Wednesday, August 08, 2007

BBC Misses The Target

Uh oh - the BBC's reporting that 50 Afghan civilians have been wounded in a US air strike on a market place. So which brand of screw up is it this time ? Did one of the Good Ol' Boys decide hitting the same post code was close enough for government work, or did the intelligence geeks screw up and confuse a pile of bananas with an RPG stockpile ?

Well, since you mention it, neither. The strike was bang on the money. Apparently, the civilians just happened to have stopped off to get some fags and a lottery ticket in the exact same place a shed-load of Taliban were meeting. Not only that, but the demographic spread seems a little off.

In other words, the BBC's report was unmitigated rubbish. As ever, there's a wider point. The BBC maintains an attitude of constant scepticism towards any statement from allied forces, but airs even the loopiest Taliban propaganda without a qualm. This is what they call impartiality.

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