[NYTr] BBC Propaganda by Jonathan Marcus

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Economicdemocracy.org -Oct 26, 3007
http://EconomicDemocracy.org/

BBC Propaganda by Jonathan Marcus

Hypothetical: Country X carries out an attack on country Y, bombing
an installation.

Question: Which country "has some explaining to do"?

According to BBC's Jonathan Marcus, it's country Y, the country that
was bombed. [See below:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7064263.stm]

Never does he suggest that Israel, the country which carried out the
attack, has any "explaining to do"

Syria and Syria alone has "some explaining to do." intones Mr. Marcus,
even after admitting, in passing that:

"Think back to the briefing by the then US Secretary of State Colin
Powell at the United Nations in February 2003 when he marshalled an
impressive array of satellite images, communications intercepts and
other intelligence data to make the case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq
still maintained active weapons of mass destruction programmes.The
only problem was that he was wrong" (obviously that [the] false
statement would be deliberately made is simply beyond the
pale...something we are not allowed to contemplate for a second about
the Bush administration; "mistakes" and being "wrong" are the only
allowable alternatives]

One has also to contemplate why Israel has remained so silent if it
had any juicy details about a nuclear weapons program, even at the
earliest of early stages, given the currency

But much more broadly the mainstream media pundits going along with
the imperatives of framing the issue in accordance with how
 US/Israeli hegemony would have them framed, must ask why even mere
nuclear _power_ is such a no-no for Syria to even think about, when
(away from the notice of most mainstream media reading Americans)
Oil-Rich Bahrain
[http://www.tradearabia.com/news/newsdetails.asp?Sn=CM&artid=12936]

as well as Jordan
[http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/docview.asp?did=1000198915&fid=942]

as well as Egypt
[http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/09/19/news/egypt.php]

among others have been planning nuclear power build-ups.

The answer is as obvious as it is uncomfortable: countries under
sufficient control by the Hegemon, get treated differently than those
charting an independent course -- completely unrelated to issues of
human rights or democracy, as evidenced by decades of support for
"Friendly" dictatorships in Iran (before 1979), Saudi Arabia (nation
where most 9/11 terrorists came from) etc...

In fact if you're Saudi Arabia you can even talk about obtaining
nuclear WEAPONS as it did (in a story that died the very next day and
about which nothing has been heard since) after the first talk of US
troop pullout from Saudi Arabia into their new bases (not empire! oh
no! other countries have empires...not us, not the US, oh my no!) in
Iraq.

                            ***

BBC - Oct 26. 2007
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7064263.stm


Syria 'has some explaining to do'

By Jonathan Marcus
Diplomatic correspondent, BBC News

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."

This saying, attributed to the Victorian British Prime Minister
Benjamin Disraeli, could be updated for our own times. One could speak
of "lies, damned lies and satellite images".

Pictures from the "all-seeing" eyes in space have become an often-used
tool, at least for those governments that have access to them, when
trying to convince public opinion of the need, say, for military action.

Think back to the briefing by the then US Secretary of State Colin
Powell at the United Nations in February 2003 when he marshalled an
impressive array of satellite images, communications intercepts and
other intelligence data to make the case that Saddam Hussein's Iraq
still maintained active weapons of mass destruction programmes.

The only problem was that he was wrong. Whatever the satellite images
may have shown at the time that they were taken, the overall case did
not stand up in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.

So caution is the watchword when anyone uses satellite imagery to prove
a case. Such pictures are nothing more than a snap-shot in time,
requiring careful and expert analysis.

Of course, once only powerful governments like those in the US and
Russia had access to such imagery. Today, high-powered satellites are
much more common.

Many more governments have access to them, and a significant commercial
sector has also developed that is producing imagery for a range of
functions: charting land use, agricultural surveys and so on.

But if you have the money; if you know where to look; and if you have
the expertise to analyse what you are seeing, then you too can become
in effect your own intelligence analysis centre.

Nuclear claim

This, in a small way, is what the US-based think-tank the Institute for
Science and International Security (ISIS) has set about doing.

It is independent, it is highly expert and it has focused specifically
on nuclear programmes, revealing - often with the help of commercial
satellite imagery - aspects of the nuclear programmes of countries like
Pakistan and Iran.

US sources have encouraged the press to believe that on 6 September
Israeli jets struck at a nuclear reactor that was under construction in
Syria; a reactor based upon North Korean designs.

Syria has loudly and repeatedly denied that it has any clandestine
plans to build such a facility. So what light has the ISIS imagery been
able to shed on all of this?

Its pictures of the alleged site of the Israeli air attack have
provided the most authoritative insight so far into an operation that
still remains largely shrouded in secrecy.

Suspicious clear-up

ISIS has produced two sets of pictures. The first, taken before the
Israeli raid, show a facility near the Euphrates River in north-eastern
Syria. They show what ISIS believes to have been the target of the
attack.

There is a large industrial building, of a similar size to that which
houses the North Korean gas-graphite reactor at Yongbyon. There is also
what ISIS says may be a pumping station near the bank of the river
which would be needed to provide water to cool the gas used in cooling
the reactor itself.

The evidence is slowly adding up

ISIS accepts that the images are not conclusive. The building housing
the alleged reactor is fairly nondescript and could be used for any
number of purposes.

But the second picture of the same site, which was taken some six weeks
after the Israeli attack, provides some powerful indications that this
could indeed have been the target of the operation.

The building has simply disappeared. It has been razed to the ground
and all traces of the facility, except for the pumping station, have
been removed. The site is criss-crossed with caterpillar tracks from
heavy earth-movers.

There is every indication that the Syrian authorities have moved
swiftly and dramatically to remove all evidence of what was there.

Still there is nothing conclusive, but the evidence is slowly adding
up. We still do not know for certain what the Israelis hit. We do not
know how successful their attack was. And if this was some kind of
nuclear installation we do not know how advanced it was or where the
technology and know-how came from.

But all the evidence does point to one fact. The Syrian authorities,
whatever their denials, certainly have some explaining to do.