an open letter to sky news channel
Dear Skybollah.
I caught one of your reports tonight from Afghanistan.
It was a most intense report.
Your journalist was well nigh babbling with excitement.
He said: "There has been a spectacular Taliban attack on an American base."
He sounded most enthusiastic.
Is it possible Sky that some of your reporters and editorial staff are actually rooting for the terrorists in this war?
It sounded that way.
Your journalist continued: "In this dramatic attack the Taliban have shown again what they are capable of."
Ah yes.
He was really excited, wasn't he?
Why, it was almost sexual.
So what exactly had happened in Afghanistan?
The Taliban in their spectacular attack had managed to kill nine American soldiers.
Nine.
It's not exactly the D Day landings, is it Sky?
We lost thousands of heroes on D Day in order to defeat Nazi terror.
Remember?
I've got to ask you again.
Are you people actually supporting Al Qaeda at this stage?
In your anxiety to discredit President Bush have you finally decided to throw your lot in with the Islamists?
That's what it looks like to me.
I would describe your reporting style as "Cheerleading For The Jihadi's."
You're not alone of course.
CNN and NBC and CBS and the BBC do it as well.
But it's still abysmally shameful behaviour.
Nine Americans died today and for those who listened to your Lord Haw Haw report long enough, there was eventually some vague muted mention of "heavy" Taliban losses.
Hmmm.
The Taliban kill nine soldiers. On the same day they lose hundreds of their own terrorist killers.
And you people are ready to surrender to them?
Impeach Bush, eh Sky?
You horrendous traitorous bastards.
Yours faithfully,
James Healy
I caught one of your reports tonight from Afghanistan.
It was a most intense report.
Your journalist was well nigh babbling with excitement.
He said: "There has been a spectacular Taliban attack on an American base."
He sounded most enthusiastic.
Is it possible Sky that some of your reporters and editorial staff are actually rooting for the terrorists in this war?
It sounded that way.
Your journalist continued: "In this dramatic attack the Taliban have shown again what they are capable of."
Ah yes.
He was really excited, wasn't he?
Why, it was almost sexual.
So what exactly had happened in Afghanistan?
The Taliban in their spectacular attack had managed to kill nine American soldiers.
Nine.
It's not exactly the D Day landings, is it Sky?
We lost thousands of heroes on D Day in order to defeat Nazi terror.
Remember?
I've got to ask you again.
Are you people actually supporting Al Qaeda at this stage?
In your anxiety to discredit President Bush have you finally decided to throw your lot in with the Islamists?
That's what it looks like to me.
I would describe your reporting style as "Cheerleading For The Jihadi's."
You're not alone of course.
CNN and NBC and CBS and the BBC do it as well.
But it's still abysmally shameful behaviour.
Nine Americans died today and for those who listened to your Lord Haw Haw report long enough, there was eventually some vague muted mention of "heavy" Taliban losses.
Hmmm.
The Taliban kill nine soldiers. On the same day they lose hundreds of their own terrorist killers.
And you people are ready to surrender to them?
Impeach Bush, eh Sky?
You horrendous traitorous bastards.
Yours faithfully,
James Healy
posted by heelers | 5:34 AM
8 Comments:
You seem to have forgotton that Al Qaeda was originally armed and sponsored by the CIA in order to destabilise and destroy the first decent government that Afghanistan had ever had, i.e. one that was dedicated to healthcare, education and progress, including education and equality for women. If America had learnt from the lesson of Vietnam and restrained from interfering in Afghanistan, that country would not be in the mess it is in today and there would be no Al Qaeda, no Taliban and no American troops coming home in coffins.
Hey Rodge.
Your points are utterly irrelevant to the point I made about Sky News cheerleading for Islamic terror.
Nonetheless...
Your statement that America armed Al Qaeda is arrant manipulative falsehood.
Your statement that the Taliban was the first decent government Afghanistan ever had is a cretinism.
Your statement that the Taliban were concerned for healthcare, women's equality, and education, is a grotesque lie.
Your reference to Americans coming home in coffins reads like clapped out Soviet 1960's agit prop. (You like the 1960's, don't you Rodge?)
Your reference to Vietnam ditto.
Americans have come home in coffins from lots of places. Western Europe is free today because of that fact.
As for Vietnam, do you really think Vietnam was better off because the Americans withdrew from it?
How progressive of you.
How utterly enlightened.
How very Channel Four.
James
Thanks for posting about this, James.
You miss the point, James. It must be because of your lack of knowledge concerning Afghan history.
I was not praising the Taliban as the best government that Afghanistan ever had. You are adding two and two and making five.
What I was pointing out is that America armed and encouraged AlQaeda, the Taliban and other conservative guerrilla groups to destabilise the PREVIOUS Afghan goverment, which was a socialist government dedicated to education, the rights of women and social progress.
My only mistake was presuming that you would know enough about Afghan history to be aware that the Taliban came AFTER the socialist government and that, supported by America and the West, it then proceeded to undo all of the previous government's good work, including education and equality for women.
It is a historical fact that Al Qaeda was supported by America when it took up arms against the socialist government of Afghanistan. In so doing,America sowed the wind and reaped a whirlwind.
Finally, my point about Vientam is correct. If America had learned from its defeat there, it would not have interfered in Afghanistan, it would not have made the mistake of supporting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, and its creature Al Qaeda would not have turned against it with tragic consequences on 9/11.
Thanks Gen.
I thought it was worth saying. The main stream media are in denial.
And they are giving succour to the Jihadi's.
J
No Rodge.
The point you think I missed, was a point you didn't really make.
You now say you meant to eulogise the Afghan government that came before the Taliban and not to eulogise the Taliban itself.
Right Rodge.
What government was that then?
You're still being a little less than honest in failing to make it clear.
When you refer to an Afghan government dedicated to healthcare, education, and equality for women, surely who can you mean...
Surely not...
Ha, ha, ha.
Let me get this right.
You now wish to extol the virtues of the proxy government installed by the Russians when they invaded Afghanistan in 1979?
Ha, ha, ha.
Sorry.
It's just incredible Rodge.
I've heard many justifications for the Russian communist jackboot.
Many justifications for eighty years of Russian expansionism all over the world.
Rarely has anyone had the neck to justify this Russian mania for conquest in the name of women's rights.
Congratulations Rodge.
A new low.
As for America arming Al Qaeda.
Tom Hanks would be proud of you.
But that's not history.
1960's stuff Rodge.
Like the tosh talk about Vietnam.
Do you know what the glorious socialist freedom fighting North Vietnamese communists did to South Vietnam after the Americans left? Have you bothered to find out?
America didn't get beaten in Vietnam, humanity did.
No really.
And finally Rodge.
America provided some support for the Afghan resistance after the Russians tried to grab that country overnight in 1979.
And the lonely goatherd (Bin Laden) did indeed attach himself to that resistance. But that surely doesn't invalidate the principle of resistance to Russian communism in itself.
Not for most of us anyway.
Let us recap your most saliently invidious point.
That the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979 in the name of women's rights.
You have a neck Rodge.
Long life to you.
James
James, I'm afraid your enthusiasm for polemics vastly outshines your ability in the art of political discourse. Nevertheless, I'll try and spare a few moments to put you on the right track.
First, it is rather odd for someone who opposes "Russian" (i.e. Soviet) intervention in Afghanistan to support American intervention in Vietnam, which, as President Eisenhower admitted, was designed to ensure that the planned elections to unify the country would not take place(it was widely expected that the communists would win). Have you not heard of the 1954 Geneva Agreement?
And did you not know that the war against the Americans in Vietnam was fought by native south Vietnamese as much as by their fellow-countrymen in the north? The notion, popular in American propaganda at the time, that the fighting was due to an 'invasion' from the north is as absurd as that other common theme of the time that the civil rights movement in the South of the USA was caused by 'outside agitators' coming down from the universities of the north.
Second, I did not say I supported Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. I'm against any aggression by one country against another. I'm surprised that you, as an Irisman, appear not to agree with me on that point. The Soviet intervention in Afghanistan was a disaster and should not have taken place. However, the Soviets did not intervene to set up a socialist government. Such a government was already in existence. Soviet intervention came after one faction of the ruling party staged a coup against another and invited the Soviets in.
Thirdly, I think you are far too cavalier in dismissing such virtues as healthcare, education and female emancipation. The people who opposed such reforms in Afghanistan were the most reactionary and obscurantist elements of that society and, as later events have testified, it was a profound mistake for America to support them.
Finally, your reference to "eighty years of Russian expansionism" is poor history. Have you not heard of the Russian Empire under the Tsars? Were not the Tsars also guilty of expansionism, and for much longer than the "eighty years" that you mention.
Roger.
(Old Bean.)
My enthusiasm for polemic and my Irishness notwithstanding...
If you think putting the word "intervention" after an American action, and putting the word "intervention" after a Russian soviet era communist action, if you think merely using the word "intervention" to describe both makes them the same, if you seriously think the word itself puts the American actions in liberating Europe from the Nazis, liberating Iraq from the Saddam family murderocracy, and liberating Afghanistan from the hideous Islamist Taliban, on a similar plain as sundry Russian interventions in exporting communist bastardies to Eastern Europe, South America, Africa and Asia, if you think writing "intervention" to describe America's liberation of countries reduces such liberation to the level of Russia's pissant peasant communist fetish for usurpation, conquest and impoverishment, if you really think that, I cannot help you.
If you truly think the people of South Vietnam wanted to be ruled by their North Vietnamese invaders and by the Chinese and Russian communist dictatorships who sponsored those invaders, if you really think this, if you honestly believe the South Vietnamese people themselves fought the Americans, I cannot help you.
And if you genuinely think my rejection of the Russians' attempted piracy against the independent nation of Afghanistan in 1979 is tantamount to rejecting education, healthcare and women's rights, not only can I not help you, but I suspect gentle Roger, you are beyond help.
James
The correspondence on Sky News' quisling internecine propaganda in favour of the Taliban and Al Qaeda is now closed.
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