(The Taliban) has brutally repressed half its population. Women have been stripped of virtually all rights, denied the opportunity for schooling, the right to work or to freely move about. Women doctors, lawyers and tradespeople cannot practice their craft. The windows of their homes must be covered. They can travel outside the home only in the company of a male relative. They have effectively been blocked from receiving health care. For violating these rules, they are beaten in public by Taliban soldiers....
Here in Canada our public broadcaster is greatly concerned about this situation in Afghanistan, and continues to campaign tirelessly on behalf of the men who who wish to impose a brutal, misogynistic theocracy in Afghanistan. Friday's lead story on The National was exemplary: "Right from the start the opposition has been claiming that government officials turned a blind eye to the torture of Afghan prisoners. But what we're learning now is a suspicion that those hidden documents may reveal much worse that that: that the Canadians intended some prisoners to be tortured so as to gather intelligence. If true, that would be a war crime."
As Milewski uttered the words "war crime" an Ottawa academic appeared onscreen. "This is ugly," he said, grinning oddly as if he was about to laugh, or like he was getting away with something. "This makes Somalia look very small."
Milewski introduced the vaunted expert - "Amir Attaran is a law professor who's been digging deep into the Afghan file" - but he neglected to mention one niggling detail: Attaran is Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's friend. When Ignatieff was director of the Carr Center at Harvard where Attaran was a research fellow, Ignatieff "directly intervened in order to save Mr. Attaran's job" after a dispute with some faculty members, and "gave him office space and mentoring support until he could find another academic home." On another occasion, Ignatieff stood up on Attaran's behalf to defy a lawyer's strongly-worded piece of advice that the "secret anonymous" funding of Attaran's research must be revealed in order to avoid a conflict of interest; Ignatieff told the lawyer that he'd already looked into it privately and found no conflict, so there was absolutely no need to reveal the source of the funding to anyone - a quintessentially Liberal response, when you think about it, and surely eye-opening to Attaran; it might even explain his oddly eager on-air grin.
A mere two weeks before his on-air accusations - which neither he nor Milewski provided a shred of evidence for - were used by the CBC as the centerpiece of an all-out anti-Conservative smear story, Attaran wrote: "Politicians, such as our Prime Minister....should be dismissed as dangerous ideologues." In another essay, titled The Ugly Canadian, the American-born Attaran - an Ignatieff donor who recently spoke at a Liberal-organized forum on consular issues - wrote that, although he "probably...could live elsewhere,"
"....I was attracted to this very Pearsonian country in the 1990s...while I love this country, learning it through its laws has also shown me a dark side....Today's Canada would not please Pearson, and he would find the country's outlook on foreign people and international obligations oddly picayune and ignorant."
Take that, you toothless conservative proles. Oh, and too bad you get to choose your representatives:
"Pearson was an Oxford-educated university professor with a hyperactive work ethic. If finding a comparable candidate requires the prime minister bypassing elected members of Parliament to appoint an outsider by way of the Senate, that is a lesser evil than entrusting a diffident poseur like Maxime Bernier with the job of picturing Canada to the world."
It's unprofessional and highly unethical for the CBC to not disclose Attaran's highly-partisan pronouncements and his longstanding personal and professional relationship with Michael Ignatieff, but that's just business as usual at the CBC's parliamentary bureau. It can't be stopped. Every time a spectacularly biased practitioner like Keith Boag or Susan Bonner is shipped out, he or she will be seamlessly replaced by an equally biased reporter like Terry Milewski or Leslie MacKinnon. Up and coming reporters at the CBC surely know the drill by now: treat anti-Conservative "analysis" by various academics and unidentified Liberal-supporting experts as "news", assert to Canadians, on the taxpayers' dime, that these negative views of the Conservatives are widely-held and growing among Canadians, and conclude reports with a warning that the "issue" raised in the report isn't going away.
They're right about the last one: it never really does go away, does it?
You realize they are doing this now as a way to gurantee job security at the time big cuts are expected at CBC. Expect more grasping at straws and outright fabrication as soon as any hint of CBC extinction wafts their way. What else can you expect a so-called "journalist" to do?
Time for a few thousand letters to CBC and to the companies that advertise on The National.
Dear so-and-so,
As a result of your continued financial support of CBC, I, along with my family, will boycott your products until such time that you stop advertising on this biased, unethical network.
To the Ombudsman I go.
Kate,I just read on Bourque that iggy needs a scandal to trigger an election.It sure would be poetic justice if it were brought on by the cbc colusion with highly biased propaganda produced by an indentured iggy bootlicker and he ends up hoist on his own petard.Cbc needs to be fumigated.
As I've stated before, and so many here have before me, bias by omission is the most insidious form of bias. With overt bias, the viewer has at least has a chance and can say to himself, "hmmm, something doesn't sound right here", and then get the facts/truth elsewhere. When the viewer doesn't know of a particular angle to the story and how such knowledge might then change their view, they aren't given much of a chance, are they? Bad enough when this is practiced by private media, but when it's a public broadcaster -- one with a history of shilling for the LPC, moreover with the LPC referring to the CBC as a "national treasure" in its party's constitution -- it's a thousand times worse. Thank god for blogs and citizen journalists to expose this stuff. Where would this story have gone 20 years ago?
That said; there are, fortunately, millions of Canadians who refuse to listen or look at anything outside of hockey on the CBC, especially since they lost Rex, (Don Cherry - hockey). Any thing marble-mouth Pearson had anything to do with, and that includes Gaza Strip, was a failure, as we can attest by looking up any flag pole.
Good post EBD.
What a disgusting look at the inside of the liberal party and the CBC.
I urge everyone to grind your way through the "Ugly Canadian" story to get an idea of who Ignatief pals around with.
Attaran is following in Iggy's footsteps. I expect to run for office.
However, he is a complete partisan tool. This confirms what was long suspected. He has an agenda and appears to be an expert on SO many things, meaning he isnt an expert but a dilletente and a gasbag.
Does he even have Canadian citizenship?
#1) Turn OFF the CBC! There are many other privately funded news sources. The lower their ratings the better the chance of defunding them.
#2) Hound the Harper govt to reduce CBC funding to starvation levels ...zero would be about right. ONLY if the CBC has to compete for advertiser funding will it ever reflect any common sense in their news operation.
It is high time that Hockey Night in Canada is sold off as the only thing of any value in the CBC stable, the pink slips issued and the hard assets sold off with the proceeds going to pay off some of the debt.
I am waiting for the CBC to find these documents in the garbage can... That has been their usual way of accounting illegal links!
Say No to Govt Run Television, We do Not live in the 50's !!! And when we have a War of Television & CRTC going on right now. No better time to cut the ties, Of course we all know this will never come to reality as long as we have a Conservative Minority House.
CBC should become the PBS of the north
As for writing the Ombudsmen, Might as well eliminate that office while your at it As nothing ever comes of the complaints anyways.
CBC should have it's CRTC license pulled, they did not make any apparent effort to substantiate his story and that appalls me. If he has said documents he should be forced to provide them, if he obtained said documents unlawfully I want him charged under our National Security Act. Isn't he the guy that accused our troops of abusing three detainees and the military investigated his alligations and found nothing?
Fay, I remember CBC reporting that someone walking down the street found some putatively damning documents - also pertaining to Afghanistan/national defense, I believe - lying on ground, and the guy who "found them" just happened to be one of the CBC's go-to guys for "expert analysis" on military issues - I think his name was Stephen Staples, or something like that.
What odds!
CBC reporters are, by definition, bureaucrats, so they and the predominantly Liberal-friendly bureaucrats tend to collude, I think. Makes for awfully appalling journalism, that's for sure.
Even some Libs have the BS meter sounding alarms on this guy:
http://bigcitylib.blogspot.com/2010/03/torture-whistle-blowers-research-was.html
Via Blue Like You
Where does it say that a democracy needs a government funded news organization?
Is it in the Magna Carta, maybe somewhere in the back?
So many times I've seen CBC (and others) preface anything pro-Conservative - or at least not anti-Conservative - comments or insight as "from the conservative think tank....." or bringing to the viewers attention the supposed connection to conservatives or "right-wing" ideology. No problem per se, but the opposite is not true. It's as if saying something positive about anything right of the Liberals is obviously biased and needs to be noted. When a (L)liberal hack is spewing Liberal talking points it's shown as 'news' or at least merely someone who(supposedly) has no connection to anything political. Also, I've noticed, according to Canadian media, the Liberal party seems to have no "base" or "ideology" as these terms are used almost exclusively when discussing Conservatives. "Appealing to their base" and "Their ideological views..." When the same terms could be used towards Liberals it's as though there is no 'base' or 'ideology', just right thinking people who are concerned about the fringe elements of our country, i.e., conservatives. It's gone from tiring to sickening. And dangerous.
Well, they say NBC lost the war in Viet Nam - I suspect the Marxist elements in the CBC are envious and have used Afghanistan as their little anti war hobby horse. All the Canadian lives sacrificed in this democratic struggle for Afghanistan will be wasted if CBC is successful in its multi year agenda of demonizing Harper using the Afghan war as a club. If our fallen heroes died for nothing, deprived the victory they fought for, the CBC should not escape responsibility for this disgrace.
The hypocrisy and irony is astounding. Stephen Staples, Michael Byars and Amir Attaran are marched out as "experts" with their clear biases omitted. As one prof of mine said a sin of omission is far greater than of commission.
The irony is they scream for due process for little Khadr and others, then are quite willing to deny it to our soldiers in their zeal to find, as Nanos points out, some "scandal" to give them traction, without ever producing any evidence. Then the non-existence of the non-existent evidence is evidence of coverup.
The irony is these fools nit pick everything our soldiers do, presenting SOP as a war crime, while ignoring (wilfully) true war crimes, targetting of civilians, no uniforms, proper formations and the like as required by the Geneva Convention. Real crimes stare the in the face, yet they slink about desperately trying to find something to discredit our soldiers to troll for votes.
There's a scandal all right - far left whiners ignoring real crimes against humanity to try to nail our soldiers, while bleating ridiculously that they are after the government.
If I had my way, this "scandal" of false innuendo charges against our military (and interfering with their ability to safely do their jobs) will be front and centre in the next election - likely at least a year away while the coalition searches for a scandal and the necessary kohones to face the Canadian electorate.
Bring it on you twits.
How many times have we heard, "the CBC has learned" intoned by Mansbridge, followed by some shocking revelation of Conservative scandal. The same journalists sat for 2 weeks on the world wide story of the leaked e-mails on climate change. It is the gleeful smirk on the faces of Solomon and Milewski when they accuse Canadian officials of "war crimes" that is so hard to stomach. Their heros are people like Attaran, rather than brave fighting soldiers. Attaran should be charged with possession of classified documents.
To Liberals and the NDP International Women’s Day is a great day to defend and promote those who openly subjugate, humiliate and mutilate women to get votes from a certain demographic; they have no shame. Women’s groups obfuscate the matter of who is treating women and girls as young as nine as domestic and sexual chattel in the hideous and deceitful veil of “diversity and cultural relativism”; they have no credibility. The CBC is the servant of the left; they have no journalistic integrity. If the truth will out, now would be as good time.
EBD I left a 'link' to BCL that is possibly stuck in the filter.
Joanne at Blue like You linked to his discussion on Attaran. Basically his BS meter is sounding huge alarms.
When Lib bloggers second guess Iggy's motives you know the Libs are in trouble.
Take a look at Amir Attaran's editorials in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
Slamming Tony Clement and the "new government" and Assisted Human Reproduction
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/176/5/601
Encouraging the hospitals to make decisions instead of the patient's families and active euthanasia (lots of blowback in the responses though)
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/cmaj;178/9/1115
The stimulus plan by the conservatives is going to cause a brain drain
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/cmaj;178/9/1115
Slamming the government on the listeriosis outbreak that even required a letter from the CMA to disassociate from the editorial.
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/179/11/1175-a
Amir Attaran, I believe, is a dangerous man and a radical.
Thank-you for posting this EBD and all the links too. There is a horrible stench in the air around Stornaway; corruption stinks to high heaven, as we all know. How could a published author such as the MIMI fella sink so low? How could anyone support such a person, a person who would turn away at the sight of women being stoned to death for leaving the house without a man to supervise all that they say and do? How can any Canadian with an iota moral integrity support such a person? What is wrong with MIMI's wife?
CBC is playing a very dangerous game.
The good news is that there are only about 3 people in Canada that listen to the CBC and most Canadians are intelligent enough to see right through Iggy and his buddies.
Letter sent to the ombudsman. Not that it will do any good.
Who's next for unbiased opinion; Gwynne Dyer?
"The good news is that there are only about 3 people in Canada that listen to the CBC and most Canadians are intelligent enough to see right through Iggy and his buddies."
Unfortunately, I don't think that's true Steve. I think that there is a substantial amount of Canucks who watch CBC and they are dumb enough to believe this drivel.
Who listens to these propaganda clowns?
Is the CBC next going to extol the virtues of Al Qaeda as they have their throats slit?
Oh yes, I forgot Iggy supports torture...we just don't know which side they are rooting for!
Hey all cultures are equal, its just that some are more pathological than others.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North"
It's been pointed out before that the original rationale for setting up publicly-financed broadcasting was to maintain a little sanctuary for brainy stuff - classical music and literary analyses and 8-part documentaries on the history of Tajikistan and so forth - which the proles simply weren't going to watch, let alone finance, unless they were tricked/strong-armed into it.
Slimy. The upper-middle-class types who are or pretend to be interested in that kind of thing are in a much better position to pay for their own entertainment than are Darryl and Starlene, who prefer Oprah to Opera (which is probably the result of a failure of our public education system but dammit, it's still their choice), and who shouldn't be forced to pay for posh people's pet hobbies. Sanctimonious greedy well-off bouregois are, however, the sort who are in a position to pull political strings and manipulate taxpayer money.
So... Hooray for PBS!
But anyway, any justification that may ever have existed for publicly funded broadcasting, here or in the U.K., is gone, long gone. Now it's all bad American sitcoms, worse domestic sitcoms, and highly politicized news and documentaries. Well, how the hell else was it all going turn out?
And of course people will actually pay for quality TV. The Sporanos was an awesome show - not publicly financed. Just an example.
Just abolish publicly funded broadcasting. It never served any real purpose, and now it's completely obsolete and basically (to a conservative) malevolent.
Martin:
"Attaran should be charged with possession of classified documents"
Assuming he really has them....
Shamrock is calling it 'false innuendo'. He nails it.
The majority of my extended family has watched the CBC exclusively for the past generation at least, and the older generation of this family has watched/listened to it exclusively since ummm, their birth.
Through childhood and until at least the teen years, the channel was simply switched when my parents discovered that CTV was being watched, "too many ads on this channel"
Now they're certain that my part of the family "hate the planet" and they're certain we're the root of all denier's.
you're correct EBD, it never goes away. The belief that they are correct, we need to be taught, we're just not smart enough to understand how the world really is/should be, never goes away.
The CBC is an itch that can't be scratched. The Harper gov't gave the CBC a 5 year extension of funding early on their return to power. Although I believe their ad revenue has fallen in the past few years, so has many other media outlets. I can't see the end of their role in canadian society until the SHTF type of rearrangement of finance that may hit our fan if/when the USA fails. So until then...
and correct Black Mamba, their is no justification for government support of Tv. I would say arts in general, but that's me.
PET Cemetery News:
CBC to create viki.
...-
"A click heard across the public service"
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/a-click-heard-across-the-public-service/article1493566/
...-
"Feds chop 245 patronage jobs"
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Politics/2010/03/08/13152691-cp.html
Isn't Attaran the same dude who want's us all to py so that he and his wife can have babies... apparently they're unable to do it on their own.
He claims it's a human right that we pay for them to have kids.
Gee, in the midst of an international economic catastrophe AND a shootin' war, where oh where can a Canadian prime minister find some saggy, cellulite pocked fat to cut from the budget?
CRTC and CBC between them come close to two billion -a year- I bet. Like, annually. Non-union too, kids. :) Less rioting.
Two gigabucks a year, year in and year out, can buy a lot of tanks and planes, eh? Maybe even a great big warship every year for ten years!
Something to think about. I'd sooner see it in my POCKET, but if it has to be spent lets spend it on something useful, shall we? Like an actual Navy just ferinstance.
In all Attaran's published political commentary I have read, I've yet to see anything objective, insightful or intelligently honest for that matter. The common thread I detect running through all his political-social commentary is a pettiness he hides beneath his scholarly credentials to apologize for the cruelty, ignorance and violence of cultures and nations which are distinctly anti-western in their posture. I'd put it down to just more tawdry Marxist critical theorizing , but hey such a swokllen head acadenic who associates with Iggy is incapable of such vulgar partisan pettiness - must be I'm just to unevolved to recognize Attaran's true brilliance and unquestionable moral superiority.
Yep - Everything wrong in this world can be blamed on folks who don't share Attaran's world view - just ask Attaran.
CBC report was just Ref. in a Question in the HoC from the liberals.
Unfortunately, from my experience, success with the CBC ombudsman almost ALWAYS looks like this: Ombudsmen says "probably not so good but still has one or two redeeming qualities." Reporter lies low on the issue for about a year or so and then comes back to the issue twice as mean spirited and partisan as before. Case in point Neil MacDonald on Sarah Palin.
Stephen at March 8, 2010 9:23 AM...Said..
[Quote]
Attaran is following in Iggy's footsteps. I expect to run for office.
However, he is a complete partisan tool. This confirms what was long suspected. He has an agenda and appears to be an expert on SO many things, meaning he isnt an expert but a dilletente and a gasbag.
[/Quote]
I have often stated here that I have nothing but contempt for so many so called experts.
Experts at passing university exams but that never translates to EXPERIENCE!
Finally, similar contempt expressed by one of remarkable thinking and obvious logic skill.
Touches on GW as well. You can't help but respect this brilliant insight and of course the man himself.
youtube.com/watch?v=ERj3QeGw9Ok
Clarity...so refreshing, so informative, gripping.
Your God given common sense; use it! It's the best, most reliable thing you have.
The common sense think - exactly TG. On that I will agree with you.
What really is sad is seeing otherwise smart people taking everything the media says as gospel.
I meant 'thing' but I guess 'think' also works, heh.
File complaints with the CRTC, CBC reported a story where they openly stated something akin to "If in fact this story is true" they admit they reported a story without verifying the facts or substantiation. Surely that toe jamb could of been asked for verification and if he refused the story nixed? I think CBC should lose their broad casting license, aren't they obligated to verify a story before smearing our troops?
I hate people that drop names, but this must be said!
“It seemed like a good idea at the time” was the comment the late Sir James Redmond made to me as we walked through the London BBC round House. The antiquated equipment in the broadcast facilities was time dated and unable to produce anything useful in 1991, but BBC production personnel sat in the dark (not powered) production decks on full pay with overtime. The Tea wagon had been replaced with champagne for staff Moral. The BBC was contracting production, like slow motion, from outside sources. Sir James, who was knighted for his founding work at BBC, was embarrassed
Most things, like people, get old and outdated….The CBC has nothing for Canadian Society
CBC has a 'power panel' on this issue today. Scott Reid is introduced as a member of Feshuk-Reid,no mention of his liberal ties. CBC sometimes has other former Liberal communications directors on their show introduced as ,Susan Smith from BlueSky Strategies,and John Duffy from Strategy Corp.This is wrong,CBC is attempting to portray Liberals as impartial panelists. FIRE.THEM.ALL.
"CBC reported a story where they openly stated something akin to 'if in fact this story is true..."
Rose, you nailed it. Milewski's opening salvo -
"...what we're learning now is a suspicion that those hidden documents may reveal much worse that that: that the Canadians intended some prisoners to be tortured so as to gather intelligence. If true, that would be a war crime." -
- is sound, fury, and slander hiding behind weasel terms. What does "we're learning a suspicion?" actually mean anyway? I guess it means "I'm spreading unsubstantiated claims made about the Conservatives by a friend of the leader of the opposition, whose associations we deliberately elided so as not to undercut the efficacy of our smear job."
Btw, here's Jonathan Narvey at the National Post blog:
"Come quick, CBC! I have access to top-secret documents proving that the Canadian government officials at the highest levels deliberately handed over enemy combatants in Afghanistan to Lex Luthor and Gorrila Grod for super-villain style interrogation. My research shows that the prisoners were probably subjected to unhealthy doses of Kryptonite and freeze rays.
"I can’t actually show you the documents, of course. In fact, I can’t offer any proof to substantiate my claim due to legal technicalities. But I assure you, my evidence is 100 per cent verifiable and I have no motivation beyond the desire to share the truth with my fellow Canadians."
The CBC's idea of a panel discussion is three people from the Toronto Star plus any red Tory willing to play along.
This changes to an unstructured free-for-all if the red Tory refuses to play along.
EB I hailed the court decision that anonymous "Sources" via urnalists should be protected by the supremes and "Free Speech" now I want to whack myself upside the head with a frying pan never in my wildest dreams would I've of thought Slime Stream Media could crawl so low on my taxdollars. Now the dirt bags use phrases like "Industry sources" "Inside information" and "If this story is true". What do these flakes hang out at face book and twitter all day waiting for their Lib talking points?
It is obvious to me that the CBC and others of their ilk, count the Liberal Party of Canada, throw in the NDP, care not one whit for the hide of any Afghan.
Merely a bat to beat the standing government over the head with. They stoically report some atrocity against the civilian population by the terrorists and seem never to sound indignant or distressed.
If Stephen Harper and his boys and girls are wise, they will take very careful note of these jokers. I noticed that when the polls gave out that there would be a Conservative government after the election, albeit a minority one, the CBC laid pretty low.
Just watch them if the polls showed a Liberal majority or other. They are absolutely cunning in sort of slanting the news. Much of the public may not notice this cunning. May not notice the change of tone, the veiled cynicism.
CBC absolute past masters at this sort of thing. Of course, when it was not a Canadian business, they openly shilled for Barack Obama. On our tax payers dollars.
Comments on the Attaran story at the CBC are still going strong (http://tinyurl.com/yjq7jj8) -- One commenter said they had looked for this story elsewhere and it was nowhere to be found . . . he was outraged! He wanted to know why it was not published elsewhere. Well -- obviously because it is a non-story . . . just someone's unsubstantiated, unchallenged opinion. Shoddy, shoddy journalism.
I have not checked into this comment, but have not seen the story reported elsewhere. The good news (if this is correct) is that other news media seem a bit more responsible on this one than the CBC, making CBC's irresponsible journalism quite apparant. CBC is an embarrassment. Now some other media needs to take up the issue of irresponsible reporting on the taxpayers dime. I know it might be a bit awkward for one news media to attack another (although columnists sometimes do this), and there is the issue of fairness and being responsible to taxpayers. So -- time for some media outlet to investigate whether or not Canadians are getting good value from the CBC. Someone with clout needs to tell these guys that it is time to clean up their act. I don't particularly like the CBC. This time, their reporting is outrageous. Taxpayers need to know they are being manipulated.