This piece of mine appears in today's First Post.
As bad as the phone hacking is the pro-war propaganda, argues Neil Clark.
They've hacked into the voicemail of a murdered teenager and the relatives of dead UK soldiers. They've paid police officers for information. The charge sheet against News International is a long and serious one.
But as shocking as the allegations of illegal news gathering have been, the greatest crime of Murdoch's UK newspaper empire has gone largely unreported. Namely that no other newspaper group has as much blood on its hands when it comes to propagandising for illegal and fraudulent military conflicts.
There hasn't been a war - or potential war - involving Britain in recent years that Murdoch's British titles haven't been gung-ho about.
You can read the whole article here.
9 comments:
James Forsyth's Spectator interview with Ed Miliband is a landmark. Miliband always knew that he would get nothing out of Murdoch, so he never feared him for one moment. That sounds like a Prime Minister to me.
Murdoch is the modern equivalent of William Randolph Hearst.
I suspect Murdoch probably initially got his financial capital for his news and media empire from a British intelligence asset or investors.
This is a pretty stupid comment someone left in the comment section to your article.
”This is ridiculous. Actually blaming newspapers for the Iraq war. Is Neil Clark trying to say that the papers formed the speech given by Colin Powell in the UN that there were WMD's in Iraq? Or that President Bush relied on Murdoch to go to war. More likely He used Murdoch. Is Murdoch to blame for Tony Blair deciding to Join the US in that war? Does he think that Iran is a sweet gentle little country being defamed by the Murdoch press so that the US will attack that country. So its the Murdoch press, not the intelligence organizations of countless countries revealing the danger to the world of the Mullahs of Iran. Even Al Jazeera is screaming about it. Neil, you are being disengenious if not downright misleading in your claims”
Of course Murdoch himself did not cause the Iraq war but he acted as a government pro war propaganda machine that was used to garner public opinion for it and the intelligence agencies from around the world including the CIA and IAEA that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program.
10 leftism points for anyone who uses the phrase "the real crime" when writing about Murdoch& NOTW scandal
Quite so, s.
The "tyrannophile left" still gets excited at the thought of locking people up for the wrong opinions. Thank goodness, Britain will never be like your beloved Belarus or Iran.
Interesting video highlighting Soros Media Watch campaign to target the Murdoch Empire in Britaina and the US back in March of this year.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrJJUQAAIG8
thanks for all the comments.
'dan': re the 'tyrannophile left', I presume you mean this man:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/02/tony-blair-mubarak-courageous-force-for-good-egypt
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/azerbaijan/6795896/Tony-Blair-told-by-Azerbaijan-victims-Give-your-90000-speakers-fee-to-charity.html
Mr Clark, Tony Blair won free and fair elections whereas Lukashenko's "rule is unquestionably authoritarian" (N. Clark) and Ahmadinejad's Iran locks up trade unionists and communists. Yet you defend both regimes.
It is best not to be selective on human rights. Britain is far from perfect itself, but condemning in order to condone (as Peter Hitchens also does in this morning's "Mail on Sunday") is a rather disreputable way of developing an argument.
'Dan'- Lukashenko's rule is authoritarian, as he himself has admitted, but he's not a dictator like Tony Blair's pal Mubarak.
Lukashenko has also delivered rather more to the people of Belarus than Mubarak did to the Egyptians. One leads a country which has one of the lowest levels of inequality in the world, where there is full employment and a comprehensive welfare state. The other led a country which was grossly unequal and where corruption, poverty and unemployment was widespread.
Lukashenko undoubtedly has the support of the overwhelming majority of Belarusians (precisely because of his social and economic policies), Mubarak clearly didn't have the support of a majority of Egyptians,(precisely because he shafted ordinary people). Yet Blair praises Mubarak, while attacking Lukashenko. The people who are being "selective on human rights" are Blair and his neo-con/liberal interventionist followers.
From Stewart Parker's book on Belarus: (page 111)
"Media magnates such as Rupert Murdoch are exceptionally unlikely to report any positive achievements of a system that advocates egalitarian outcomes of incomes, and public ownership of industry"
@Neil Clark
The main grievance they have against Lukashenko is that he kicked out the IMF/World Bank and stopped Belarus like Ukraine and Russia being run under the control of a that lead to the genocide of 10 million people under the control of organised crime with links to western intelligence who have international connections including major banks as a means to eliminate a pro Slavic block emerging in Eastern Europe at the end of the Cold War.
As for being authoritarian that is only because foreign countries including Russia finance and support political opposition in Belarus who are questionable democratic mainly supported by Ukrainian and Polish ethnic groups in the country who belong to fascist organisations like the Union of Poles and Ukrainian UNA-UNSO, thousands of NGO’s, human rights and youth organisations, alternative media, etc who are trying to overthrow his government.
US and EU in response to 9/11 has been vastly authoritarian including the illegal international rendition torture flights to regimes we publicly denounce like Egypt, Syria and Libya.
Even here in Britain the length of which the government, media and government funded anti-fascist took against the BNP was pretty ridiculous which includes numerous expensive law suits, people fired from there jobs for being BNP members and closing down bank accounts of BNP supporters.
George Soros (who represents the left) is a far worse creature than Murdoch who works directly with western intelligence to overthrow governments and destroy countries through sponsored separatist/terrorist movements like the KLA, Bosnians, Chechens, etc and financial warfare like shock therapy economic policy and morale subversion like promoting minority rule, open immigration, free abortion, drug legalisation, gay rights, etc.
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