The BBC Must Be Destroyed

It is to Kid Various' eternal pain that most Americans will never be able to watch the BBC. Because if they did, they'd realize how its biased and intentionally inflammatory coverage warps the world's understanding of our society. Let The Kid make himself perfectly clear:

The British Broadcasting System, the world's premiere journalistic news service, has a persistent and virulent anti-American/anti-Western bias and is intentionally seeking to use its power to undermine U.S. policy across the globe.

The examples of this slanting of news coverage are legion. And we're not talking about the Dan Rather-type bias either. Compared to the BBC, the American network news broadcasts are paragons of journalistic integrity.

The bias extends not just to the U.S. but to western civilization in general, as exemplified by the BBC's complete and utter lack of objectivity when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Until recently, Kid Various did not have a dog in this fight. He is neither Jewish, Muslim nor a millennial Christian and thus has no tie to "the holy land." Until September 11, The Kid was becoming more and more of an Arabist, seeing the ongoing conflict as a costly distraction from our real aims in the Middle East (propping up friendly Arab dictators and making sure the oil kept flowing.)

Post-September 11, The Kid has begun to think really hard about the United States' past policies and how we are now engaged in a global battle between the Western Enlightenment and Medieval despotism.

So The Kid has a lot of understanding of where the Israelis are coming from. The Israelis have a lot to answer for, including collective punishment and institutionalized use of torture (although both have, thankfully, recently been suspended.)

However, on the balance sheet between the Israelis and their Palestinian foes, the Palestinians are way, we're talking WAY, on the other side of the scale.

Which makes this latest outrage by the BBC even more telling. In covering the Tel Aviv suicide bombing last week, the BBC led off its story by covering the "family in mourning."

The family in mourning was not one of the families of the 4 innocent people killed in the blast but rather the family of the terrorist who murdered them!

Let Kid Various repeat that, just in case its incredible cognitive dissonance kept you from assimilating it the first time.

The family in mourning was not one of the families of the 4 innocent people killed in the blast but rather the family of the terrorist who murdered them!

That's right. In the BBC's warped view of the world, the suffering of the family of a man who willingly strapped explosives to himself, walked into a line of people waiting to get into a club, and purposely detonated the bomb in order to kill as many innocent civilians as possible, is more important than the sufferings of the families of the victims. (Let's not even get into the concept of whether or not the BBC should be giving an
evenhanded analysis of the virtue of suicide terrorism)

This affront to the principles of journalism was apparently too much even for the bigwigs at the BBC who posted a limp "correction" last Monday.

In response, head of BBC television news Roger Mosey said: "The programme editors and I agree it was inappropriate to begin the report with footage of the suicide bomber's family in mourning.

"It was also inappropriate to include this footage without coverage of the suffering of the victims' families.

"Using this picture sequence in this way was a mistake. However, the report's coverage of the political ramifications of the bombing and this week's London conference was balanced and fair - and we did, of course, report fully the events in Tel Aviv in our bulletins on Friday night and
Saturday."

Thankfully, it appears that many of the Palestinans, exhausted from a fruitless intifada, don't seem to share the BBC's convictions. Unlike in the past, people have refrained from the traditional celebrations over suicide attacks.

In contrast to the dozens of previous suicide bombings, no celebrations were held in the West Bank on Saturday and militant groups didn't hang the customary posters of congratulations at the bomber's home.

Hopefully the Palestinians are realizing that the only way to improve their lives is to fully join the modern world, which means leaving the medieval tactics of a primitive worldview behind. The BBC won't help them in that effort. But we will.