An Astonishing Programme

BBC NEWS | Programmes | This World | Will Israel bomb Iran?

Following on from the mild horror of an episode of Horizon presented by a comedian–actually it was a pretty good film, just not right for the Horizon slot, bring back QED!–we have this gem.

An analysis of the nuclear “threat” from Iran towards Israel, it consisted largely of thunderous incidental music and alarming stock film of exploding things. While the music wasn’t playing however, senior military and political Israelis were given free reign to complain about how dangerous and unilateral Iran’s behaviour was… and never once being challenged about how dangerous and unilateral Israel’s behaviour has been over the same period!

It’s the height of  hypocrisy for one country with a clandestine nuclear weapons programme to criticise another country… for attempting to have a clandestine nuclear weapons programme. While programmes presenting a single (biased) point of view can often be amongst the best television to watch, an international current affairs thread is not the place to have a programme like that. Why, you might as well have a comedian presenting Horizon. The whole point of BBC news and current affairs is to be impartial, though I suspect BBC News and Current Affairs have forgotten that.

Well, you can watch it on the BBC website and see what you think. Maybe I’m just spouting mad anti-Israeli crap. Who knows.

How to achieve world peace

BBC NEWS | World | Europe | Iran rejects six nations’ demands
The five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany held talks in the UK on Friday to discuss Iran’s repeated refusal to halt nuclear activities.

You are a developed, democratic country. You can achieve world peace really easily by inconsistently obeying international law, and inconsistently applying it to other, possibly less developed, less democratic countries.

It probably helps to interfere in the international law creation process too. After all, the less self-consistent and coherent international law is, the easier world peace is to achieve! A variation on this process is to participate fully in the development of the international law, often insisting on bizarre amendments that only suit your own national interests, and then at the end of the process refuse to sign up anyway. That method really helps world peace along!

If, on the other hand, you are a less developed, less democratic country, you should really do everything the more developed, democratic countries tell you to do, right away! After all, they are much more developed and democratic than you, so they must be right! And even if the things you are told to do are completely against your national interests, and could compromise your national security, well, you should do them anyway.

Even if the international treaties you’ve signed say you can do the things the developed, democratic countries are telling you not to do. They don’t count. I’ll let you into a secret. The international laws and treaties are really just for show!

We don’t need them. The developed, democratic countries are so kind, fair and wise and would never act in a self-interested way. They’re working so hard for world peace! So you should help them by doing exactly what they say, and then you can be working for world peace too!

BBC NEWS | Politics | Prescott denies calling Bush crap

BBC NEWS | Politics | Prescott denies calling Bush crap

Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has denied saying the Bush administration had been “crap” on the Middle East road map - the plan for peace in the region.

Note how the BBC conflates calling the Washington administration’s attitude to the Middle East “crap” and Prescott calling Bush “crap”. There’s a wee thing called impartiality, guys, which you are meant to be the paragon of.

Prescott may be an utter fool, I don’t know, I’ve never met him. But I don’t see the need to deny this story: not only is the “road map” itself crap, but the name is crap. A “road map”? I have visions of diplomats and statesmen driving around in an old bus, lost in the back lanes of Aberdeenshire.

Maybe that’s just me.

My opinion is that any lasting settlement in the Middle East will have to actually deal with the longstanding and genuine grievances that all the sides have.

The settlement will also have to deal with the childish, petty conduct of all sides in the conflict. Clearly that will be very difficult, and of course I have no idea how to do it.

bad things

BBC NEWS | World | Middle East | Dozens killed in Lebanon air raid

Israel said the Shia militant group was responsible for the Qana strike, by using the town to launch rockets.

This is childish. And petty. But worst of all, it’s violent.

Israel is responsible for the strike: their armed forces executed it.

I’m not particularly interested in how this situation came about, and wouldn’t claim to know a great deal about its history. For me it’s just a bigger version of who said what about our Tracy.

But I do know that innocent people on both sides are being hurt and killed, and civilian infrastructure is being wrecked.

I also know that in situations like these, it’s the party in the position of strength that has to make concessions. The weaker party has nothing to lose, and the weakest of all have no control over their fate. cf. Central Africa, Chechnya…

In this case, that means only Israel has the power to resolve this situation, but not by military means. They should look to South Africa, to Scandinavia, to Northern Ireland, for possible ways out of this.

And, yes, I know that’s not going to happen.