Iraq Prison Abuse - BBC Bias

I want to say upfront that what these soldiers did, on both sides, was wrong and if guilty those responsible should be punished. That said, neither case comes remotely close to torture.

All these incidents do is provide a feeding frenzy for the liberal press, like the BBC and CBS. While Saddam carried out his brutal torture of innocent men, women and children, the liberal press remained erriley silent.

The BBC seems to have a double standard when it comes to reporing prisoner abuse in Iraq by American and British soldiers.

Here is the BBC headline from Thursday, 29 April, 2004 when the Abu Ghraib prison scandal broke.

US general suspended over abuse

And now here is the BBC headline from today, reporting on the UK's own Iraqi prisoner scandal.

'Abuse' soldier 'obeyed orders'

See? We're bad from the top all the way down but the British soldiers were just obeying orders.

Note how the BBC handle the abuse charges.

The three, all from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, face a total of nine abuse allegations.

But for the US it's:

CBS TV says it has "dozens" of pictures showing a wide range of maltreatment.

And

CBS says the pictures it obtained show a wide range of abuses, including: [but presumedly not limited to]

Prisoners with wires attached to their genitals

A dog attacking a prisoner

Prisoners being forced to simulate having sex with each other

A detainee with an abusive word written on his body.

Despite CBS's and Seymour Hersh's claims to have thousands more pictures of abuse by US troops, none have ever been produced.

In the BBC report on alleged abuse by UK troops, the BBC note that there are a total of 22 photogrpahs but they only post 10. What's in the other 12 the BBC don't show us?

Now in the BBC report on alleged abuse by US troops, the BBC give us a video report and the CBS news video report complete with photographs! The video link is here in Real Player format.

No double standard there, is there?

The BBC point out "Taken by US troops, many of the pictures show American troops watching in apparent approval. " The British photographs do as well but we are not told that.

In the US report, the BBC give a lot of space to Sergeant Chip Frederick's charges against his superiors. What the BBC doesn't tell you is that Frederick's family handed the pictures to CBS after the Army announced they were going to prosecute Frederick.

As for Frederick, he pled guilty, no evidence was submitted and he got 8 years in prison.

No doubt the BBC and the rest of the liberal media will feed like vultures on these two stories until there is no meat left on the bones.
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