More CBC War-mongering

On August 26, CBC online published an article about the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Government. As usual it was unbalanced and strongly suggesting that the Syrian Government is guilty as claimed and deserves to be attacked by the US and its allies.

The article included this paragraph:

The United States strongly suspects that Assad's regime was behind the Aug. 21 attack on the eastern outskirts of Damascus. That suspicion is supported by the international aid group Doctors Without Borders, which reported that 355 people were killed in an artillery attack that also included the purported use of a toxic chemical weapon.

The organization's president, Mego Terzian, has said the group is "100 per cent" certain that some sort of neurotoxic gas was deployed.

CBC is distorting the words of Doctors without Borders. Terzan's report did confirm that poison gas was probably used, but he also reported that he does not know which side in the conflict actually used it. CBC has written this paragraph to make it appear that Terzan is supporting the accusations against Assad, WHICH HE DID NOT.

This is a good example of the corrupted, war-mongering reporting on the Middle East that CBC is producing on a regular basis. 

Chemical Weapons in Syria

CBC online has carried many articles over the past week on a chemical weapons massacre near Damascus.

Although it has quoted Syrian Government sources a few times saying they were not responsible, the bulk of the reporting clearly pointed the finger of responsibility at the Syrian Government.

CBC knows that the US and its allies, especially Britain, but also Canada, have stated that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian Government would be a justification to intervene and massively expand the scale of Syria's civil war. So when CBC writes articles and drafts headlines pointing the finger at the Syrian Government, it is practising war journalism. It is aiding the war-mongers.

If CBC wanted to be fair and balanced, in the hundreds of lines on this topic, somewhere it would have asked the following questions:

Knowing that that the use of chemical weapons would bring the combined military might of the US and its allies on their heads, why would the Syrian Government use chemical weapons? Since they are currently winning the civil war, and are more massively armed than the rebels, why would they use chemical weapons when they do not need to use them? Why would they target women and children in their capital city, rather than rebel fighters? Why would they do this when UN inspectors are about to arrive in Damascus? Knowing they are losing the war, and desperately need US help, why wouldn't the rebels create a "false flag" attack, then try to blame it on the government? 

It is hard for any rational person to believe that the Syrian Government would be so stupid as to do the thing that would guarantee its destruction, and that Assad would authorize a thing that would guarantee he joined Gaddafi and Saddam as a murdered victim of a US intervention.

It is easy to believe that the rebels who are they only ones who would benefit from this chemical attack, because it would bring the US in on their side. and who are losing their fight, would carry out a "false flag" chemical attack.

Why does CBC not make these points anywhere in its reporting? Where in CBC's charter does it say they must not practice peace journalism, but always must be touts for war in the Middle East???

It's settlements, not prisoners, that are important

CBC has made an unnaturally big deal out of the Israeli prisoner release, and has paid much less attention to the much more fundamental issue of continued expansion of Israeli settlements (that is, Israel eating the pie while slowly negotiating how to divide it).

There have been several headline articles over the past week about the prisoner release, but only one about settlement expansion:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/08/11/israel-settlements.html

Israel approves nearly 1,200 new settlement homes

However if one looks at this article, even here about half of the words are about how painful it is for Israel to release a hundred or so of its 4,500 Palestinian political prisoners.

On August 14th we have this latest of several articles on the prisoner release:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2013/08/13/israel-frees-palestinian-prisoners-appeals-rejected.html

Israel frees 26 Palestinian prisoners before peace talks

Israel will free 104 Palestinian prisoners before Wednesday's peace talks

Notice how CBC goes to the extent of naming the victims of Palestinian violence:

"Among those released Tuesday was a Palestinian convicted in the 1994 slaying of Isaac Rotenberg, a 69-year-old Holocaust survivor who was attacked with an ax as he was working at a construction site where he was a contractor. Others were convicted in the slayings of Ian Feinberg, an Israeli lawyer killed in a European aid office in Gaza in 1993, and Frederick Rosenfeld, an American slain while hiking in the West Bank in 1989."

The fact is that 3 Palestinians are killed by Israelis for every Israeli killed by Palestinians, and the ratio is as high as 5 to 1 more Palestinian children and youths being killed. How often are we given the full names and details of these killings.

What exactly is CBC trying to prove by going into such detail on Israel's supposed generosity in releasing a few prisoners, and offering so little detail on Israel's duplicity in expanding settlements? Why not give the full names and details of Palestinians killed, injured, or simply illegally dispossessed of their homes and land by Israel? Why not more details on how painful the actual new construction will be for Palestinians living nearby?

CBC, if you think we need to know the names of victims, give us the names of the hundreds and thousands of Palestinian victims as well!

And lets have more details about what actually is happening with the expansion being announced by Israel. There is a campaign of ethnic cleansing of non-Jews from East Jerusalem which is being furthered by this expansion; the settlement (colony) of Ma'ale Adumim literally divides the West Bank in half so expanding this is a death blow to Palestinian sovereignty. Why are details like this absent from CBC's reporting? Why do we need to know the name of Isaac Rotenburg who was killed almost 20 years ago?

If this is balance for CBC, I shudder to think what would be considered imbalance by these so-called journalists.

So What?

On August 2nd CBC online used the headline:    IRAN'S PRESIDENT-ELECT CALLS ISRAEL A "WOUND" 

The article then quoted Israeli PM Netanyahu (Oh, how CBC loves to echo Israelis!) claiming that the new Iranian leader was thus threatening to destroy Israel. Of course, Rowhani said nothing about attacking or destroying Israel. This is just another war-mongering claim by Netanyahu who dearly wants to destroy Iran. Why does CBC repeat it without pointing out that Netanyahu is misrepresenting Rowhani's words? Is CBC into war-mongering as well? What do you think?

So what if Rowhani called Israel a wound. If the Japanese had invaded and occupied southern California, and were daily expanding their territory at the expense of Americans, would American leaders call the Japanese mini-state on their territory a dimple or a beauty spot? No "scar", "wound", "blemish" "shame" would all be more likely words, and that is exactly how hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims feel about the Jewish/Israeli occupation of their traditional territories.

Just because Rowhani is expressing the true sentiments of almost a billion Muslims, does not constitute a threat to destroy Israel. Is CBC or the Associated Press too stupid to know this, or so malicious that they knowingly echo war-mongering falsehoods? How in Heaven"s name would a war against Iran serve anyone in Canada? Who is CBC working for?