If Goebbels were alive today he would be proud of how the BBC’s Ros Atkins has sanitised the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z0SDKeekL4
Goebbels would be proud of the way in which the BBC's Ros Atkins has
whitewashed Ukraine's neo-Nazis
It never ceases to amaze me that the left has never made an
issue of the BBC license fee, which is the most regressive of all taxes. It currently stands at £159. However rich or
however poor you are you pay the same amount. For someone over 24 Job Seekers
Allowance is £77 pw, so the license fee is two full weeks of income plus a bit.
Richard Sharp - Islamaphobe and Tory Donor - who is BBC Chair
Compare this to the
Chairman of the BBC, Richard Sharp, a man whose salary is £160,000 per year for
a 3 day week. Leaving aside his other income, after tax he ‘earns’ £94,122, i.e. £1,810 per week. The license fee is 8.78% of
one week’s salary.
This interview on RT has disappeared from
most of social media. With difficulty I found it on Rachel Swindon's Twitter feed.
But it’s not simply the unfairness of the tax. The real problem
is that the BBC is in the words of John Pilger ‘the most refined propaganda service in the world’. RT has been silenced by Facebook.
To Palestinians the BBC is the ‘Voice of Israel’. It consistently portrays Israeli
violence as ‘retaliation’ against Palestinian violence by ignoring the reality
of Israel’s Occupation (a word that it never uses). It is a replay of the old Western
movies where the Red Indians used to attack, for some unknown reason, those
peaceful cowboys.
The BBC rarely reports the ongoing settler violence against the
Palestinians. Only when a Jewish settler is killed is violence reported. The
BBC is incapable of calling Israeli violence cold blooded murder.
The BBC rarely reports confiscation i.e. theft of Palestinian
land and when it does it provides no background by showing that this
is an ongoing process.
I have therefore penned an Open Letter to BBC Chair, Richard
Sharp.
Tony Greenstein
Strangely enough all these stories have disappeared - needs must
Dear Mr Sharp,
I want to explain why
I have no intention of paying a BBC license fee which pays your £160,000
salary. Given that you are reputed to be worth
a mere £100 million I suspect you won’t be going to bed hungry tonight, unlike
many of your viewers.
Since 2002 you have
also been a director
of the Centre for Policy Studies – a right-wing think tank founded by Thatcher.
The first duty
of the BBC Board, to which you were appointed
in February 2021, is to ‘Uphold and
protect the independence of the BBC.’ Who could possibly be more suitable than
a Tory Investment Banker and Islamaphobe who donated
over £400,000 to the Tories? Among those who appointed you was Catherine
Baxendale, who gave
a trifling £50,000 to the Tory party.
Steve Sweeney – Morning Star interview Vanessa Beeley
A good example of your
political neutrality was the £35,000 you gave
to the Home Office ‘charity’ Quillam.
The reasons you gave for this largesse were that you were impressed
by Majid
Nawaz and his efforts to combat ‘radicalism and extremism.’
Majid
Nawaz and his conspiracies about a global palace coup
Those of a more
cynical mind might suggest that Majid Nawaz, who even LBC booted for his QAnon conspiracies about COVID and how the US election
was ‘stolen’ from Trump, was the personification of ‘radicalism and extremism’ . He believed that vaccinations were the product of “a
global palace coup that suspends our rights… by a network of fascists who seek
a New World Order”
In 2012 Quillam received $75,000
from the Lynde and
Harry Bradley Foundation, which funds ‘counter-jihad’ organisations including
the anti-Muslim hate group the David
Horowitz Freedom Centre.
The Azov Battalion may have dropped their insignia but their politics remain the same - the BBC notwithstanding
Quillam received over $1
million from the John
Templeton Foundation between 2014 to 2017. This Foundation works
with right-wing
Islamaphobic organisations with close ties to extreme right- Christian
networks.
Templeton and his wife
donated more than $1 million to Let
Freedom Ring, so that it could campaign against gay
marriage and contributed to “The Gathering” which promotes a “family values” agenda such as opposition to gay and
reproductive rights. This is as well as financing climate denier groups such as the
Atlas Economic Research Foundation
and pro-war neo-conservative groups like the American
Enterprise Institute.
According to Ros Atkins there are no neo-Nazis in Ukraine's army - Eduard Dolinsky, leader of Ukraine's Jewish community disagrees
Quillam drew up for MI5 a secret list which accused
peaceful Muslim groups, politicians and media of sharing the ideology of
terrorists. Groups included on this McCarthyist list included the Muslim Safety Forum and the Islamic Human Rights
Commission. Quillam’s briefing document said:
"The ideology of non-violent
Islamists is broadly the same as that of violent Islamists; they disagree only
on tactics.’
This was based on the theory that ‘non-violent extremism’ had
given birth to terrorism rather than such minor matters as the war in Iraq and
the bombing of Libya. This crackpot theory was as good a way as any of
demonising a whole community yet you saw fit to support.
Quillam
staged the fake ‘deradicalisation’ of Tommy Robinson and Kevin Carroll in
2013. They had allegedly left the EDL. Quilliam director Haras Rafiq then lied to a Parliamentary Select Committee
by denying that Quilliam had no “formal
business relationship with Tommy Robinson.” It later transpired that
Quilliam had been paying Robinson £2,000 a month, as Robinson
later admitted. See:
The Charmed Life &
Strange, Sad Death Of the Quilliam Foundation
The Quilliam Foundation is
financed by Tea-Party conservatives and
Maajid Nawaz: From radical
Islamist to 'funded' by the radical right
It’s quite
an impressive record for an organisation dedicated to combatting radicalism and
extremism.
As the
Jewish Chronicle proudly proclaimed, you are the BBC’s third Jewish
Chairman. It is reasonable to assume, having been an adviser to Boris Johnson, who combines racism,
anti-Semitism and Zionism, that like most rich right-wing Jews, you are also a
Zionist.
You
have continued the BBC’s uncritical support for Israel. At the end of May Yolande
Knell said
of thousands of far-right settlers chanting ‘death
to the Arabs’ as they invaded East Jerusalem that
Yolande Knell – the BBC’s grinning monkey praises Jewish pogromists
‘the mood of them is jubilant, festive. It feels like a party.... they’re celebrating
their presence at this spot.’
But it’s
not just the BBC’s bias on Israel that renders its claim to impartiality an
egregious lie. Ever since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the BBC has functioned
as a NATO Broadcasting Corporation.
The BBC
has a bias against understanding. It always fails to give the background to the
events it reports. That was true of the Troubles in Ireland until it was embarrassed into commissioning a series on Irish history by Robert Kee. What
the BBC has never done is commission a similar series on the Zionist
colonisation of Palestine.
The Wolfangel which the Azov Battalion simply reverse - but to Ros Atkins it was simply decoration
Ukraine stands
out as an example of how the BBC has
jettisoned any claim to ‘due impartiality’. As John Pilger wrote you have
misrepresented events in
Ukraine as a malign act by Russia - when, in fact, the fascist led coup in
Ukraine was the work of the United States, aided by Germany and Nato.
This inversion of reality is
so pervasive that Washington's military encirclement and intimidation of Russia
is not contentious. It's not even news, but suppressed behind a smear and scare
campaign of the kind I grew up with during the first cold war.
The
suppression of the truth about Ukraine is one of the most complete news
blackouts I can remember. The biggest Western military build-up in the Caucasus
and Eastern Europe since world war two is blacked out. Washington's secret aid
to Kiev and its neo-Nazi brigades responsible for war crimes against the
population of eastern Ukraine is blacked out.
This is an interview about the Ukrainian neo-Nazis penchant for chopping off heads, ISIS style. As far as the BBC is concerned this interview never happened.
It is remarkable how neo-Nazis are now accepted in the White House and by the BBC
This was
written in 2014, yet you chose not to report US funding of the Maiden coup or
US military aid to neo-Nazi groups. The BBC has deliberately obscured the
origins of the war that is now taking place in order to paint Russia as the main if not only culprit.
All of the ‘experts’ the BBC interviews coincidentally happen to be from the same pro-NATO think tanks. If the BBC even made a stab at impartiality how could it fail to interview John Mearsheimer of Chicago University, the Dean of the Realist School of Political Science who sees the breaking of Western promises to Gorbachev in 1991 over NATO expansion in Eastern Europe as the principal cause of Russia’s invasion?
John Mearsheimer Lecture 16 June 2022As Professor Nicolas Guilhot said Mearsheimmer is an ‘irritant to the Washington Foreign Policy Establishment.’ And what irritates the Masters of War in Washington irritates the BBC too. Yet the BBC has no problem interviewing war criminals like Kissinger and Blair. As Guilhot remarked we are in an ‘intellectual no fly zone.’
Pilger interview on RT the BBC is part of the
established order in Britain
The BBC
was born in the womb of the British Establishment. Lord Reith, its first
Chairman, ensured that the BBC supported the government during the 1926 General
Strike by banning the Archbishop of Canterbury from broadcasting.
Unlike the Archbishop of Westminster, whose statement was broadcast, he refused
to condemn the strike as a sin against God.
Pilger referred to two studies of the BBC’s coverage
of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq by the University of Wales and Media
Tenor which found that the BBC’s coverage overwhelmingly reflected the Blair
government’s propaganda, including its lies about WMD. Less than 2% of BBC
reporting in this period allowed dissenting voices, despite a majority of
British people opposing the invasion.
George Bush condemns the 'wholly unjustified'
invasion of Iraq before correcting himself! Even Bush can see the comparison
with the US’s invasion of Iraq. However the BBC cannot!
What a contrast
to the BBC’s hostility to Russia’s invasion. The parallels between the 2
invasions were obvious, even to George Bush, the author of the Iraq war, when
in a Freudian slip he condemned ‘the
wholly unjustified invasion of Iraq’ before correcting himself.
The BBC
has completely ignored the 8 year war on the Donbas by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi militia,
A war that killed 14,000 people. See How ‘eastern Ukraine’ was lost.
Andrew Marr praising Blair for having got the
Iraq War right
On 9
April 2003, BBC political editor Andrew Marr stood outside 10 Downing Street and declared:
Mr Blair is
well aware that all his critics out there in the party and beyond aren’t going
to thank him, because they are only human, for being right when they’ve been
wrong...
it
would be entirely ungracious even for his critics not to acknowledge that
tonight he stands as a larger man and a stronger Prime Minister as a result.
Andrew Marr demonstrating his political impartiality
Well we
all know how that turned out! Researchers at John Hopkins University and the
Lancet, estimated that more than a million people died
as a result. The BBC ignored these findings.
The BBC
has reported the Ukrainian resistance but during the Iraq invasion there was no
such reports of the Iraqi resistance or the American atrocities that Wikileaks revealed. Nothing on
the thousands of deaths in Falluja. To this day the BBC has
ignored the kidnapping of Julian Assange, who did the job that you didn’t do.
The BBC has
pride of place in the eyes of US neoconservatives as a cable from the US
embassy demonstrated when London Ambassador Sussman told
Hillary Clinton:
I hope you can
take some time out to tape an interview with leading British journalist Andrew
Marr.... It would be a powerful way for you to set out our priorities for
Afghanistan/Pakistan, and underline our premier partnership with the United
Kingdom. Marr is a congenial and knowlegable interviewer who will offer maximum
impact for your investment of time.
So loved
is Marr by the political elite that his book launch for Head of State, was held in Downing Street with David Cameron as the
host.
Liz
Thomson, breached the bonhomie and etiquette when she
asked Marr if having Cameron host the book launch ‘mightn’t compromise his position as impartial political interviewer for
the BBC’.
Marr’s wife,
Guardian columnist Jackie Ashley went ballistic telling Thomson that ‘you’ve ruined my evening’ before she ‘resumed the harangue, calling [Thomson]
‘despicable’ and ‘a B-I-T-C-H’.
According to the BBC the fellows above are liberals in disguise
Normalising
NATO’s neo-Nazi friends
When Putin
declared that his war aims included the deNazification of Ukraine, the BBC
decided to whitewash the Azov Battalion who had been occupying Mariupol and attacking
the Donbas for 8 years.
Steve Sweeney, International Editor of the Morning Star explained after having come back from Lviv in the West, the city is full of fascists of all stripes and mercenaries. You won’t see this kind of interview on the BBC
Ros
Atkins, in an uninterrupted monologue, whitewashed the latest version of
the ‘moderate’ rebels that we saw in Afghanistan and Syria. Atkins asserted
that their incorporation into Ukraine’s National Guard had de-Nazified them
when it is far more likely that they polluted those around them. This was how
Hitler Nazified the German state.
After all, when you place a rotten apple in a barrel you don't expect it to become fresh as a result!
Arsen Avakov, the Fascist Interior Minister that Zelensky allowed to place neo-Nazis in senior police and security positions
Atkin’s
comment that Ukraine’s National Guard ‘was
under government command’ begs the question, so what?
The
National Guard was formed by Arsen Avakov, the fascist
Interior Minister and friend of Andrei Biletsky, the founder of Azov.
Zelensky nonetheless
kept Avakov on until July 2021 when he was replaced by Denys Monastyrsk, a ‘protege
of Avakov.’
Belarusian
neo-Nazi Serihy Korotkykh, the “Botsman,” who is suspected of masterminding the Bucha massacre, was close to Avakov. Korotkykh founded the
Russian far-right National Socialist Society. According to his Ukrainian asset
declarations,
Korotkykh worked as the head of the Interior Ministry’s Police Department for
the Security of Strategic Objects from 2015 to 2018.
According to Heroes of Mariupol or Neo-Nazi
Menace?
‘National
Corps figures routinely visit the regiment, and the party’s ideologists lecture
Azov troops. Their blogs are published on the regiment’s site, while Azov’s
social media pages promote the National Corps.”
Zelensky is Jewish but he is also a Zionist and like Israel he finds Ukraine's neo-Nazis congenial
How did
Atkins achieve his objective? By pretending that Azov’s neo-Nazi origins were
in the past. Atkins asserted that:
i.
Zelensky is Jewish
but he failed to mention that he is a Zionist.
Zionists have a record of forming alliances with neo-Nazis. Israel’s has long supplied
arms to the Azov Battalion.
ii.
The main far right candidate in the 2019 election got 1.6% which was
irrelevant since they occupied key positions in the security state.
iii.
In 2014 it was ‘under pressure
from Putin’ that the democratically elected Yakunovych backed out of an
agreement with the EU. Strangely enough there was no mention of the role of
Victoria Nuland, US Secretary of State and US funding of the fascist militias who killed over 100 demonstrators.
iv.
Yakunovych fled to Russia with no mention of the armed neo-Nazi
militias that staged the coup (see Oliver Stone’s Ukraine on Fire).
According to Ros Atkins these neo-Nazis are a figment of our imagination
v.
Putin annexed Crimea and backed separatists in parts of Eastern
Ukraine. Yes but Russian troops were not involved in the civil war caused by the
abolition of Russian language rights in a population, 40% of whom speak
Russian. No mention was made of the 90% of Crimea’s population who supported
joining Russia.
vi. The Wolfsangel which the Azov militia wears is not considered a fascist
symbol by Ukrainians. It was the symbol of SS divisions such as Das Reich.
According to Reporting Radicalism
‘Modern
neo-Nazis use it as a symbol of resistance. It is one of the most common
neo-Nazi symbols and is widely used by the far right in various countries as an
indicator of Nazi, neo-Nazi, and racist views... including the American
neo-Nazi terrorist organization, the Aryan Nation.
Atkins
failed to mention:
i.
The Leaked conversation between Nuland and US
Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt, which proves that the US was actively involved in forming
Ukraine’s post-coup government.
Vadim Troyan - a neo-Nazi appointed as Head of the Kyev Police
ii. The penetration at the highest levels of the Ukrainian state by
neo-Nazis. In 2014 Vadim Troyan, a founder of the fascist Patriot of Ukraine
and former Deputy Commander of Azov, was appointed Head of the Kyev Police. He
was appointed by the Interior Minister Arsen Avakov, who had a history of
appointing fascists to senior positions in the Ukrainian state.
iii. That the founder of the Azov Brigade, Andriy Biletsky once wrote that Ukraine’s mission is
to “lead the White Races of the world in
a final crusade…against the Semite-led Untermenschen.” Atkins argued that
Biletsky had left to form the National Corps and was therefore no problem.
iv.
That in October/November
2017, according to a Home Office document 70% of conscripts did not show up for duty. Young Ukrainians refused to
fight in the Donbas and preferred emigration.
v.
That Azov’s symbolism remains unchanged from the days of Biletsky, the
Nazi Wolfsangel, supposedly an intersection
of the letters N and I, for “National Idea.” This was also the logo of Patriot
of Ukraine.
Unfortunately Zelensky lost the clash and the war continued
vi.
That Zelensky Made Peace with Ukraine’s
Neo-Nazi Paramilitaries after he had surrendered to their demands to abandon Minsk 2, which
the Ukraine government had negotiated, in the face of death threats, after his meeting at Zolote in 2019. Minsk 2 would have granted federal rights to the Donbas within a unified Ukraine. The fascists rejected this. For example:
Sofia Fedyna, a
Ukrainian lawmaker issued death threats against Zelensky. In an
article ‘I’m not a loser’: Zelensky
clashes with veterans over Donbas disengagement (VIDEO) Kyiv Post 28.10.19. she is
quoted as saying:
“Mr. President thinks he is immortal.” Fedyana said: “A grenade may explode there, by chance. And it would be the nicest if
this happened during Moscow’s shelling.’
vii. That in 2019 Zelensky met with a
range of fascist groups telling reporters “Everyone
was there – the National Corps, Azov, and everyone else.” A few seats away
was Yehven Karas, leader of the neo-Nazi C14 gang.
Eduard Dolinsky, the leader of Ukraine's Jewish community on the anti-Semitism that Ros Atkins says doesn't exist
viii. How in 2019 Zelensky defended Ukrainian footballer
Roman Zolzulya against Spanish fans taunting him as a “Nazi.” Zolzulya had posed beside photos of Stepan Bandera and openly supported Azov. Zelensky, described Zolzulya as “a true
patriot.” Zelensky’s Jewishness is irrelevant. He has thrown his lot in with Ukraine’s
neo-Nazis.
ix.
There was no mention by Atkins of the fact that Ukraine is the only country in the world to have a national holiday in memory of a Nazi
collaborator, Stepan Bandera. Bandera is no ordinary collaborator. He and his Ukraine
Insurgent Army (UPA) were responsible for the death of 200,000 Jews and 100,000 Poles.
‘Most of the
(Polish) victims were women and children (who) were tortured before being
killed; some of the methods included rape, dismemberment or immolation, among others.
x.
On January 22, 2010 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko made Bandera a “Hero of Ukraine.” It was Victor
Yakunovych, who the United States helped overthrow, who reversed this decision.
xi.
According to The Forward, the oldest Jewish paper in
the United States, in 2014 after the Maidan coup, ‘the country has been erecting monuments to Nazi collaborators and
Holocaust perpetrators at an astounding pace — there’s been a new plaque or
street renaming nearly every week.’ What was the ‘Jewish’ Zelensky’s reaction? “Stepan Bandera is a hero for a certain part of Ukrainians, and this is
a normal and cool thing. He was one of those who defended the freedom of
Ukraine.’
Atkins,
who parades as an expert on Ukrainian neo-Nazism, must have been aware of this.
The only conclusion one can draw Mr Sharp is that the BBC is happy employing an
apologist for Ukrainian neo-Nazism as a broadcaster.
To not
even mention how Ukraine’s neo-Nazis forced Zelensky to abandon his 2019
election platform to secure a peaceful solution of the crisis in the Donbas, is
as good example as any of the BBC’s political dishonesty.
Atkins
accepted that in 2015 Azov acknowledged that 10-20% of its members held
neo-Nazi views and that the degree of nazi views was ‘impossible to verify’ Yet Atkins dismissed this as ‘irrelevant because Azov was now part of
Ukraine’s National Guard.’
Peter
Hitchens summed this up as ‘bilge... minimising the importance of
neo-Nazis in Ukraine ('only' 20% of one Ukrainian Army unit are neo-Nazis, so
that is all right).’ According to Atkins, even if Azov
did have Nazi habits they ‘were just good
fighters’.
‘Context is vital here’ said Atkins when suggesting that
Azov was 1000 strong. This is a lie as Mariupol demonstrated. According to
Stanford’s Center for International Security and
Cooperation in 2019
Azov had 22,500 followers (20,000 National Corps members, 1500 Azov Regiment,
1000 National Militia). Today it is far in excess of that. Atkins’ assertion
that Azov is ‘a tiny fraction of the
Ukrainian military’ is another BBC lie.
Centuria is the West's major training hub for Ukraine's armed forces - but according to the BBC nothing is amiss
Atkins
said that Azov is ‘not the same force as
in 2014’. For once Atkins was telling the truth. Clearly it has grown
stronger and far better equipped whilst losing nothing of its original
ideology.
Atkin’s allegation
that the original core had been ‘drowned
out by the mass of newcomers’ is without foundation. It is speculation
and wishful thinking. If a group of state-funded neo-Nazis enters an already far-right
environment, the opposite is going to occur – namely that the rest of the
barrel will become rotten. See Azov
Battalion
There was no mention by Atkins of the Report Far Right Group Made Its Home in Ukraine’s Major Military Western Training Hub from George Washington University’s Institute for European, Russian and Euroasian Studies. Why was evidence of the adoption of neo-Nazis by the main Ukrainian State training centre ignored by Atkins? Centuria consists of the traditional officer corps yet they have adopted the ideas of symbols of Ukraine's neo-Nazis.
In celebration of International Women’s Day NATO’s Twitter account celebrated the “remarkable women of Ukraine” with a photo of a woman in military
gear with a patch of the Nazi “Black Sun” on her uniform. It was quickly deleted when critics seized on it.
NATO was forced to delete this tweet as the woman in the picture is wearing a neo-Nazi symbol
The woman on the bottom right is wearing the Nazi symbol a Black Sun but that's ok by the BBC
Atkins referred
to the wearing of White Supremacist symbols saying that there is ‘no evidence such sentiments are widespread’.
Has Atkins not heard of Ukraine preventing Black people boarding buses out of
Ukraine and turning back Black people at its borders? Perhaps
he should consult this news story ‘Nigeria condemns
treatment of Africans.’ It is after all on the BBC’s own website.
Atkins said that ‘Azov’s presence makes it central to Russia’s false narratives’. If Azov is what the media always accepted it was until the Russian intervention, then it isn’t a false narrative. See Azov fighters are Ukraine's greatest weapon and may be its greatest threat
This sign is on display outside Azov's Kyev Base - if it were a hammer and sickle does anyone think it would last a day?
According to the Intercept’s Seth Harp at the end of June, the Azov Battalion’s base on the outskirts of Kyev was crawling with neo-Nazis and White Supremacists.
‘It also has far more autonomy than any other regiment of the army. “Azov is growing,” Maksym Zhorin, the commander of an Azov special operations unit in Kyiv, told me in April. “Our emphasis is on the future.... Also, who knows who was responsible for it, but “WHITE POWER” was spray-painted on the kiosk right in front of us, alongside the driveway — in English.'
The BBC's Ros Atkins failed to mention this little get together!
But it’s
not only the Azov Battalion. Bellingcat reported that on October 13 2019 photographs circulated
on social media showing Prime Minister Oleksiy Honcharuk on stage at a
“Veterans Strong” concert in Kyiv organized by Andriy Medvedko a far-right
member of C14 accused of murder headlined by a neo-Nazi band. Sokyra Peruna,
whose swastika-like logo is behind Honcharuk.
‘The Prime Minister wasn’t the only cabinet member
from Ukraine’s new government to be there — the Minister of Veteran Affairs, Oksana Koliada, joined Prime Minister
Honcharuk at the concert, and even promoted the event in a Facebook post (archive) the day before it took place.’
The
episode is a further example of how Ukraine’s far-right continues to be
normalized by top leaders in the country. Not only are Ukraine’s top ministers
attending events organized by far-right figures, they have also had a literal
seat at the table with Zelenskyy... Simultaneously, far-right organizations
across Ukraine have taken the lead in organizing “No capitulation!” protests
against Zelenskyy’s soon-to-be-launched talks with Russia...’
See U.S. and NATO allies arm
neo-Nazi units in Ukraine as Foreign Policy elites yearn for Afghan-style
insurgency Alex Rubinstein
Interview with Matron of Mariupol Hospital
Atkins also:
i. repeated the story about Russia bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol. Patrick Harrington’s interview with the Matron of the hospital told a different story. Azov forces had evicted the patients before setting up base. Atkins said that ‘there’s no evidence that Azov was based there or that it was a military facility’. What more evidence does he need? When the Israelis claims that hospitals in Gaza are Hamas bases the BBC accepts that without question. Why?
ii.
Atkins assertion that ‘Putin has
the reasons to do this but he doesn’t have the facts’. Nor it would seems does
the BBC’s Ross Atkins. Or if he does he chooses not to use them.
iii.
When Atkins said that ‘Nazis
don’t hold Ukrainians hostage, they’re not launching attacks on Ukrainians’
he ignored the 8 year war on the Donbas by Azov forces.
It is true that the BBC didn’t report it but it didn’t report the thousands killed by US drones in
Afghanistan and Pakistan either. Presumably if the BBC doesn’t report something
it hasn’t happened?
attack on civilians in Kiev by fascist gangs
iv.
Atkins informed us that the ‘search
(for Nazis) will continue to be in vain.’ Perhaps he missed what happened
in the Greek Parliament when the ‘Jewish’ Zelensky introduced an Azov member.
According to the Greek City Times
By
bringing Nazis into the video call in front of the Greek parliament to speak on
behalf of his government... he insulted the parliaments and the peoples of our
countries.... Zelensky handed a gift to Vladimir Putin by playing the role of
one of his “useful idiots”, lending credence to the Russian president’s claim
to need to “denazify” Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, in his address to the
Greek Parliament, provided a platform to two neo-Nazis who supposedly represent
the resistance of the Ukrainian people and indeed of the Greek homogeneity,
thus undermining his country’s noble battle against Russia’s invasion.
Zelensky was presumably unaware of the fight of Greek people against the Nazi Golden Dawn Party which was responsible for a wave of murders, attacks against the Roma, attacks on migrants, illegal possession of weapons and racketeering..
What is
remarkable is the BBC’s hypocrisy. You have gone to town over Russia’s
occupation of Ukraine but can’t even bring themselves yourself to use the word Occupation when it
comes to Israel’s 55 year occupation of the Palestinian territories. When the BBC reports from Palestine you take care to ensure that the Israeli version of events
is given primacy.
When
Israel assassinated Shireen Abu Akleh, the media investigated
Israel’s assassination of a well known journalist. CBS,
the Washington Post, CNN and even the New York Times. The BBC behaved as it always does.
It faithfully reported the Israeli lie that it was a
firefight in which it was the Palestinians who killed her.
‘Abu Aqla was shot dead in disputed circumstances on
Wednesday, with Israel and Palestinians trading blame’
Such equivalence
is not part of the BBC's coverage when it comes to Ukraine
As David
Roger, a former BAFTA winner wrote in an email to me, the BBC employs a
sophisticated system to weed out anything that might give offence to the
Israeli Embassy.
‘when I worked in-house at the BBC
for a few months I met two journalists who were resigning because they said the
whole news department had been told by the then BBC1 Commissioner to stop showing Israel in any bad light that
would bring the Embassy down on their heads . It was Embassy intervention that
had got Jeremy Bowen brought home after he stood in Gaza in 2014 and angrily
refuted Israeli claims that the hundreds of dead children were being used as
human shields.
They stressed reporters could
file excellent reports giving the true
picture but they were all filtered & in effect redacted by the London
editors . The 24 news channel I feel often escapes the censorship that fillets
the main channel news. Their long live footage of the Shireen funeral attack
was really chilling and there was a half hour interview with her colleague
who’d been trapped beside her that was very powerful .
None of this ever reaches their
main channel bulletins or the truly dreadful Newsnight & Breakfast
programmes . It’s the editors .
The BBC
has consistently portrayed Ukraine as a democratic state despite the fact that the
Communist Party of Ukraine and all left-wing parties and independent media are
banned.
Ukraine’s SBU hunts down anyone who opposes
the war or who supports secession
The
deliberate targeting for assassination and torture by the Internal Security
Police SBU is also ignored by the BBC. For example
An appeal by Mayor of Kupiansk, Gennady Nikolaevich Matsegora, for the return of his daughter who's been kidnapped by Ukraine's SBU as a way of getting at him. This has happened to a number of Mayors who don't follow Zelensky's narrative
Vlodymyr
Struk the Mayor of Kreminna in Luhansk, was abducted from his home and murdered by Ukrainian forces for his support
for a separate Luhansk. Imagine that someone advocating Scottish independence was murdered for their views. This is the reality of Ukraine over the past 8 years.
Denis Kireev was executed by the SBU
Denis
Kireev, a negotiator for Ukraine was considered by the SBU to be too interested
in reaching a peace agreement. The SBU therefore abducted and executed him. Or Mikhail & Aleksander
Kononovich who have been arrested because they are communists.
Dmitri Djangirov is another journalist branded
pro-Russian who has gone missing. Between 1991 and 2018 some 65 journalists
have been murdered in Ukraine. Yet unlike Russia, Ukraine’s
murder of journalists goes unreported by the BBC. Why?
Ukraine's war crimes are not something that
the BBC is prepared to show - all war crimes are committed by Russia
There is no doubt that the Russian Army has committed war crimes and the BBC have faithfully reported these. But it has comprehensively ignored war crimes committed by Ukrainian forces. According to the BBC the Ukraine Army are an adult version of the Boy Scouts.
Bucha
At the
beginning of April in Bucha Russian forces were alleged to have massacred over 700
Ukrainians. There is evidence that this was carried out by Ukraine’s National
Police and its Safari Unit. The BBC have, of course, ignored anything contradicting NATO's narrative.
In an article and on my blog I explained that the massacre in
Bucha was probably a false flag atrocity attributed to Russia.
The independent Scheerpost
has an article by Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News
and a former U.N. correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe that
also questions the accepted narrative. Questions
Abound About Bucha Massacre which argues:
‘The West has
made a snap judgment about who is responsible for the massacre at the Ukrainian
town of Bucha with calls for more stringent sanctions on Russia, but the
question of guilt is far from decided.’
Laurie’s article notes that:
Evidence of
crimes in Bucha appeared only on the fourth day (after the Russian withdrawal)
after the Security Service of Ukraine and representatives of Ukrainian media
arrived in the town. All Russian units completely withdrew from Bucha on March
30, and ‘not a single local resident was
injured’ during the time when Bucha was under the control of Russian
troops,” the Russian MOD said in a post
on Telegram.
What
happened then on the 1st and 2nd Jason Michael McCann pointed
out in a piece in Standpoint Zero that The
New York Times was in Bucha on Saturday and did not report a massacre.
In Bucha,
the NYT was close to the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, whose soldiers
appear in the paper’s photographs. In his piece, McCann suggests that Azov may
responsible for the killings:
“Something
very interesting then happens on [Saturday] 2 April, hours before a massacre is
brought to the attention of the national and international media. The US and
EU-funded Gorshenin Institute online [Ukrainian language] site Left Bank announced
that:
‘Special
forces have begun a clearing operation in the city of Bucha in the Kyiv region,
which has been liberated by the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The city is being
cleared from saboteurs and accomplices of Russian forces.’
The
Russian military has by now completely left the city, so this sounds for all
the world like reprisals. The state authorities would be going through the city
searching for ‘saboteurs’ and ‘accomplices of Russian forces.’ Only the day
before [Friday], Ekaterina Ukraintsiva, representing the town council
authority, appeared on an information video on the Bucha Live Telegram page wearing
military fatigues and seated in front of a Ukrainian flag to announce ‘the
cleansing of the city.’ She informed residents that the arrival of the Azov
battalion did not mean that liberation was complete (but it was, the Russians
had fully withdrawn), and that a ‘complete sweep’ had to be performed.”
Not only NATO but the BBC doesn't manage to see any neo-Nazis
Does
this not raise suspicion? Clearly not because the BBC never questions NATO’s narrative. The BBC only reports the official
version of events. It does not investigate. It acts as a conduit for our rulers’
lies and propaganda. Which is why it is
having a hard time today explaining Russia’s victories in the Donbas.
It is a mystery why there were no bodies
evident in Bucha when the Mayor spoke beaming to cameras on March 31. This also
includes a clip of the head of the Safari Police Unit, neo-nazi Korotkykh asking
for permission to shoot civilians - again not something the BBC would show
Why there were no bodies evident in Bucha when the Mayor spoke beaming to cameras on March 31.
C14 Nazi terror gang carrying out a pogrom against a Romani camp with the blessing of Kyev local authority which hired them as its local enforcers
Ros Atkins and the BBC ignore the wave of neo-Nazi attacks on Gypsies
This
is why, alone of daily papers, the Morning Star does not appear on ‘What the Papers Say’. The excuse is that
it’s a paper of the Communist Party. Yet the Telegraph, which is the house
paper of the Tory Party, does appear. Virtually all papers are owned by billionaires
like Rupert Murdoch and Lord Rothermere. That does not bother the BBC because
they all sing from the same hymn sheet. They were, like the BBC, opponents
of Corbyn.
I
trust therefore that you will understand that, being Jewish, I have no
intention to help subsidise a propaganda broadcasting corporation that treats
Ukraine’s neo-Nazis as the new normal.
Yours sincerely,
Tony
Greenstein
The following links are related to this story but contain information that runs counter to the BBC narrative on Ukraine.
See also
Patrick
Lancaster Interview with residents of Mariupol - Mariupol Residents
Expose War Crimes & Show Dead Ukraine Soldiers
Ukraine:
Interview with journalist Patrick Lancaster – woman with swastika
Fascist
war crimes in the Donbas
Zelensky is Jewish but that doesn't stop him being a
front for Ukraine's neo-Nazi militia
C14 Nazi terror gang carrying out a pogrom against a
Romani camp
Yevhen Karas Ukraine's neo Nazi C14's speech
Azov Battalion propaganda video
Ukrainian neo-Nazis
preventing people leaving Mariupol
https://www.illiberalism.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/IERES-Papers-no-11-September-2021-FINAL.pdf on
the Centuria Project, where the West trains Ukraine’s neo-Nazis
Students
accuse lecturer of sharing Russia war lies
Ukraine:
The disinformation war
How
to spot false posts from Ukraine
https://www.youtube.com/c/PatrickLancasterNewsToday/videos
https://www.youtube.com/c/EvaKBartlett/videos
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXSNuMQCrY2JsGvPaYUc3xA/videos
The Guardian reported on
Nawaz’s “fascination
with conspiracies” in January of last year.
LBC Radio Host Maajid Nawaz Bankrolled By US
Republican Dark Money
Serious
Questions about Bucha
Questions
Abound About Bucha Massacre
The
Bucha Massacre
Yes. Of course!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you still have the energy to fight back, Tony.
I don't know how you do it.
Me, I'm too tired.
A terrific piece of work Tony, as a record of the whole framework of lies and deceptions that the BBC has done so much to present to the ignorant public as truth. On the verifiable war crimes committed by the regime since February, I'd just like to draw attention again to my own research on Bucha, and demonstration that the single photo showing satellite "evidence' of bodies on the street was simply fabricated:
ReplyDeletehttps://1489.is/the-bikeman-of-bucha/
I post this reminder as today Fergal Keane of the BBC, the first man incidentally to be at the site of the crash of MH17, had a special interview with a man who survived an execution of prisoners in Bucha in early March, the time that Kiev claims the Bucha bodies were murdered. The interview is probably authentic - though doesn't mention that the eight "Territorial Defence" members had presumably been caught after killing Russian troops - perhaps even in destroying tanks entering Bucha with Javelins.
This latest BBC scoop follows also hot on the heels of an Amnesty "report" detailing how Russia bombed the Mariupol Drama Theatre, regardless of civilians sheltering inside. Our own SBS presented this report as saying 600 people were killed, when amnesty says just a dozen were verified. I am preparing my own complaint to SBS television currently, after finding that the Amnesty report actually concludes the theatre was destroyed by two "bombs" detonating inside the building - which it claims however were somehow dropped from a Russian fighter jet! Their witnesses also describe seeing the roof lifting up before collapsing down. The DPR published its own proper analysis and intends taking action at the ICC.
There's no doubt the US/NATO/EU alliance played a very, very dirty game in further encircling Russia and that it's therefore part-responsible for the atrocities taking place in Ukraine.
ReplyDeleteBut I can't for the life of me approve or condone the Russian army's shocking behaviour. Wholesale war crimes are being committed there.
This is a tragedy that will mark the 21th Century and one that creates an extremely dangerous New Cold War.
Yes I completely agree Gert. There is no doubt that Russia has committed war crimes, just as the Ukrainian forces have committed war crimes. But the responsibility for what is happening today lies on NATO, which deliberately instigated what is taking place. They armed and equipped Ukraine's neo-Nazi militias and encouraged their opposition to Minsk 2 and the idea of the autonomy of the Donbas within a Ukrainian federation. NATO wanted this war and Putin, being a representative of Russia's gangster capitalist class, fell into the trap.
DeleteHowever much I agree with you - both - about NATO-sponsored war crimes committed in Ukraine, for years before this one, there is no way I can acknowledge the Russian army's "shocking behaviour". Where is there any evidence for this? The only reliable sources are ordinary people on the ground in the now liberated areas of Donbass, and they will tell you who has committed war crimes against them. There are also individuals like Maxim Grigoriev, cataloguing his interviews with locals who are now free to speak about their suffering under the Azovs and Aidars.
DeleteNeither do I acknowledge any war crimes committed against civilians by the Syrian arab army or Russian forces in Syria. There is an excellent interview with Colonel Black circulating, which describes events in Ukraine in the terms of what happened in Aleppo, where as in Ukraine, Russia supported local forces against NATO-backed terrorists.
And afraid I particularly take exception to mention of "gangster capitalist" in the context of VVP. who did not fall into NATO's trap; he had no alternative, nor has one to continue on this path.
I salute you Tony, this monumental article must have burnt a great deal of the midnight oil. Our brothers & sisters are victims of this despicable state broadcaster ,and so have we been in our youth. Why shouldnt a child believe what is presented to it as unbiased truth ,, there is the sin ,the sin of omission . If we listen or watch it we wade through a mire of deliberate persuasion, and as you emphasize, we finance more murderous war .
ReplyDeleteAs regards the BBC, it now has the dubious reputation (it wasn't always thus, IMO) of being stioll marginally better than than C4/C5. It competes with those for the 'best' game shows, cookery stuff, property development shows, DIY and other boring and bland nonsense.
ReplyDeleteOf course it was always Establishment, see the well-known case: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23762970
Tony, you said "the responsibility for what is happening today lies on NATO" This is completely wrong. The responsibility for the invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent slaughter of thousands of innocent people lies squarely on the shoulders of Putin, NO ONE ELSE. Putin is a megalomaniac who is living in the past and cares only about his own power, wealth, and his obsession with recreating the USSR. To say that anyone else forced his hand or gave him any excuse for what he's done is wrong and dangerous. It gives dictators and authoritarians everywhere an excuse to pull some pretext out of the air to justify invasions and colonisations. Until Putin invaded Ukraine I didn't realise how many Russophiles there were on the left, who have jumped through hoops to muddy the waters and give Putin some cover for what he has done, it's shameful. Putin has not only committed a war crime of aggression, he has duped many of his own population into believing that was justified. The Russian people are also victims of Putin's aggression and imperialism.
ReplyDeleteJack, you are wrong -- I have no interest at all in Putin, no interest in the Russian state -- you are missing the obvious : firstly, do you really think that the Americans would accept -- take your pick-- a substantial Chinese, or Iranian, or Russian military force playing violent wargames with serious intent on their borders and armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons and bio-weapons? I think you know the answer to that...So -- why would Russia accept violent anti Russian forces with undisguised violent intent on their doorstep? Russia has made this very very clear, that such a condition is unacceptable and they are correct. Look at what NATO has done in the Middle East ( see Hedges essay for more).
ReplyDeletehttps://chrishedges.substack.com/p/nato-the-most-dangerous-military?r=o30hc&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Secondly -- like it or not, the evidence is very clear -- Ukraine has a significant number of Nazi battalions, and they make no secret of their desire to bring Russia down by any means -- don't close your eyes -- the evidence is very clear about that.
Why should Russia accept that?
Also Russia has made it clear that they mean to protect the Russian minorities in Ukraine, something the Ukrainians have deliberately ignored ( see the Ukrainian attitude to the Minsk Agreements).
Conclusion -- you are wrong.
It's nothing to do with being a 'Putin apologist' -- I don't know anyone who is -- it's just common sense.
Check Mearsheimer's speeches -- he knows more than you -- and you are wrong. There's simply no evidence that supports your view beyond very weak propaganda.
Excellent riposte to an intolerable assault GM! And I particularly like "I don't know anyone who is" - a Putin apologist.! A few years back I wrote an article about Syria and Assad making the same point - I'm not an "Assad-apologist" because there is nothing to apologise for. It's pitiful to see the way that Western media brainwashing - with CIA-MI6 help - has created monsters out of two of the bravest and best leaders the world has; without them we'd be in an even worst state than we are now, and the citizens of their countries would be slaves to our medieval technocracy...
DeleteGM Thank you for responding. For the sake of clarity and not going off into the long grass. My point is that Putin had no good reason to invade a sovereign nation and cause the deaths of thousands of innocent people. In an attempt to tease out your view, from your long comment, is it your contention that Putin was justified in committing this horrendous war crime whereby he invaded a sovereign nation killed thousands of innocent men, women and children.
Delete