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January 20, 2005
Understanding dawns at the Beeb?
I do enjoy the Diplomad's posts; he's my kind of confirmed cynic when it comes to various left wing dominated media organisations, and his piece on the BBC and its reporting on the relief effort is a masterpiece. In his latest swipe at the media circus, and the BBC in particular, entitled "They're onto us!", he pokes some fun at the breathless reporting of a presumably UK-based reporter witnessing the delivery of heavy plant and materials to build an airstrip in Afghanistan.
He accurately records (and quotes!) the condescending drivel pumped out by the Beeb's left wing reporters for whom giving praise to the military of any nation and worst of all the AMERICAN military requires several doses of tranquilisers and something to numb the outraged sense of moral superiority, as they proceeded from the patently absurd statement that the UN's "swift" response to the tsunami disaster had "made the US's independent efforts look superfluous" to praise for the ability to drop massive machinery and equipment into an isolated location and build an airfield from scratch in days. You can't even begin to apologise for this sort of banal stupidity and blinkered thinking.
Mind you, these are the same cretins who think that the UN and its overstaffed and corrupt organs and the equally questionable General Assembly are some sort of World Government whose edicts supercede all national parliaments, congresses, or sovereignty. I have to admire the irony of his statement (and the understated diplomacy) as he suggests:
OK, now you see why I am worried. You can see how the BBC is finally beginning to understand that the US military is history's ultimate kick-ass machine. It can build roads in the middle of Nowherestan, while simultaneously keeping peace in Bosnia; fighting terrorists around the globe; waging war in Iraq; keeping the North Koreans bottled up; maintaining 12 aircraft carrier battlegroups; and flying massive relief operations in South and SE Asia that are caring for tens-of-thousands of people. In addition, the USA has the heavens full of spy and commo satellites; its robots patrolling the frozen wastes of Mars; begun building an anti-missile shield; and, working with the Aussies, been developing a Mach 10 "scram jet" -- and foisted Madonna on the Brits (A Dr. Evil laugh is permitted here!)
Why build the "scram jet" with the Aussies? Well, it would be no good building it in partnership with the UK, mainly because all our left wing wets and their civil service toadies would invent so many regulations and so much paperwork to delay it we would still be trying to get it going when the next millenium comes round! I reckon that we should threaten to export Madonna back to the US unless they let some of our scientists work in Oz on this project.
The truth may be slowly dawning on the left and the liberal media that without a strong and well equipped military presence most of the relief effort would have been impossible or, at best, very, very difficult. It was the sheer muscle of the USN Battle Group centred on the huge carrier with her airgroup, escorts, and supply train, the deployment of the Bon Homme Richard and her support group, helicopters, and Marine Corps, that made much of the really efficient and immediate relief and rescue efforts possible. It was the US and Australian deployments and the field hospital units they brought with them that have saved thousands of lives and not the quasi-government that is the UN.
Talking to my friends in the RN, there is a resigned despair among many of them that the UK's once proud fleet could find only one Type 23 Frigate and one Royal Fleet Auxilliary to send to Sri Lanka when what was needed was the sort of response that could be mounted from a Landing Ship Dock or Platform and its support group. But these are not available because this same shower of media mouthpieces have undermined the military at every opportunity, have promoted everything anti-military they can find, and now have to face the reality that the US is proving that their worthless anti-military and anti-excellence ideology is fatally flawed.
Well done the US military, well done the Ozzies, and very well done the Diplomad!
Posted by The Gray Monk at January 20, 2005 09:19 AM
Comments
I too enjoy Diplomad and his view of the world.
I have had the displeasure of working at the BBC for the past several years (I escaped in August). They are in serious need of some forensic analysis themselves. They are the most over-staffed, complacent, bone-idle bunch I have worked with in 34 years. Trying to get anyone to turn up for a meeting on time is fruitless - (in the end I would walk out if there was no quorum within 5 mins of start).
When their Technology arm was sold recently, several of their drones came to me and said that they hoped they weren't bought by the big boys - they couldn't possibly work the hours, or under the stress and responsibility we did.
Said it all really.
Ideal place for a job in the run up to retirement. No pressure, no responsibility, good pay and conditions.
(Having said all that - to see the effort that goes into a News Broadcast - you have to take your hats off to them... that really is stress!!! - but that's 300 people out of many thousands).
Posted by: Gorse Fox at January 20, 2005 02:51 PM
Thanks from Down-Under. You know we'll come and bail you guys out next time you need it. Dunno about helping the bl;**dy frogs though. I figure next time they get invaded by Germany, we can send flowers...
Posted by: Ozguru at January 21, 2005 06:25 AM
Thank you very much for calling a spade a spade in this article. I recognize that we Americans can be viewed as arrogrant and hard headed at times, but it is nice occasionally to be recognized for the good that we do. I am one of those 65 million that are stupid/dumb and voted for Mr. Bush. In a democracy, you would hope that the person you voted for would mimic your views, but the reality is that does not occur. The best that you can hope for is the person you vote for mimics your values, and that that person has enough balls to vote those values. I am sorry but that eliminated Mr. Kerry day one. Of course, my bias is I am a 30 year Army retiree, full colonel, who spent time in Viet Nam. I do not need a President who vilified the many soldiers in Viet Nam as criminals. I am sorry people do not understand that memories like that last forever. I know it is Christian to forgive, but no one says that we have to forget. Thank you again for a refreshing European view of the American contribution to the relief effort.
Posted by: Leonard Pederson at January 22, 2005 03:45 AM
Sadly it seems that much of the news media is now under the control of, or staffed by, a left wing liberal crew who are big on pontificating (from a very safe distance) on how things ought to be done and what is and is not acceptable action in a war zone, yet without any understanding of what it is like to have to make decisions which could result in the death of your own people while under fire. Things always look different from the safety of a newsroom or a quiet office where the "enemy" is an impatient editor and the deadline for printing or broadcast.
The eagerness wwith which anything to the discredit of our armed forces is rushed out is frankly sickening and displays the callous disregard these so called guardians of free speech have for the consequences or, sometimes, the reality of the situation in which the event they have selected occured. I believe that there are several things at work here all of them subversive and insidious. In the first instance, the news media, particularly in Britain, has been recruiting almost exclusively reporters and frontmen and women with a leftwing, anti-military, anti-uniform even, bias. Secondly, the institutions of government and parliament itself are now exclusively staffed by people with no military background, no military training and no understanding of anything other than their own narrow and rose tinted ideological vision of a perfect world.
You need only listen to some scruffy civil servant pontificating on how discipline regulations are unnecessary and the civil system is perfectly adequate, or on how a single nuclear submarine can do everything the WW1 Grand Fleet could do to begin to grasp what I mean. These are the cretins who think that more technology means you need fewer troops on the ground, fewer ships and fewer aircraft to fight a war. These are the cretins who hold forth at length about the accuracy, and clinical ability of high tech weapons to strike only military targets and not cause civilian casualties.
They never have, and never will understand that the enemy would be as big a fool as they are to stay in an isolated and targetted position, they simply cannot comprehend that an enemy firing from behind women and children is even more dangerous than an enemy out in the open.
I can only hope that, before it is too late, there is a change of heart and of understanding. Or that someone in High Command takes the morons aside and sends them into the firing line to show the troops how it should be done. At least it would create a few promotion opportunities for the next tranche of idiots.
Posted by: The Gray Monk at January 23, 2005 11:48 PM