 'gold standard' in journalism, by media operations around the world. In a way, BBC has a special kind of ethical obligation then, given its high standing, to do its best to stick by its rather impressive guidelines.

I'm one of those who believe an accurate, impartial Fourth estate is vital for good democracy. Your Guidelines note: "the need to be duly accurate and impartial and to avoid causing audiences unnecessary offence"...and .. "The Editorial Guidelines are also used by the BBC Executive and the BBC Trust when considering complaints about BBC content."

If you refer to Mike Rudin's "Caught Up in A Conspiracy" thread (5 600 comments) which has just been closed, you will find that I was among a number of regular posters there. My biggest beef was that the BBC coverage of 911 events (handled by Rudin under the non-impartial 'Conspiracy Files' label) was frozen in time (2008) after his last documentary and Editors Blog posting on the subject.

Rudin's work was never updated to take in NIST's startling November 2008 admission that WTC building 7 endured 2.25 seconds of freefall - freefall being consistent with instantaneous, controlled removal of 8 floors of structure.

Rudin's work was never updated to acknowledge a finding by a group of scientists (led by Dr Harrit of the Niels Bohr Instutute, Copenhagen University) that forensic residue of a high-tech incendiary substance had been found in WTC dust - a singular, highly-engineered product which had no business being there.

The "Active Thermitics" paper by Harrit, Jones, Legge et al published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal (April 2009) has never been formally, scientifically rebutted. This seems an important story from any angle. If Al Qaeda have access to this high tech material, surely the public has the right to be informed of this possibility?

I found Rudin's work - in its non-updated state - to be inaccurate. I was surprised that the NIST November 2008 correction and Harrit et al's peer-reviewed paper were not covered by the BBC.

The BBC Guideline also states: "Accurate and impartial content is a key characteristic of the BBC and we recognise it is vital to the BBC's good reputation."

As an admirer and viewer of the BBC I was concerned by the BBC's one-sided (conspiracy label) approach to '911' discourse and the ultimate inaccuracy of your news reports. I sent an online complaint about this on June 20, 2009, which was not acknowledged.
Updated editorial guidelines 06:50am on 23 Oct 2009 If Nick Griffin is allowed, why was the charity appeal for the Gaza children not allowed? Why the one and not the other?
Caught up in a conspiracy theory 5:23pm on 21 Oct 2009 This is not on-topic as such, but it caught my eye.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1221850/Former-BBC-producer-reveals-TV-executives-PRAISED-cocaine-use.html

Why I raise it is that here we are asking for some real, gritty journalism from the Beeb. Around the world, people tune in to the Beeb for 'top quality' journalism, 'serious' reporters, etc. Yet for some (not all) behind the scenes, the focus is scattered. Too much coke is known for leaving you incurious, self-absorbed and numbed to the real world. Not good qualities for journalists, you'd think? Rather than coked-up hacks, what the world urgently needs is focused, curious, ethical journalists given free rein to pursue facts with admirable objectivity.
Caught up in a conspiracy theory 4:17pm on 21 Oct 2009 carlito - I'd be careful using that 'flawed epistemology' phrase if I was you.
Caught up in a conspiracy theory 09:22am on 19 Oct 2009 Ynda "I'm just going to check out 'magicians for 911 truth'."

As you see, it's not a particularly informative site. I pointed it out merely as a contrast to that other magicians' site - jref. I pointed it out because it referred to 'misdirection' and 'deception' - words linked to our discussion here ...
'Misdirection' and 'deception' are useful tools for certain trades, in particular illusionists, mentalists and magicians.
'Misdirection' and 'deception' are also sometimes used as tools in other trades: PR, corporate/military/government soundbytes. In these areas, their use is more subtle.
PR spokesman, spin doctors and certain columnists/journalists may misdirect by:
- framing the discussion in a particular way
- limiting the debate between pre-constructed goal-posts
- making use of Lies of Omission or Black Holes
- disabling critical thinking by use of appeals to patriotism, accusations of racism, rude name-calling, smear, derision, playing up nonsense and ignoring/dishonestly attacking inconvenient facts.

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