BBC Documentary – “A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad”
David Carlson
I rarely watch anything on the BBC now and this first part in a three part character assassination of Bashar Assad is a testament as to why watching anything the BBC produces is as near perverse as some of their DJ’s. “Nick Greene”, the Grun states ” forensic excision of the tumour at the heart of Syria,” is about as sick as gaggle of Bishops at a Jimmy Saville party.
The sickly female voice over 20 years ago would only be found on a childrens program explainingg basics of a subject to ten year olds but now, it seems, is standard fare for adults happy to accept such condescension.
To start with the ommision of how Hafez Assad rescued Syria from American and French colonial interference that by policy was designed to keep Syria a fractured state of warring tribes is as I expected a deafening silence. That he came from a peasant family with nothing to be President that united his nation in a secular peace and a growing prosperity for all is cast as his crime because he stomped on the Mossad/CIA sponsored rebels hiding under the guise of the Muslim Brotherhood. Indeed the situation today with the myriad factions we can collectively call ISIS/Al Qaida funded and assisted by Israel, the US and allies is a clear case of history repeating itself.
To hammer home the idea to aunties gullible children that Hafez was some kind of monster, a stitched together film of female soldiers biting the heads off snakes and unrelated footage of males stabbing puppies is presented. This is in fact an old propaganda film put together by Saddam Hussein when he was still dancing to an American flute and given to Donald Rumsfeld when they were still buddies.
The snake biting is authentic and a common theme around the world. Indeed US Secretary of Defence James Mattis in January this year was following in the footsteps of Hafez in congratulating Indonesian soldiers in their snake decapitation and blood drinking abilities.
Next there is a bit about Assads older brother being groomed to take over before he died in a car accident. Not before he is savaged for owning a Porsche and a BMW. It seems to be a respectable heir in waiting one must have an extensive collection of Italian HyperCars.
Bashar is shown by their own script to be an unassuming character of deep humanity who had planned to devote his life to help giving sight to the blind. This is something I would argue he continues to do in his interviews in recent years. Anybody listening to him interviewed, if they can get past his unfortunate discomfort of limelight, can only be struck with his reasonableness, his integrity and his humanity. Yet with strained contrivance and meaningless anecdotes from western stooges he is portrayed as a sinister character full of deceit.
Why? Because he talked and negotiated with western leaders but remained unbending over the defence of his nation, it’s secular inclusive ideals and of Arab people’s in general. But mostly for refusing to be a party to the new crusade of the post 9/11 landscape. Without any evidence he was charged with deporting militant prisoners to fight Americans in Iraq. But worst of all his crimes the despicable, heinous crime of foreseeing that the invasion of Iraq would mean Syria would see an influx of refugees and preparing in advance for that reality by putting the infrastructure in place to take care of them. Yes, the sinister dictator set up refugee camps. Such evil!
Mrs Assad does not escape the assault. Far from it, Asma is portrayed as nothing better than a social climber who connived her way to a wedding ceremony. Despite it being obvious that they are two peas in a pod, as made for each other a couple as you are likely to see, thrust into their position by fate not design. No laudits that they share the same desire to be as close to the ordinary citizens as is possible and portrayed as manipulative because they can drive the streets of Damascus as ordinary citizens without fear and do so on a daily basis.
Watching this should do the exact opposite that was intended. It should demonstrate that this couple are good people in a bad world. That they gave up their own lives and all the wealth and privileges that would have come with capitulation to western hegemony and opted to stand firm in defence of Syrian independence and the secular ideals of respect and harmony the Syrian state embodies.
By David Carlson aka Candide Schmyles a nobody living in the North of Scotland.
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The comments on here are absolutely bonkers.
jimmy saville worked at the bbc for more than 40 years after his death someone asked the head bbc spook the guy that went to the new york times how jimmy got away with it,his reply
we never knew.
40 years of rape and fiddling spending christmas with margaret thatcher etc etc.
nobody knew nuttin.
maybe just maybe saville was normalcy for certain groups.
does the bbc ever run counter to chatham house country takedown or is it just the soft power consent arm of mi5.
a nice cosy truman show bubble for the goyim
calming and extracting the energy of slaves
“about as sick as gaggle of Bishops at a Jimmy Saville party.”
I know that’s meant to be clever, but ironically there are some people who believe that Mr Savile was unjustly smeared by the MSM in a similar way that the Assad family have been unjustly smeared.
Several people have been working hard on what they see as the fight for justice for Jimmy Savile. They’re quite brave as the MSM have whipped people up in to such a rage about such matters.
Compare with the fawning interview given to Egypt’s military tyrant Al Sisi, who is perhaps worse than even Mubarak. I remember Reuters quoting an IMF guy during his multi-billion-dollar foreign investment conference a few years ago saying “yes the repression is bad but it is stabilizing for foreign investment”.
I have just watched part one. Talk about scratching an itch. The narrator sounds like the BT answering service. No context is given for anything, no mention of the various wars with Israel, no mention of the succession of coups d’état before Hafez came to power so that the people in general were glad of some stability at last. Even after Hafez did take over there was a lot of random terrorism which he finally managed to bring under control. The Hama massacre was provoked by the Muslim Brotherhood killing all the solders in the garrison at Hama. Hama would probably have been Hafez’s Deraa moment if he hadn’t acted fast and of course in those days there was no social media or foreign jihadi types to fan the flames. They seem to hint that Syria would have been better off under Hafez’ brother Rifat. They don’t mention that Rifat has been living high on the hog in Europe ever since Hafez chucked him out. If Hafez was paranoid he had reason to be. And what did they mean, he let down the Americans by saying one thing and doing another? They were talking about Israel and he wanted a fairer deal for the Palestinians. He was the one who felt he was let down by the Americans including the crafty Kissinger.
There is a good biography of Hafez called Assad of Syria, by the late Patrick Seale, though it stops at the end of the eighties. The poor man looked very thin and unwell in the nineties. It can’t be easy trying to run Syria when they are all out to get you.
The “Hama massacre” was organised by certain foreign powers using the Moslem Brotherhood who are just as nasty as ISIL and caused trouble and terrorism for years, and it was intended to lead to a regime change operation. Hafez was completely justified in the measures he took.
@ Dick100,
As you say, the exact same ”Foreign Powers” were involved up to their ears in the Hama massacre then and now… IMO it was them who paid for the coup in the first place. They had Rifaat Asaad on their payroll both monetarily and with the promise that he would become ‘their’ President once he had disposed of the non existent ‘Muslim Brotherhood’ allegedly hiding amongst the people…and stirred up a massive peaceful demonstration which was dispersed using the CIA/Mossad mercenaries dressed as Syrian soldiers to kill innocent civilians for the benefit of the International MSM..(Remember the King David Hotel? https://www.britishempire.co.uk/maproom/palestinedavidshotel.htm )
And Rifaat is still working tirelessly with his Radio Station Owner son Sawar al Assad … to undermine Bashar.
Hanging on to the dream of becoming the President of Syria in the pocket of the USA/Israhell.
Where did Rifaat get his millions from? When he was expelled from Syria with NOTHING?
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3057557/Bashar-al-Assad-s-uncle-investigation-France-64m-fortune-despite-kicked-Syria-30-years-ago.html
Voila, the Takeover of Syria was begun. .
But they didn’t count of Hafez being able to overcome the ‘heart attack dart’. Or already having plans in place for his son Basal to inherit the Presidency in the event of his death or incapacitation Or being able to recall Bashar after Basal was assassinated…
I have a strong feeling that Hariri and Waleed Jumblatt were also on the CIA payroll but I haven’t got to the bottom of this yet..
Sufficient to know that the Syrian script is following the exact one used against Mubarak during the ‘Arab Spring; Gadaffi and Sadaam Hussain..
This was pure propaganda to hide the fact that Brown/Cameron planned the war in Syria to bring down Assad and trash the country on the orders of Israel. This os made clear here by former French Foreign Minister Roland Dumas:
MSM wormworderry headline link to the story says Labour MPs forced to withdraw abortion amendment – Bastard Corbyn! Urm not this time..
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/oct/24/commons-withdraws-amendment-to-legalise-abortion-in-northern-ireland
Meanwhile Craig Murray has posted on Kashoggi – including a link to a BBC world news story on disappearing Saudi princes from their European homes, not a blip of protest from the governments concerned or the media!
As an organization whose outlook is purely globalist, who blindly accepts and refuses to critique the now universalized economic conclusions of neoliberalism and the geopolitical ‘liberation’ program of ‘progressive’ neoconservatives and ‘progressive’ liberal imperialists, then perhaps the state based broadcaster would be better funded by the corporations and vested interests of the transnational neo-globalist deep state that it represents rather than rely on the outdated nationalistic financial support of the British people which it clearly despises.
Precisely why I stopped contributing to National Public Radio in the US. They get plenty of funding from Big Oil and the MIC and persist in giving a platform to totally discredited morons like Paul Wolfowitz.
The REAL dangerous dynasty is the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, of late “Windsor,” and its many Prime Ministers who exercised the colonial, empire war and other powers previously directly exercised by the royals. WOnder when the bbc might do a doc on THEM? lol
My Mrs watched some of this rubbish and fell for it enough to reproach me for supporting such a ‘butcher’. I loathe the BBC – I won’t watch it any more unless it’s countryfile or an antiques programme, which they are now planning to axe as nice old white people in pockets of Britain’s glorious, civilised past watch it and must be denied such pleasures. They’ll be getting scripted pap like HIGNFY or sunni-wahabist breakdancing from South London from BBCiii.
Time to change wife? ;-/
Ditch the TV, and don’t ever pay for a license again. I did that 15 years ago and never regretted it. The Bullshit and Brainwashing Corporation will never again receive any money from me.
Thanks, David, for your review with which I wholeheartedly agree. I sat through most of the three ‘episodes’ (and that is the right word to use as it comes across as a fictional Hollywood-style production mini-series from, as you say, the voice-over to the music score, atmospheric to convey evil and malice aforethought). I came away with the distinct impression that the aim of the programme – apart from to lie and factually mislead – was to manipulate a bridge between the secular, respected and humanitarian President and his wife that many of us see and the murdering, genocidal, evil butcher that we are told he really is. I can only conclude that this was done out of fear that the ‘pro-Assad’ voices are starting to gain momentum. So, to counter this, BBC shows the ‘good’ side of the couple but then immediately counters it with an anecdote or allegation, as if they were fact, demonstrating their ‘true’ characters…in other words “Don’t be fooled”.
‘Spoiler alert’ for those who haven’t see the series. There were several instances in last night’s (third and final) episode where context of quotes and footage was deliberately misleading to distort what was being shown. There was the case of the young boy who had purportedly been beaten to death by the Syrian authorities for writing anti-regime graffiti. Now I don’t claim to know the background and who did kill him but a former Minister for Culture stated that, when he asked Assad who had killed him, Assad ‘without hesitation said “We killed him” ‘. Now I don’t know about anyone else but I wouldn’t have taken that as a personal confession, which the programme clearly intended us to assume, but more likely a statement of equal metaphorical responsibility to be borne by all sides of the political divide.
Asma was also subject to blatant manipulative and disingenuous misrepresentation several times. ‘The voiceover’ said that attempts had been made by friends and family to persuade her to leave her husband (and I paraphrase) ‘to demonstrate her disapproval of his wicked and murdering ways.’ The programme then cut to an unrelated interview with her in which she was saying “Yes, it was suggested I leave and I was offered somewhere to go but I stayed out of a sense of duty..”. But it was obvious that she had been asked whether she hadn’t thought about leaving “Syria” in order to be safe. Likewise, the programme showed her addressing a group of women and (showing how Asma is just as ‘evil’ as her husband) saying how important it is to remain loyal in the face of adversity and fight for one’s country and this may mean making the ultimate sacrifice etc. What the programme didn’t clarify was that she was addressing a group of women whose husbands, sons, brothers had been killed on duty for the SAA and she was clearly trying to offer them comfort in that their deaths would not be in vain.
Finally, I missed five minutes last night, came back in the room and saw a Syrian doctor being interviewed who claimed to have been a student peer of Bashar Assad, and he was pontificating at length about it being difficult to believe that the barbaric President was the same man. I kept saying to myself that I recognised him from somewhere but I had missed the name caption that, presumably, appeared on the screen when he first featured. Anyway, having thought about it and checked the internet, I realised it was Raed Saleh, chief of the Syrian White Helmets. For the benefit of gullible Western viewers, Saleh showed a picture drawn by a child depicting a dead, slaughtered child and a living child, and observed how “sad” it was that the dead child had a smile on his/her face; thus indicating that the child drawing the picture considered death to be preferable to being in a living hell. No mention that this is the life philosophy of Islamist fundamentalists.
edited by Admin for typo
“There was the case of the young boy who had purportedly been beaten to death by the Syrian authorities for writing anti-regime graffiti.” – I assume you are referring to 13yr old Hamza Ali Al-Khateeb (killed sometime during April or May 2011).
Western accounts regarding the manner of this child’s death have been contested. http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.com/2011/06/breaking-news-true-story-of-hamza-al.html
What we do know is that Hillary waded in with veiled threats soon after the allegations so depending on your point of view it might be argued that neocons (such as Clinton) were trying to exploit the death of Hamza Ali Al-Khateeb (in order to gaim momentum for regime change) or maybe Assad really had gone from being a mild mannered opthalmologist to sociopathic child torturer.
Needless to say such cynicism about Clinton cannot be discounted given our inability to trust the motivation of belligerent politicians during times of war typified by the Kuwaiti incubator débâcle not to mention many other false flags.
In 2001 even the Guardian’s Phillip Knightly grudgingly had to acknowledge, “The way wars are reported in the western media follows a depressingly predictable pattern: stage one, the crisis; stage two, the demonisation of the enemy’s leader; stage three, the demonisation of the enemy as individuals; and stage four, atrocities.”
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2001/oct/04/socialsciences.highereducation
Thank you Judy.
I have still to endure the 3rd part and I thank you sincerely for getting me out of any temptation to go penning two follow ups that are wholly unnecessary to get the picture.
The “boy” to which you refer I believe to be Hamza A’Hadib who the rebel/jihadi propagandists said was to have died soon after after being delivered to hospital by his interrogators. The truth is he had been dead several days by then, hence his body was bloated and beginning to decay. The coroner reported that despite appearances his body showed no signs of being tortured.
https://youtu.be/8b1qKqYz-Bs
There are several interviews where Bashar “admits” various things but his dismal delivery makes his attempts at irony fall flat and delivers all the sound bite edits MSM needs to hang him out to dry. Evidently unlike our western leaders he has no PR team to coach him.
Asma with her outrageous good looks does not help herself either despite her genuine intent to be the person she states she is. Her Sorbonne accent and inflections reminiscent of Lady Di are easy fodder for a hit piece like this. But why should Di not be an inspiration? Di overcame her privilege to see the injustice her class perpetuate and railed against it. Whatever the truth of her death she became a thorn in the side of the war profiteers and if she had lived likely would have galvanised public consciousness against more issues than landmines. And I think is why they are trying so hard to hit Asma too. Her morality garnished with a devastating smile is infectious. This is why it is high time everybody involved in the alternative media, writer and commenter alike do their due diligence and stop propagating the fictitious meme of “evil Assad”.
Thanks for the edit, Admin.
May God bless Israel and continue to save her from her enemies.
“And this shall be the plague wherewith the LORD will smite all the people that have fought against Jerusalem; Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their holes, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth” (Zechariah 14:12).
“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee” (Psalm122:6).
Solemn warnings indeed.
I think “Israel” only real threat lays in her own breast.
As soon as I saw the title of part one I knew this was going to be a massive smear against a person who has so far resisted the perversion of the Deep State – so, to save you having to read yet another thesis, I will just say that I didn’t even bother watching any of this crap because I could have predicted all the comments I have read here – and it is reassuring to me that there still remain so many people who know the truth of all this.
Like you. LSMS, I knew exactly what to expect before watching it and, as always with such programmes, was tempted to find something more worthwhile to do! But I usually succumb simply so that as soon as an acquaintance starts talking about the BBC programme they saw proving that Assad is a tyrant I can at least challenge their inferences from my own first-hand observation, having seen the programme as well.
Jeruslem is not Israel. You misrepresent the quote. Wormtonguery or clever?
Anyone promoting Judaism is clearly not a Christian! Shall I send you the link of lovable Jew kids saying they killer Jesus, they’re proud that they killer Jesus and that Jesus was the son of a shit? Should I? And yet you want to “protect” Jews temporarily so that god and his kid can come back and kill them all! I see you had several IDF trolls or yourself and a few Jews thumb up your comment too
According to our charming Hebrew friends of the Sarah Silverman variety, Jesus was the bastard son of a Roman soldier and a Jewish prostitute, who is now burning in a pit of excrement in Hell for all eternity. Nice people, those Hebrew folk.
Jesus was the son of Zachariah…
Mary was given to the temple as a Vestal Virgin when she was 3. When she started her period age 12 she had to leave for fear of defiling the temple and lived with Elizabeth and Zachariah till a husband was arranged for her. Zachariah inseminated her and then married her off to an old man Joseph when she was in her 12th year, and she gave birth to Jesus just after her 13th birthday..
Zachariah was the Rightful Hasmonean King of Judaea but the Romans would not allow him to take this title, and he complied with their rules to keep his life.. But the Romans got to know that two sons had been born to him but he would not give the whereabouts of Elizabeth and Mary away so they murdered him, and put John and Jesus on a hit list,
Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene and he was becoming such a thorn in the side of the Romans, because he was on the brink of being crowned King of the Hasmoneans, which would have undermined the Sanhedrin who worked for the Romans. So they trumped up charges and had Jesus tried for treason and found him guilty, resulting in him being hung on a stake at 3pm on the Friday afternoon…..three hours before sunset…., the beginning of the Sabbath??
Joseph of Arimathea was Mary’s Uncle, and a Wealthy tin merchant who worked for the Romans gathering tin from the four corners of their world.. He negotiated with the Romans to remove the body when Jesus ‘died.’ which was accelerated by giving Jesus Frankincense and Myrrh – both very strong analgesics – to overcome the pain of hanging there for 3 hours, which induced a death like trance…fortunately just before 6pm… or he would have had to hang there until the Monday? Then Joseph removed the body to his own private crypt and administered salve and wrapped his wounds in bandages.. The next morning the stone was removed from the entrance to the crypt and food was given to Jesus. Then Joseph secreted Jesus and Mary away on his boat, after Jesus had said goodbye to his loyal friends. And it is rumoured – very strongly -that they ended up in France, or even Britain?
I am the most wonderful person on the planet and anyone who says different is obviously an enemy of God who will destroy them, so everyone has to fawn all over me and give me all their money, especially the Americans.
BBC can sell it (with some success) ONLY in the “five eyes” and nowhere else. The rest of the world knows exactly what the BBC is all about. The rest of the world also knows where BBC comes from – the country that committed more genocides and murders than Hitler would be able to do seven lives. And those who fund BBC (yes dear taxpayers of Kingdom of Genocides) should know that revenge will come sooner or later. Till it happens – enjoy your brainwashing
All I can say is that I managed about ten minutes of this …this “what” being something so awful as to defy language. Goebbels would have blushed. Bernays would have thought twice. Not “Auntie”. With psychopathic relatives like that, who needs enemies? Especially crude counterfeited enemies.
I have watched part two. It doesn’t get any better. The only reason I am watching it is I have been researching Bashar recently trying to get some handle on why he is so demonised even by most of alt media. To be frank I have not found anything bad on him at all that comes with supporting evidence. To me he seems like the real thing, a genuine leader of a country that serves the best interests of the people. So it is a mystery to me why the bad labels persist even amongst those otherwise critical of the western warmongers. I genuinely think this has become a meme propagated through the laziness of commentators to do their own research. And made easy by him looking like a stock cartoon vampire and having that quiet lispy voice. Listening closely to what he actually says reveals a man with actual integrity. Maybe that is what it is! It has become so rare now a good man sounds alien!
Candidly, I believe one reason is at least as old as Athenian Democracy: I am voting to bring Aristides down because I am sick and tired of hearing people talking about Aristides the Just.
In the early 2000’s, Dr Assad’s government did carry out neoliberal economic reforms, as recommended by the World Bank and the IMF, that among other things helped destroy much of Syria’s agriculture and led to grudges and grievances among rural Sunni Muslim communities in the eastern and northeastern parts of the country. In those days, the Syrian government relied on Abdullah Dardari, who held senior positions in the government for economics affairs and planning, to shape and direct the country’s economic policy.
Since the war began in 2011, Dardari has resurfaced in various UN-related positions. We must ask what his role in shaping Syrian economic policy during Assad’s early years as President was really aiming at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullah_Dardari
Dardari has now been appointed Senior Advisor on Reconstruction for the Middle East and North Africa Region by the World Bank:
http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2017/02/16/world-bank-appoints-senior-advisor-on-reconstruction-for-the-middle-east-and-north-arica-region
(Hmm, the World Bank can employ a supposed expert on economic reform but forgot to employ someone who can monitor its spellchecking programs.)
Ironically much of the MSM jeering at Assad aims at rubbishing the “reforms” his government carried out, that alienated many Syrians who ended up joining ISIS and Jabhat Al Nusra (current Hayat Tahrir al Shams), and which had actually been initially endorsed by organisations like the IMF and the World Bank.
Excellent point about dardari. A rat if I ever saw one
Any mention of the other Assad, living in leafy Surrey or Kent or wherever? Hmm?
Anyone continuing to watch and listen to the propaganda news and entertainment bollocks spewed non stop by the ‘state’ broadcaster is a mug. A double mug for actually paying for it!
£4 BILLION per year!!! Wtf??
Plus they make at least another £BILLION from ‘commercial’ activities. Much of it going to ‘private’ production companies formed nepotistically by Beeb insiders. Where they take earnings directly and indirectly.
Meanwhile, every regional channel & every radio channel in HQ digital format is available for FREE across Europe and the world on freesat!
on the web it is available across the world with ADVERTS.
Just REFUSE to watch it or it’s iplayer.
You can manage using internet devices to watch netflix and many other sources for a lot less a month. It is errroneous of the govt to demand that we are charged to recieve live broadcasting from the COMMERCIAL stations – who already pay the govt to use the airwaves. Why are we asked to pay the bbc again? They don’t own the spectrum.
Hell they aren’t even broadcasting the cricket on RADIO amymore – it is free on a commercial channel – and jolly good it has been, happily surprised to say.
Fuck the bbc, fuck the licence poll tax. If the government wants to give us state broadcasting, let them fund it DIRECTLY, just like any other PUBLIC SERVICE, like the NHS or police or Army, etc.
I have taken to asking pubs to turn off the BBC news channel, as a background irritant worm that runs the propaganda agenda on constant repeat and banner headlines. Sport is sport but NO to rolling news BS.
While I am from a five eyes country I am not at all convinced by BBC propaganda that is blatantly obvious . I have not deliberately listened to the BBC for about three years although the ABC does air as number of BBC programs in the wee hours and on Sunday mornings. About three years ago I filled in a BBC surveynand told them that I will no longer listen to their programs because I had no trust in the veracity of their information or their sources and I did not want to listen to propaganda. I have not listened or watched their programs since.
By the way I have infinitely more trust in Bashar Assad than in Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu, Hillary Clinton or Theresa May. As for Australian leaders I think most of them are ignorant about foreign relations and they are not staying in their job long enough to learn.
I have not listened to the British Bullshit Corp since Prime Minister Tony B.Liar killed the reputable old BBC for telling the Truth about Iraq.
Sorry vex but the beeb were never known for veracity before Blair either. Their decades of anti Irish anti USSR propaganda is proof of this
It’s fuckin’ obvious. Have another look, you’re Australian yeah, yet you’re white(I presume), I’m Irish yet I speak fuckin’ English as my first language, you’re fuckin’ brainwashed ‘mate’ , So many thick cunts tell me “if” we” didn’t fight in ww2 we’d speaking German ” and they say that to me in English, thick as the fuckin’, wall. What’s the Aussie or Kiwi language is it your first or are you a fuckin’ parasite?
Any insomniac listening to BBC World Service “Witness” in the european night last night will have been treated to a paean to General Pinochet and, following his arrest in London in 1998, the crafty PR man who came up with the wheeze of pushing him around in a wheelchair to make it look like he was seriously ill, leading to his release on compassionate grounds and arrival in Chile, whereupon he leapt out of the wheelchair to inspect the soldiers ranged to greet him. A level of journalism on a par with a Boy’s Own Annual of 1899: No context, just a comment towards the end that despite having tortured people he was great man who had made history and besides he was a friend of Margaret Thatcher – and which other great men who had made history hadn’t tortured the odd person here and there.
Pinochet the murdering henchman of Kissinger the mass murderer.
The FIRST 9/11 and the most heinous for gathering and murdering thousands in the stadiums.
Allendes last broadcast words are worth reading.
The “man” who certified Pinochet as being sane, from an ancient fartcatching university, was promptly knighted, having been an academic layabout for decades.
That crafty PR man was a tool of B.Liar’s Foreign Minister, Jack Straw, highly valued in certain Labour circles “for his low cunning”.
The US and Britain knew they were going to be responsible for some serious shit in Syria.
They were not wrong: there have been perhaps half a million killed while millions more have been displayed – at the same time once thriving, and culturally rich cities have been decimated.
None of this would make sense without a Dr Evil narrative rationalising what is essentially a western backed power play for resources and geopolitical control in the region.
The film makers at the BBC by demonising Assad and ignoring the real motives for war have done their bit to increase the risk of similar patterns playing out again, perhaps next time in Somalia or Venezuela?
Honestly, they need to take a long hard look at themselves.
Quite so, Harry. And the people who still unquestioningly watch and read the MSM need to take a long hard look at themselves.
Nick Green is the film maker: a project overseen by ’72 films’.
Their website describes ‘A Dangerous Dynasty: House of Assad’ as a new three part series (which) delves into the story of the Assad dynasty. Right at the centre of it are President Bashar and his wife Asma, who met and fell in love in London.
Bashar al-Assad trained to be an eye doctor at St Mary’s Hospital in Paddington; Asma was a British born girl (girl, sic) from a Syrian family with a career in investment banking. Over a decade ago, they were being welcomed with open arms in Britain. Today, they are entrenched in a brutal war that has led to some of the most horrifying crimes of modern times.
Told through rarely seen footage and testimony of those who knew them, worked with them and studied them, the series explores how the couple, who at first were seen as a modernising force, ended up running a regime accused of war crimes.
https://www.72films.com/work/#/new-page/
So the film purports to ‘explore’ how Bashar and Asma ‘ended up running a regime (sic) accused of war crimes’ – I’m calling bullshit on this one, yes there was a long list of allegations (some of which may be true) yet virtually no reference to the western backed coup, or the wider geopolitical context in which these terrible events unfolded.
Before the war Syria may not have enjoyed certain freedoms (compared to some parts of the world) but the country was far less repressive than many of its neighbours and certainly infinitely more peaceful and economically stable compared to the horrific aftermath that arose from a power struggle involving neocons, Salafist extremists and other agitators in the region all seeking to exploit Syria’s instability.
Continually demonising the ‘eye doctor’ as a monster enabled Green to wriggle off the hook of when it came to explaining why bad governenace is often a consequence of fear, and that a climate of fear was largely attributable to long term western designs to force Syria into submission.
Hell, Green did not even think it necessary to hold to account one of the architects of the Iraq war (Tony Blair) after the smiling assassin visited Syria in order to remind Assad that his country would be next unless he did exactly as he was told.
Good grief, this documentary is sure to be screened on either the ABC or SBS here in Australia. Both channels are propaganda arms of the BBC, no less.
Bad enough that the ABC is currently screening the Invictus games – a pet project of one of the British Royals – to harass the public into “supporting the troops” through exploiting veterans with disabilities, in a way that it has never done with the Paralympic Games.
It is sick. Send our children off to a distant land to kill innocents. Then when they get an arm or a leg blown off convince them to perform like trained monkeys.
As I’ve said before, the Beeb also excell at propaganda through their light entertainment stuff e.g. “Have I Got News For You” in which various manufactured strains, e.g. Labour “anti-Semitism”, are passed off casually as if these matters were clearly established facts.
The smug arrogance of Hislop especially galls me. I can no longer even watch it.
I feel the same about HIGNFY, Candide. Having not seen it for a long time, I watched a few minutes of it, a couple of weeks ago, but had to stop when Hislop made a hilarious ”joke” in which he mentioned Jeremy Corbyn alongside Stalin and Lenin.
He looked terribly pleased with himself after he’d delivered his astonishingly witty quip. I, on the other hand, had to fight the urge to smash my laptop to smithereens.
This is exactly why I cannot afford to watch it. Would cost me a fortune in devices.
I always thought Hislop was an annoying little jerk, who is never so pleased as when he favours the watcher with a ‘witticism’ , and is still trying to make up for his schoolboy inadequacies.
It ill-behooves a country like the UK with its record of imperial record of exploitation, slavery and mass murder to criticise anybody else. Just for the record.
1. The Zulu and South African wars in the late 19th century led by the notorious Cecil Rhodes.
2. The slave trade in west Africa, and the internal slavery in East Africa. In this latter chapter as described by Leonard Woolf ‘Empire and Commerce in Africa’ where the indigenous peoples were evicted by white settlers from their land. According to the British view ‘’ … the natives had no right to land and no right to live his life for himself; he should be compelled to work on the white man’s land for a wage fixed a twopence a day.’’ Woolf added, ‘’Men’s beliefs and desires are like an iron shutter which descends across their eyes. The philosophical historian does not delude himself into believing that any facts or arguments can pierce it.’
3. The occupation of Egypt, culminating in the bombardment of Alexandria with up to 2000 dead Egyptian civilians. The putative pacifist, Gladstone, actually wanted guns fired in Hyde park and church bells rung in celebration. This ignominious episode was followed by the occupation of Sudan. Then the three Afghan wars
4. Then the endless litany of colonial wars against Ireland, India, Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, Palestine waged against the ‘Wogs’ (Westernised Oriental Gentlemen)an insulting term used against the hapless colonial people by British soldiers, routinely involving mass murder, in India (Amritsar) Kenya (Camp Hola). In Palestine in particular, from 1938 to 1939 the arab revolt was mercilessly ground down. Villages were bombed (Sir Arthur ‘Bomber’ Harris stated ‘one 250 lb or 500 lb bomb for each arab village that speaks out of turn’ Or course Harris became head of RAF bomber command and fire bombed Hamburg incinerating 40000 German civilians followed up by the fire-bombing of Dresden killing another 20000)
The list goes on and on, and yet we are assured that we are a ‘good’ country as opposed to ‘bad’ countries like Syria. The hypocrisy and self-righteousness of these know-nothing mountebanks of the MSM is truly nauseating
…where the indigenous peoples were evicted by white settlers from their land. NOT true, you are sprouting fake nooz as DJT would say. We were among the early settlers, not Brits but Hungarians. Went to Kenya in1939. No Africans were there, just a few wandering Masai a hundred miles away and Kikuyu even further. We opened up new farmland where just a few zebra, deer and ostrich roamed. We grew wheat, barley, oats, raised cattle and pork,. We had a clinic for the workers and a school for their kids. They were given training, salaries, uniforms, free housing, free food, including fresh meat 2X a week, and allotted an acre of land to grow their own staples and keep goats. The neighboring Brit and South African farmers did the same.
The Brits set up the railways, roads, bridges, telecoms, schools, Universities, Hospitals, and established law and order. They even had special courts for differing tribal customs in different areas, 54 tribes in Kenya as some practiced bigamy as the norm. From where do you think Nairobi, Dar Es Salaam and and Kampala came, Lee, a baobab tree.
Go peddle your lies elsewhere.
So you ignore the 12M black slaves sent by British slavers to the New World to smoke and mirror your ridiculous notion that the benevolent Brits went to Africa out of maudlin sentiment for the darkies and their plight? I suggest you read contemporary accounts of the Parliamentary record.
And while you are at it, read how Kichener invented concentration camps and Amherst invented biological warfare.
Your absurd condescending take on bigamy betrays your racist core.
Ah, but they were sent to the New World for their own good, to take up exciting new job opportunities in the agricultural sector.
Good point, and it was a near instantaneous 200 years before they were freed, and eventually allowed to vote, own land and just another 100 before they could play pro baseball with whites and ride in the same buses. In the meantime they could pick cotton and tow barges and were even permitted to sleep from time to time, often with a roof over their heads. What is everybody moaning about?
So just a few wandering Masai don’t count as people to you? This is the same bullshit used in Australia. Here the Aboriginal people were semi nomadic in that they followed the seasonal grasses and hunted the animals that eat the grass. Whole tribes moved with the rains and had eight seasons based on different foods available. Europeans who turned up when the tribes had moved on claimed no one lived there. When the Aboriginals returned the settlers claimed that the aboriginal groups came after them.
Poor attempt. – F Mrs TT poor Thomas needs to try much harder, I recommend staying back for a few years.
The BBC is sickeningly biased, very difficult to watch their extraordinarily poor propaganda, they should take some lessons from RT, I agree with the author it’s rare I watch anymore, stick with Cox an co going on about the universe.
Even Cox is dogmatic and embellished many conjectures as cast iron fact. By their own measure physicists can only begin to explain 5% of the cosmos. Physics is completely dominated by a bunch of self congratulatory brothers and sisters of the ruling classes that increasingly are guilty of crass virtue signalling and in return for huge salaries push out their esoteric number game as the only show in town. Please do not think for a moment i am some luddite with a grudge, far from it, the sciences – cosmolgy, cybernetics and genetics especially, are my primary passion. But physics and cosmology needs new blood and new ideas. The stagnant minds that dominate at the moment stand yet on the shoulders of giants and all real advance is made by instrument builders and engineers.
The BBC is indeed horrendously biased, but all UK media is is the same. However, RT is biased too, in the opposing direction.
RT documentaries and shows are in many cases excellent, but their international news broadcasting has this year become quite comical at times, especially when using animations and playing music; that’s clearly a tactic used to enforce a message. Their UK news is actually informtive and balanced.
These things are not black and white, we should not be on one side or the other, we should have independent and enquiring minds and call out propaganda wherever we see it.
I agree we need to use our intelligence to assess the validity of all news. For instance when more than seventy percent of Syrians support Assad why would he bomb them. When Obama said the use of chemical weapons would be a trigger for US intervention why would Assad use them? When Donald Trump says that Khashoggi may have been murdered by a random violent group who just happened to stroll into the Saudi Embassy we should understand that is blatant bullshit to protect the sales of weapons at any cost.
A good series of tweets by David Miller showing how the circle of (intelligence service led) information sources becomes self referencing and self re-inforcing:
https://twitter.com/Tracking_Power/status/1054759888247754752
Thank you, David Carlson, I have posted Link in SyrianPerspective. And thank you, Off-Guardian which now means also Off-BBC. According to a couple of Australians who post regularly in SyrPer, they are as sickened by ABC as we are by BBC. Here is one of those Ozzies spreading the truth about one aspect of the FUKZU$A attempt to destroy democratic Syria and replace it by a backward, theocratic Rothschild oil company like Saudi Arabia:
“Andres Perezalonso at SOTT has a good take on the eastern Euphrates’ infestation by U$ grunts —
700 HOSTAGES TAKEN BY ISIS UNDER US MILITARY WATCH? U$A’S SPITEFUL EFFORTS TO PREVENT SYRIA’S RECOVERY
… If Trump had a firm hold of what the US military does and an accurate understanding of the situation, he would do his best to order them to get out of the way and let those three countries sort out the Euphrates valley as they have done elsewhere [in Syria].
Unfortunately, the U$ military – or rather, the Military-Industrial complex, which is an important element of the Deep $tate – has an agenda of its own. Its plan was never to eliminate I$I$, but to use it as a battering ram to topple the Assad government, which explains why U$, $audi and I$raeli weapons got into I$I$ hands, and why the ‘anti-I$I$ Operation Inherent Resolve’ campaign conducted by U$-led coalition [including Australia] has been so atrocious at completing its declared mission. Now that the battering ram strategy has failed, the remnants of I$I$ are being used as drops of poison in the (oil) wells that require this U$ military presence as antidote. It’s an utterly futile business plan in the long term, but long-term thinking isn’t exactly a Yankee virtue…”
https://www.sott.net/article/398944-700-Hostages-Taken-by-ISIS-Under-US-Military-Watch-Americas-Spiteful-Efforts-to-Prevent-Syrias-Recovery
Another “Urban” myth from the devious Auntie Beeb?
The Viner Times, formerly called the Guardian gives it a breathless 5 stars! A stellar example of, what do they call it, fearless journalism?
In this post truth era it’s good to see such a good example of propaganda being hammered out by the British state’s premier broadcaster. It must make all those tireless license fee payers proud to be British.
Can’t wait fro the follow-up series on the House of Saud…
Because the Viner Times is exceedingly pro-Zionist and has been since the days of CP Scott.
The propaganda arm of the corpara$ite$.
Just like Australia’s ABC.
Thank you David. I wish I could send you my licence fee and send the BBC a sack of coals.
Burning coals, for heaping on heads?
I’ve never paid a beeb licence fee in my life. Nor have I paid any income tax to the English imperial-gangster state since 1973, preferring instead to tithe voluntarily, to give money to unequivocally good causes (as I still do, despite now having no other income than the state pension, and living – officially, though not in any actual Mumbai-street-dweller sense – below the ‘poverty’ line).
These things – being a persistent unjust-tax refusenik – are doable. It’s just a great pity that a whole lot more britcitz aren’t doing them.
And yes, I understand that taxes are necessary to provide actually-good and popularly-supported things in a civilised social democracy. But in Britain the idea of progressive taxation, with the richest paying most, and with wealth above a certain maximum limit suffering 100% taxation, is in tatters; simply non-functional. And also, in this famous ‘democracy’ we’re not allowed to tick off lists of what we will support with our taxes, and those things that we won’t support. Instead, we have a mailed-fist gangster protection racket run by the hereditary, self-perpetuating English-raj class since way, way back: ‘You WILL pay, or bloody else! And no, you won’t have any effective veto, or even any complete oversight, on how the loot is spent.That’s no business of you little people.’ That racket really got going after 1066, and the compiling of Domesday Book, and it’s never stopped since. Right up to the present moment.
No self-respecting anarchist, egalitarian, libertarian, greenie or serious democrat is going to uncle to such a vile gangster shakedown: ‘No taxation without – effective – representation!’
PS: Love your self-description, David: “A nobody living in the north of Scotland”! I’d say the same about myself, but further south in Britain. 🙂