Monday, March 03, 2008
WHAT THE PAPERS DON'T SAY - 4 recent unpublished letters
4 unpublished recent letters here. All of them went out to a very wide range of Scottish & UK papers. For that reason it is possible something has been published but I missed it & if anybody lets me know I will say so.
I have previously said how letters about the Yugoslav wars, as 3 of these are, are almost impossible to get published & I think this proves my assertion.
The third one, about the outrageous £624 million discrepancy between the cost of building the Millenium Dome (£46 million) & the cost after the government got finished charging us for paperwork (£670 million) has also gone unreported except on a late night TV show.
The facts here are indisputable & indeed not disputed & the failure of our media to report them (& I don't just mean publishing my letters but to report in the news pages) is disgraceful. Our media are calling yesterday's Russian election "not democratic" but the only complaint, other than the result, is Russian media bias. It is difficult to suggest that by that standard we, or indeed the US where Yugoslav reporting was no more truthful, can claim to be democratic ourselves.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) During news reporting on Kosovo this morning Mark Mardell of the BBC claimed that "The Yugoslavs killed 13,000 people in Kosovo and that NATO bombing & occupation stopped the killing". The late Joseph Goebbels, author of the "big lie" school of reporting & information minister to Adolf Hitler would have been lost in admiration at the ability to squeeze so much untruth into 1 sentence.
The majority of racist killings in Kosovo were actually by the KLA, on whose behalf we were bombing. This was confirmed by Foreign Secretary Cook speaking to Parliament 2 months before starting bombing. Nonetheless the total number killed was, according to the Spanish forensic team hired by NATO, only 2,100, including those killed by NATO bombs & KLA terrorism. Remarkably low considering this was a war zone with, we were assured, 26,000 KLA "soldiers" in action.
Worse than the lie about numbers is the claim that NATO occupation stopped the killing. It merely stopped the western media reporting of the killing. The BBC decided, I assume they say accidentally, to censor any reporting of things like the Dragodan Massacre, in the British Zone, where the KLA, now enrolled as "police" were allowed to deliberately murder 210 unarmed civilians. In total the various acts of genocide under NATO protection probably exceed 6,000. Also many thousands of schoolgirls were kidnapped off the streets & sold to western brothels, run by KLA supporters. In the same way they had previously censored any reports that the flight of refugees was caused by NATO bombing rather than anything the Yugoslavs did. This meant ignoring a number of instances of refugees saying just that (though the translators usually didn't translate) or that a larger proportion of the Serb than of the Albanian population fled.
Our behaviour in these wars has been disgusting & should shame any decent person. I believe it would have shamed us if it had been properly reported.
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2) Coverage of NATO's support of the "Independence" of Kosovo, an act which is clearly illegal under international law, the UN Charter, & our signatures on the Helsinki Treaty & indeed on the Kosovo Occupation Agreement has made great play of the Serbian police not doing enough to stop rioters attacking the US embassy.
One may recall that in March of 2004 KFOR troops stood-by while the Albanians rioted in Kosovo. The Albanians were unopposed as they destroyed 29 Serbian churches and 800 homes belonging to Serbs and other non-Albanian civilians.
Colonel Dieter Hintelmann, the commander of the German KFOR contingent in Prizren, explained KFOR’s inaction saying: “Protection of buildings is not the task of the Bundeswehr in Kosovo” and German defense minister Peter Struck praised the “prudent behavior" of the KFOR soldiers saying “They reacted rationally, preventing an escalation and thus protecting human lives.”
Or perhaps one may not recall that since, like the genocide of 6,000, the kidnapping for sex slavery of uncounted thousands of schoolchildren & the ethnic cleansing of 350,000 all under our rule it has had almost no media coverage here.
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3) On Tuesday, during a TV programme about the architect Richard Rodgers, designer of LLoyds, the Pompidou Centre, the new Madrid Airport Terminal & the Millennium Dome he & his partner both said that the Millennium Dome cost £46 million to build & that the government had gagged them since they were claiming £670 million. This implies 93% was lost in government paperwork or something worse.
Am I the only person to think that this should be front page news, rather than tacked away at 11.30 on a quiet evening?
---------------------------------
4) There has been some questioning in the media of whether censoring information about Prince Harry being in Afghanistan may be crossing the line between journalism & political activism. I do not think you need worry.
When the media decided to censor any mention of the antecedents of the Bosnian Moslem leader's history as an SS auxiliary publicly committed to genocide, saying that he was a multiculturalist moderate the British media crossed that line. When they decided to report obviously fabricated lies about rape camps in Bosnia they lost any possible claim to objectivity. When they decided to censor any mention of the primary genocide at Srebrenica, that of 3.800 Serbian men women by our Moslem Nazi friend & then to omit any mention of the numerous changes of story & lack of evidence about the alleged "official" massacre they merely reinforced it. Then they made as little mention of the Krajna Holocaust as possible. Before the start of the Kosovo bombing they accepted Madelein Albright's instructions that though the US was deliberately aiming at war because "the Serbs need a little bombing" they should lie & say it was Milosevic being intransigent. During & after the war they lied about the refugees being caused by deliberate Serbian action when it proved that they were fleeing NATO bombs. After the war they censored any mention of the Dragodan Massacre where "NATO police" as the KLA had now become, were allowed to murder 210 unarmed civilians & bury them in a mass grave only hundreds of yards from the British HQ, or of almost all of the thousands of other cases of genocide under NATO rule.
All in all I think you have little reason to worry that a sensible reaction to the Prince Harry story will have the slightest effect on the British media's reputation.
I have previously said how letters about the Yugoslav wars, as 3 of these are, are almost impossible to get published & I think this proves my assertion.
The third one, about the outrageous £624 million discrepancy between the cost of building the Millenium Dome (£46 million) & the cost after the government got finished charging us for paperwork (£670 million) has also gone unreported except on a late night TV show.
The facts here are indisputable & indeed not disputed & the failure of our media to report them (& I don't just mean publishing my letters but to report in the news pages) is disgraceful. Our media are calling yesterday's Russian election "not democratic" but the only complaint, other than the result, is Russian media bias. It is difficult to suggest that by that standard we, or indeed the US where Yugoslav reporting was no more truthful, can claim to be democratic ourselves.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
1) During news reporting on Kosovo this morning Mark Mardell of the BBC claimed that "The Yugoslavs killed 13,000 people in Kosovo and that NATO bombing & occupation stopped the killing". The late Joseph Goebbels, author of the "big lie" school of reporting & information minister to Adolf Hitler would have been lost in admiration at the ability to squeeze so much untruth into 1 sentence.
The majority of racist killings in Kosovo were actually by the KLA, on whose behalf we were bombing. This was confirmed by Foreign Secretary Cook speaking to Parliament 2 months before starting bombing. Nonetheless the total number killed was, according to the Spanish forensic team hired by NATO, only 2,100, including those killed by NATO bombs & KLA terrorism. Remarkably low considering this was a war zone with, we were assured, 26,000 KLA "soldiers" in action.
Worse than the lie about numbers is the claim that NATO occupation stopped the killing. It merely stopped the western media reporting of the killing. The BBC decided, I assume they say accidentally, to censor any reporting of things like the Dragodan Massacre, in the British Zone, where the KLA, now enrolled as "police" were allowed to deliberately murder 210 unarmed civilians. In total the various acts of genocide under NATO protection probably exceed 6,000. Also many thousands of schoolgirls were kidnapped off the streets & sold to western brothels, run by KLA supporters. In the same way they had previously censored any reports that the flight of refugees was caused by NATO bombing rather than anything the Yugoslavs did. This meant ignoring a number of instances of refugees saying just that (though the translators usually didn't translate) or that a larger proportion of the Serb than of the Albanian population fled.
Our behaviour in these wars has been disgusting & should shame any decent person. I believe it would have shamed us if it had been properly reported.
-----------------------------
2) Coverage of NATO's support of the "Independence" of Kosovo, an act which is clearly illegal under international law, the UN Charter, & our signatures on the Helsinki Treaty & indeed on the Kosovo Occupation Agreement has made great play of the Serbian police not doing enough to stop rioters attacking the US embassy.
One may recall that in March of 2004 KFOR troops stood-by while the Albanians rioted in Kosovo. The Albanians were unopposed as they destroyed 29 Serbian churches and 800 homes belonging to Serbs and other non-Albanian civilians.
Colonel Dieter Hintelmann, the commander of the German KFOR contingent in Prizren, explained KFOR’s inaction saying: “Protection of buildings is not the task of the Bundeswehr in Kosovo” and German defense minister Peter Struck praised the “prudent behavior" of the KFOR soldiers saying “They reacted rationally, preventing an escalation and thus protecting human lives.”
Or perhaps one may not recall that since, like the genocide of 6,000, the kidnapping for sex slavery of uncounted thousands of schoolchildren & the ethnic cleansing of 350,000 all under our rule it has had almost no media coverage here.
-----------------------------------
3) On Tuesday, during a TV programme about the architect Richard Rodgers, designer of LLoyds, the Pompidou Centre, the new Madrid Airport Terminal & the Millennium Dome he & his partner both said that the Millennium Dome cost £46 million to build & that the government had gagged them since they were claiming £670 million. This implies 93% was lost in government paperwork or something worse.
Am I the only person to think that this should be front page news, rather than tacked away at 11.30 on a quiet evening?
---------------------------------
4) There has been some questioning in the media of whether censoring information about Prince Harry being in Afghanistan may be crossing the line between journalism & political activism. I do not think you need worry.
When the media decided to censor any mention of the antecedents of the Bosnian Moslem leader's history as an SS auxiliary publicly committed to genocide, saying that he was a multiculturalist moderate the British media crossed that line. When they decided to report obviously fabricated lies about rape camps in Bosnia they lost any possible claim to objectivity. When they decided to censor any mention of the primary genocide at Srebrenica, that of 3.800 Serbian men women by our Moslem Nazi friend & then to omit any mention of the numerous changes of story & lack of evidence about the alleged "official" massacre they merely reinforced it. Then they made as little mention of the Krajna Holocaust as possible. Before the start of the Kosovo bombing they accepted Madelein Albright's instructions that though the US was deliberately aiming at war because "the Serbs need a little bombing" they should lie & say it was Milosevic being intransigent. During & after the war they lied about the refugees being caused by deliberate Serbian action when it proved that they were fleeing NATO bombs. After the war they censored any mention of the Dragodan Massacre where "NATO police" as the KLA had now become, were allowed to murder 210 unarmed civilians & bury them in a mass grave only hundreds of yards from the British HQ, or of almost all of the thousands of other cases of genocide under NATO rule.
All in all I think you have little reason to worry that a sensible reaction to the Prince Harry story will have the slightest effect on the British media's reputation.
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"both said that the Millennium Dome cost £46 million to build & that the government had gagged them since they were claiming £670 million. This implies 93% was lost in government paperwork or something worse."
Don't you understand that the £46 million they were talking about was only for their part of the project - construction of the bare structure - which was built on budget and always represented only a small part of the overall costs.
For the project as a whole there were costs for planning, land acquisition, land reclamation (including dealing with a massive contamination problem), infrastructure (drainage, water, power supplies, etc), additional structural work within the dome, roadworks, etc.
But the biggest item was the exhibition contents.
Details of all these costs are in the public domain, e.g the Audit Commission reports and the New Millennium Experience Company's reports.
Don't you understand that the £46 million they were talking about was only for their part of the project - construction of the bare structure - which was built on budget and always represented only a small part of the overall costs.
For the project as a whole there were costs for planning, land acquisition, land reclamation (including dealing with a massive contamination problem), infrastructure (drainage, water, power supplies, etc), additional structural work within the dome, roadworks, etc.
But the biggest item was the exhibition contents.
Details of all these costs are in the public domain, e.g the Audit Commission reports and the New Millennium Experience Company's reports.
# posted by 
: March 04, 2008
: March 04, 2008
Yes I understand. Indeed that is what I said. I have put the public costs on my previous post on 27th Feb. You call it government getting planning permission from government & I call it shuffling paper but it is the same thing.
As for the cost of the exhibition - that will be paid for from entrance fees we are assured which is why O2 do not require subsidy to put on their concerts.
The reports you name either don't mention the actualm building cost or have managed to hide it somewhere. You do not dispute that government did gag Rogers from telling the facts earlier.
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As for the cost of the exhibition - that will be paid for from entrance fees we are assured which is why O2 do not require subsidy to put on their concerts.
The reports you name either don't mention the actualm building cost or have managed to hide it somewhere. You do not dispute that government did gag Rogers from telling the facts earlier.
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