What is it about the UK media?

I just watched with some amazement the BBC news report on the death of the Brothers Hussein. The main point of the report was why the US used such massive force against 3 men and a teenager in a little house. Nothing about why this was such an important victory.

I am all for asking questions, but why are they so obsessed with making the US appear to be worse than devils like the Husseins?

I thought this was bad, until only moments later I saw– courtesy of Conrad — an article by the infamous Robert Fisk. You literally have to read it to believe it. Here’s a random sentence; tell me what you think:

And American intelligence – the organisation that failed to predict events of 11 September, 2001 – was also responsible for the air raid on a Saddam villa on 20 March, which was supposed to kill Saddam. And the far crueller air raid on the Mansour district of Baghdad at the end of the air bombardment in April which was supposed to kill Saddam and his sons but only succeeded in slaughtering 16 innocent civilians. All proved to be miserable failures.

I mean, isn’t this bizarre? Yes, I dislike Bush and I think there have been lots of duplicities for which he and his buddies need to be made accountable. And accidental deaths are a terrible thing. But he is making it sound as though the “slaughter” was an intentional act of malice. It’s friggin insane. The bold prejudice — a mission isn’t a failure, it is a “miserable failure.” How can they publish this cockeyed drivel?

He then questions whether the whole story is another lie by the US military:

And in a family obsessed, with good reason, with their own personal security, would Uday and Qusay really be together? Would they allow themselves to be trapped. The two so-called “lions of Iraq” (this courtesy of Saddam) in the very same cage?

Finally, he closes the article with a brilliant prophesy:

If he [Saddam] and his sons are dead, the chances are that the opposition to the American-led occupation will grow rather than diminish – on the grounds that with Saddam gone, Iraqis will have nothing to lose by fighting the Americans.

I have a lot of misgivings about the war, but articles like this truly are, as Conrad says, “beyond parody.”

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