Select

This is the first paragraph of Bill Roggio's Daily Report from Baghdad on the 27th.

Iraqi and Coalition forces have been pressing hard to dismantle al Qaeda's suicide and car bomb infrastructure in and around Baghdad. Over the past week, some success has been made in attacking the leadership of these networks. Three senior commanders of al Qaeda bomb-making cells have been captured. Since Saturday, there have been no major bombings inside Baghdad.

Further down he reports on the capture of 57 insurgents/al-Queda operatives and major arms caches, on the Anbar Salvation Council and the possible cease-fire being arranged with several factions in West Baghdad.

He doesn't ignore the terrorist attacks and today has an article on the Tal Afar revenge killings, reportedly carried out by members of the police force. He concludes

Obviously, if the allegations as initially reported are true, al Qaeda was very successful in causing the security forces backlash and the resultant negative effects. If the report is inaccurate – if this was a small element of the police, or perhaps from police assigned from outside Tal Afar, or the actions of a local militia - al Qaeda still received an incredible propaganda victory.

I've listened to 2 or 3 hours of BBC Radio 4 today and have heard only one of these stories.

Effortless superiority

Gerald Baker in The Times speaking of the BBC.

This is the mindset that sees the effortless superiority, at every turn, of benign collectivism over selfish individualism, exploited worker over unscrupulous capitalist, enlightened European over brutish American, thoughtful atheist over dumb believer, persecuted Arab over callous Israeli; and that believes the West is the perpetrator of just about every ill that has ever befallen the world — from colonialism to global warming.

Sounds familiar.

Can We Trust the BBC?

Robin Aitkin, for 25 years a journalist at the BBC, has written a book called Can We Trust the BBC?. He is not concerned with any Tory/Labour bias, but with deeper prejudices that, though more difficult to highlight are endemic and almost universal. Needless to say, they can be identified with the assumptions of the Liberal Left.

There's an hour-long interview at 18 Doughty Street from which the 2-minute excerpt below comes from.

BBC on Israel

What to expect from the BBC's coverage this year. Stephen Pollard.

A BBC mole has sent me this briefing for BBC staff from the BBC's Middle East Editor, Jeremy Bowen, on what lies ahead this year.

It’s all too predictable. The "fragmentation" of Palestinian society has, in Mr Bowen’s view, nothing to do with the Palestinians and everything to do with Israel (“the death of hope, caused by a cocktail of Israel's military activities, land expropriation and settlement building – and the financial sanctions imposed on the Hamas led government”). Indeed, Israel is to blame for almost everything. The Palestinians are not responsible for anything; Israel is the culpable party.

(via Tim Blair)