Since Tony Abbott seized the leadership of the Liberal Party in late 2009, Australian party politics have become extremely polarised. The indecisive election in August 2010, which led to a hung Parliament and a minority Labor Government, didn’t reduce this polarisation; if anything, it’s increased since. There are clear differences between the two major parties (left-of centre Labor and right of centre Liberals) on a range of social, economic and environmental polices.

On most of these partisan debates I favour the Labor Party. I especially dread the prospect of an Abbott Government’s impact on environmental policy. Combined with gung-ho pro-development Liberal/National Coalition Governments at State level, I fear the likely direction an Abbott Government would take on ‘green’ issues. So in general, I favour the re-election of a Gillard Government at the coming general election, which is due by the end of 2013.

But while I prefer Labor’s policies on most issues, there are exceptions. Some of them are important to me. They’re more than mere “flies in the ointment” – I regard a few of them as potentially serious drawbacks to the re-election of the current Government. On those issues I’d like the current Labor Government to shift its position.

This article is about one such exception. I write not motivated by a desire to help defeat the ALP Government; I want to encourage it to change policy. If that doesn’t happen it’ll seriously detract from my enthusiasm for renewal of Labor’s mandate to govern.

A most illiberal law..

Back in 1995 the Keating Labor Government was in power and Michael Lavarch was his Attorney-General. After intensive lobbying from Australia’s powerful mainstream Jewish/Israel Lobby, that Government legislated an amendment to the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act (RDA).

Here’s the amendment in question:

RACIAL DISCRIMINATION ACT 1975 – SECT 18C

Offensive behaviour because of race, colour or national or ethnic origin

             (1)  It is unlawful for a person to do an act, otherwise than in private, if:

                     (a)  the act is reasonably likely, in all the circumstances, to offend, insult, humiliate or                                                       intimidate another person or a group of people; and

                     (b)  the act is done because of the race, colour or national or ethnic origin of the other person or of some or all of the people in the group.

Note:          Subsection (1) makes certain acts unlawful. Section 46P of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 allows people to make complaints to the Australian Human Rights Commission about unlawful acts. However, an unlawful act is not necessarily a criminal offence. Section 26 says that this Act does not make it an offence to do an act that is unlawful because of this Part, unless Part IV expressly says that the act is an offence.

             (2)  For the purposes of subsection (1), an act is taken not to be done in private if it:

                     (a)  causes words, sounds, images or writing to be communicated to the public; or

                     (b)  is done in a public place; or

                     (c)  is done in the sight or hearing of people who are in a public place.

             (3)  In this section:

“public place” includes any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, whether express or implied and whether or not a charge is made for admission to the place.

On Monday this week, in a speech to the right-wing Institute of Public Affairs which he called ‘Freedom Wars‘, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott gave what for me was one of his finest speeches – a speech more in keeping with the liberalism of John Stuart Mill (which I respect) as opposed to the reactionary polices of Australia’s Liberal Party on a raft of other issues (which I oppose).

In ‘Freedom Wars’ Mr Abbott took a stand against the Finklestein Inquiry proposals for a new media tribunal. As I’ve written previously, I also regard Finkelstein’s key proposal for a new ‘media tribunal’ as deeply flawed and I welcome Abbott’s clear rejection of it. If that happens, on this rare occasion, to locate me on the same side of a debate as executives of News Ltd, so be it. In fact I’m glad, this once, to have powerful allies on what I regard as a very important policy issue.

His speech also clarified the Liberal Party’s position on the notorious 18C Amendment to Australia’s Racial Discrimination Act. Abbott said:

Abbott’s reference to ‘Bolt’ was to the prominent Australian political commentator Andrew Bolt, who was convicted in 2009 of infringing this notorious section of the RDA. Some of the nuances of the case were discussed by Jonathan Holmes on Media Watch before the court’s decision – see Andrew Bolt and The Herald Sun on trial. Mr Holmes also wrote about the case after Justice Mordecai Bromberg brought down his decision in September 2009: Bolt, Bromberg and a profoundly disturbing judgment. I found his coverage of the case insightful, fair and well-argued.

The feisty and (to me) highly irritating Andrew Bolt is not the only person to have faced the courts since the RDA was amended in the mid-1990s. Other notorious earlier cases had been brought by the organised Jewish/Israel Lobby against people it derides as ‘Holocaust deniers’. The most famous of those cases was that of Dr Frederick Toben, who was eventually jailed for several months for breaching court rulings made after he was found guilty of breaching the 18C of the RDA back in 2002.

Toben often uses polemical language that may well cause offence to Jewish people. But if his language offends Jews, it’s no surely more offensive than recurrent vilification of Muslims (and occasionally Christians) by some Jewish and non-Jewish commentators in Australia. Toben’s key ‘thought-crime’ appears to be his rejection of the mainstream narrative of the history of World War Two. The judgement against Toben makes it clear that it was that specific issue – a matter of historical debate – that was the nub of the case brought against him.

The judgement handed down against Dr Toben by Justice Branson on 17th September 2002 sought to restrain him from “further publishing information which conveyed the following imputations:

(A) there is serious doubt that the Holocaust occurred;
(B) it is unlikely that there were homicidal gas chambers Auschwitz;
(C) Jewish people who are offended by and challenge Holocaust denial are of limited intelligence;
(D) some Jewish people, for improper purposes, including financial gain, have exaggerated the number of Jews killed during World War II and the circumstances in which they were killed.”

It was an extraordinarily illiberal judgement.

I’ll take the four points one by one:

(A) is meaningless without a precise definition of ‘The Holocaust’ which, as far as I can see, the judgement lacked. This term ’The Holocaust’ was rarely used to signify events pertaining to the fate of Jews in World War Two until the 1970s. In previous decades – the 1950s/60s – ‘holocaust’ was used mainly as a term to signify the much-feared prospect of a “nuclear holocaust”. Contemporary usage is actually quite recent.

“The Holocaust” is therefore quite different from historical events that were identified as such by protagonists at the time - such as the 1940 ‘Battle of Britain’ or the 1945 atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. Without a precise and generally agreed definition of what is meant by the term, to say “The Holocaust happened” or “the Holocaust didn’t happen” are statements so devoid of precise content that they are, effectively, meaningless.

(B) is a matter of historical debate. Judge Branson may not like the fact that numerous serious scholars have expressed doubts that the gas chambers in Auschwitz were ever used to kill human beings, as opposed to their overt function which was to de-louse clothing and bedding and hence help arrest the spread of typhus. But like it or not, it’s a fact that serious doubts have been expressed by numerous serious scholars. The debate over whatv really occurred at that time is ongoing.

In effect, Judge Branson arrogated to himself the right to determine historical fact. That’s a disgraceful thing for a judge to do. Courts of law are neither equipped to act as the arbiters of history, nor should they ever attempt the task. In the Enlightenment tradition, history is for historians and the general public to debate – not for judges to specify.

(C) is a curiosity. I can find no evidence that Dr Toben ever made such a claim. Perhaps someone can point me to the exact quotation/s which formed the basis of Justice Branson’s decision on this? However, even if Toben didmake such a silly comment, its hard to see how that was not a legitimate part of public discourse. If you want to hear people insulting each other for being ‘stupid’, listen to Parliament, read the newspapers, get on Twitter or go the the pub. It happens all the time. If’s is a criminal offence to say people are of limited intelligence few indeed in our society are not guilty of it.

(D) the notion that some Jewish people “have exaggerated the number of Jews killed during World War II and the circumstances in which they were killed” may cause offense to some people, but it is extremely easy to prove that it’s a factual statement. The key word is “some”. There are numerous cases of demonstrably false claims made by some Jewish people on the events of World War Two. Some of those claims have been openly acknowledged as false by the individuals who originally made them. If Justice Branson wished to restrain free speech on this point, he was clearly seeking to restrain people from telling (a part of) the truth. Judges have no business to do this in a civilised society that takes honesty seriously.

In short the judgement made by Justice Branson in 2002 was an extremely poor judgement that – in my opinion – should never have been made. It would surely have caused a major media outcry at the time were it not that the great majority of journalists and public commentators such as Jonathan Holmes live in fear that their careers will be jeopardised if they fall foul of the Jewish/Israel Lobby. They may also regard Toben as a distasteful character  - but I suspect that’s of secondary importance. After all, Mr Holmes is clearly no fan of Andrew Bolt, yet he felt able and compelled to speak in Bolt’s defence when the latter was on trial for breaching 18C of the RDA. Yet very few public commentators had the guts to criticise the earlier judgement against Dr Toben, which in certain key respects was an even more outrageous and sinister judgement.

Defending Toben’s right to make public statements about the (so-called) ‘Holocaust’ is not simply a matter of defending an eccentric’s right to express a unorthodox opinion. It’s not equivalent to saying that people should be free to express the view that the earth is flat. The events of World War Two have remained a dominant theme in public discourse to this day. They are mentioned incessantly in ongoing political debates. If nobody could discuss them openly that would be bizarre, but at least it would be symmetrical and ‘fair’ in a silly kind of way. But what the likes of Justice Branson appear to believe is that the subject matter commonly described as ‘The Holocaust’ can and should be discussed – as long as the content of discussion is within court-approved boundaries. That’s outrageous!

For what it’s worth, I no longer believe the mainstream narrative about the events of the 1930s and 1940s. Some people might call me a “Holocaust Denier” because of my views. I repudiate the term and never use it myself except within inverted commas, regarding it as a deliberately nonsensical and misleading meme, invented decades after the end of World War Two as a sneaky way to police opinion.

I used to share the now-orthodox view of what happened in German concentration camps during World War Two – indeed, until a decade ago, I never really questioned it. Then came 9/11 and my gradual realisaton that the official 9/11 narrative is a pack of lies. After that, I began to take a deeper look a historical controversies such as the JFK assassination and the (so-called) “Holocaust”. I spent some considerable time looking at different sides of these debates – reviewing for the first time perspectives and analyses that barely ever get aired in the mainstream Western media. Now I’m deeply sceptical.

If that expression of my opinions causes offence, I regret it. I try not to cause offence unnecessarily to anyone – but history matters and more generally, the truth matters. I’m offended almost every time I watch the History Channel or open one of Mr Murdoch’s newspapers. But that’s life. I don’t seek to censor people whose views offend me or ban the expression of their opinions. What I do demand is that evidence-based contrary views are not excluded from mainstream discourse. I want them expressed more freely than at present and without fear of persecution. I argue for that publicly. Oh.. and I don’t want one-sided, distorted history that may not be debated openly made compulsory in schools. In fact, when I was a boy, I was often told that was the kind of reason why Britain fought World War Two!

This article began on the theme of ‘exceptions’ – so maybe it’s appropriate to end it on the same note.

It’s not quite true that no ‘mainstream’ commentators had the guts to stand up for Toben’s right to free speech. An exception was Janet Albrechtsen. Like Andrew Bolt, she writes for the Murdoch media. Like Bolt’s output, I usually find her articles irritating, crass and well off the mark. But in 2009 she penned an opinion piece entitled “The Freedom to be Offensive” with specific reference to Fred Toben and his tangle with the RDA. She said a number of things in the article with which I disagree, but did express the view that Toben should not be jailed for his views.

However, Ms Albrechtsen used the long-established formula that makes the opinion that so-called “Holocaust Deniers” should be allowed to speak acceptable in the mainstream Western media.  It’s the same formula used, for instance, by philosopher Peter Singer when he defended David Irving‘s right not be be jailed for his historical views.

Janet Albrechtsen’s trick was to thoroughly rubbish Toben’s beliefs in the same breathe as defending his “free speech”. She did this prominently in her third paragraph:

I detest Frederick Toben’s views about the Holocaust. They are wrong. They are stupid. They are offensive. But using laws to censor his views does not enhance our democracy. It diminishes our democratic fibre by suggesting that we are too precious, or too lacking in confidence, to confront wrong words with right words. Let the man speak. These foolish views will be defeated by facts in the end.

Without that sort of proviso, Ms Albrechtsen’s article would doubtless never have been published in The Australian. Without it, she’d probably never have wished to write it..

Janet Albrechtsen is quite entitled to her view – and to express it. But note she didn’t attempt to justify it in any way – not even by providing supporting references. She states it as a fact – something that her her readers are expected to take as given.

In its own way, that style of argument is another way of shrinking, rather than expanding, the domain of free speech. In general, it’s easier to police opinion by ridicule than via the courts. The key – and positive – difference is that the Albrechtsen/Singer approach does not land “offenders” in jail – although it does create an intellectual climate conducive to the marginalisation of the views they disparage.

What we really need – in my opinion- is full, respectful, polemic-free debate about the complexities of our history - especially the thorny subject of World War Two that seems to get even more emotion-laden and propaganda-ridden as time goes by (not less, as is usual with historical events). We need to look back at the catastrophic major conflicts of recent history and try to understand what really happened, free from propaganda and bias. Only then can we learn the real lessons from our past.

Preventing that from happening seems to be the over-riding priority of all these “acceptable” commentators, whatever their posture on the topic of free speech.

Yesterday the Australian Government expelled Jawdat Ali – the Syrian Charge D’Affairs – along with another member of Australia’s diplomatic legation in Canberra.

This expulsion was purportedly Canberra’s protest over the recent massacre in Houla. It became clear within hours that it’s part of a concerted push by western governments; others took similar action.

The Syrian Government described western media coverage of the Houla massacre as a tsunami of lies. That is my own view; I’ve little doubt this atrocious mass murder was staged by opponents of the Assad Government to discredit it. Apart from anything else, it’s a case of ‘cui bono‘? (who benefits). Most commentator side-step this – yet clearly opponents of Syria’s Government gained dramatically from the Houla massacre, not the accused Government.

In Australia – as in most western nations – almost all mainstream media support the same biased narrative. In Parliamentary question time today, the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader shared a rare moment of agreement, both condemning the Assad Government for the Houla atrocity. A few voices such as mine rail against this apparent consensus.  But how can most busy people – far away from Syria – make an informed judgement? It’s hard to resist a tsunami…

However, Australians can get a clearer idea of how honest and effective our media have been covering incidents within this country - incidents that may be regarded as part of the same wave. That’s what this article is mainly about.

____________________

Syria Embassy in Canberra vandalized on February 4th 2012 (a sorry day in the history of Australian hospitality - and an 'unsolved' crime)

On February 4th 2012 a similar storm of well-hyped outrage swept the western world. The trigger on that occasion was the alleged mass-slaughter of civilians by the Syrian Government in Homs. That incident also led to frenetic attempts by self-styled “Friends of Syria” (nations that might more appropriately be described as “Lackeys of Israel”) to garner support in the UN Security Council for Libya-style intervention. Russia and China resisted such moves, despite enormous western pressure to buckle under.

The bloodshed in Homs didn’t just trigger diplomatic action. In many western capitals, there was also a seemingly spontaneous outburst of revulsion by opponents of the Syrian Government within the community. Syrian Embassies from London to Canberra were attacked by protestors.

In Canberra, the assault on the Syrian Embassy was particularly vicious. No-one was actually hurt, but a gang of some 40 people marauded through the Embassy. Even though Syrian Embassies in other countries had already been attacked, the Australian authorities ’overlooked’ the need for security. The Embassy’s caretaker staff were forced to take refuge in the basement as a mob trashed the place, unopposed –  then melted away as fast as they appeared.

While demonstrations outside Embassies in Canberra are quite common, invasions of Embassy buildings are rare. Like other nations that host diplomatic legations, Australia has a responsibility to protect foreign diplomats on our soil. Yet not only were demonstrators able to rampage through the Embassy, they were also allowed to get away with it. To this day there have been no arrests over the incident.

Even if this is a sign of nothing more sinister than incompetence on the part of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police, the (lack of) mass media follow up suggests a general willingness to look the other way. Imagine had the Israeli, US or UK Embassies been attacked in such a manner: would the media have simply let the matter drop? Yet that’s exactly what happened in this case. Within days, our newspapers simply lost interest. A week later, the Canberra Times reported that Canberra’s local Senator, Gary Humphries, was planning to ask questions in Parliament. However, I can find no reports that he ever did so – and he ignored my inquiries on the matter. Perhaps by then Humphries had been warned off?

It’s true no-one was actually hurt in the Canberra Embassy attack and doubtless the Federal police have other matters to investigate. Even so, if Australia can’t provide security to overseas guests it reflects badly on us. If our police are slack in investigating such a crime, that’s worse. If, in addition, our media can’t be bothered to look into the matter further… perhaps we need to question whether this country is really as civilised as we like to think?

Shortly after the Embassy attack – in the early morning of February 6th – there was a horrible violent incident in Punchbowl, a suburb of Sydney. Ali Ibrahim, a young man from a Syrian family resident in Australia who was known to support President Assad’s secular government through his vocal support via the internet – was shot in the legs several times on his own doorstep.

At this point, one might imagine, the authorities would get serious. Trashing an Embassy is one thing; crippling a young Australian with firearms is another. Yet not only have the NSW Police yet to find a culprit; they also appear, in this case, to have blamed the victim. Instead of investigating the crime as a politically motivated attack, it was discussed in the media as just another drive-by shooting involving criminals (of which there’d been a spate in Sydney at the time). The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Mr Ibrahim might even be charged! Apparently NSW Police Assistant Commissioner Frank Mennilli remarked: “Once again, we’re faced with a victim of a serious crime who says that he does not know who the person is and he has no information that can really assist investigators..” Do the Sydney police always require victims to know the identity of their assailants before taking cases of assault seriously?*

There have been other violent attacks this year on Australian Syrians who also support the Assad Government. I’m aware of at least one other victim – a doctor hospitalised after a brutal assault. I won’t mention his name, because his story doesn’t seem to have been reported by the press; it may be he prefers it that way. One can easily understand why Australian Syrians who oppose intervention in their country of origin might be feeling paranoid.

Bob Carr; Australia 's recently-appointed Foreign Minister whose job includes the odious task of warping truth to toady to Zionists

Perhaps fomenting paranoia within the Syrian community in Australia has been a deliberate goal of the authorities. Shortly after the Embassy attack in early February, Australians for Syria began organising a rally in Canberra. Coaches were booked to bring supporters from Melbourne, Sydney and other major centres to the capital. It’s estimated there are some 30,000 to 40,000 Australians of Syrian descent. Many support the Assad Government – or at the very least oppose the kind of external intervention that helped destroy Libya last year. The Government in Damascus is secular and draws support from Syrian Australians of many faiths – Muslim and Christian.

But the rally never took place. Soon after it was announced, members of Australians for Syria began receiving death threats. A counter-demonstration was announced for the same day, involving radical Muslims from places such as the Lakemba mosque. Although Australians for Syria reported intimidatory messages to police – and sought police protection for their rally – the police were less than enthusiastic. The organisers ended up cancelling the pro-Government rally, which had been intended as a peaceful, family event. The last thing they wanted was more violence.

Thus it was that Australia failed to provide a safe environment in which peaceful members of this society could voice their opinions. Of course, this has added to the public’s impression that there’s little support for the Syrian Government among Syrian Australians. The media has helped cement this by not giving them much coverage.

Although Australians often congratulate ourselves for having one of the most just societies on earth, the truth is less comfortable. In fact, compared with an ancient civilisation such as Syria, our respect for justice may be little more than skin deep.

There was a time when Australia was considered a ‘Christian country’, but that really doesn’t wash any more. Thousands of Christians were expelled from Homs earlier this year by radical Muslims who effectively have the support of our Government. This occasioned not one murmur from any Member of the Australian Parliament.

In reality, Australia has become a nation of sheep – and the jackals who’ve seized power, insofar as they have any creed at all beyond self-interest, prostrate themelves before the altar of international Zionism.

Former Governor-General Sir Isaac Isaacs - an eminent Jewish Australian who warned of the evil consequences of 'political Zionism' before the 'State of Israel' was declared

It’s Zionist power, needless to say, that really lies behind the attack on Syria. If Assad disowned Hezbollah and Iran, even now he might be welcomed back into the folk of western-approved Arab leaders, irrespective of whether there’s further progress to democratization in Syria. But the Assad Government has been a steadfast supporter of Palestine – and is viewed as a key impediment to overthrowing the government of Iran. Israel is reluctant to attack Iran as long as Hezbollah poses a retaliatory threat. Assad refuses to abandon the feisty Lebanese resistance movement.

So it is that the “need” of Israel to exert absolute dominance within its region is given priority over everything else – even the rule of law in far-away Australia.

In this case – as in so many others – our mass media is worse than useless: it’s an active agent of disinformation.

One final part of the puzzle is why Governments from the UK to Australia chose to take similar, co-ordinated action against the most senior Syrian diplomatic staff, while leaving the legations open. Robert Bekhazi, spokesperson for Australians for Syria, has a theory that makes a lot of sense to me.

He points out that whereas several senior diplomats representing the Ghadafi Government were persuaded to defect before the Libyan Government was forcibly dislodged – weakening its legitimacy in the public mind –  so far none of Syria’s diplomats have followed suit. Presumably that indicates their genuine support for the Government of President Assad. By ensuring these leading diplomats are sent packing it may now be easier to pressure more junior staff into betraying their nation.

__________________________________________

* Today I received a reply from the Media Unit of the NSW Police to a request for information regarding progress on the Ali Ibrahim shooting in Punchbowl, Sydney. The reply is reproduced below:

Over the last 24-hours there’s been a renewed media storm over Syria – prompted by a horrific story of atrocities in the town of Houla. Very gruesome images of dead children have been offered to the media, which has lapped them up and used them again and again on our screens and in our newspapers.

The UN observers in Syria, so far, have declined to draw definite conclusions about who’s responsible for this terrible massacre. But unsurprisingly, western media has been less circumspect. There’s a deafening chorus of howls complaining ‘The World’ isn’t doing anything, while President Assad gets away with murdering his own people – again!

Kristyan Benedict tweets about the Houla massacre; Amnesty UK's Campaigns Manager already knows who's guilty - and tells us all!

I’ve no doubt some of the Twitter users tweeting and re-tweeting this type of sentiment on the #Houla hashtag are genuine in their concern. Yet remarkably few people ever seem to pause and ask themselves the obvious question – why on earth would the Syrian Government want to kill Syrian children? And even if for some reason they did – why would they do so in a way more or less guaranteed to attract international condemnation and renewed calls for intervention?

In other words, ‘cui bono‘?

Who really benefits from this atrocity – and who doesn’t? Surely the insurgents and their foreign backers benefit.. and the Syrian Government most certainly does not! Given that recent bomb atrocities in Damascus have been blamed – almost universally – on extremist opponents of the Assad Government, isn’t it at least plausible they’re also behind this latest horror?

Yet just as mainstream media doesn’t want to give that line of inquiry much encouragement, major ‘human rights’ NGOs like Amnesty have also rushed to judgement. Their weekend tweeps have been hammering away, sneering at the Assad Government and spinning the incident as grounds for outside “intervention”… just like they did last year over Libya.

BBC Story 'Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows' - Version 1

Every now again again the mass media is so dishonest it gets caught out. The BBC came a cropper only a few hours ago – but there’s been no acknowledgement and I suspect BBC staff would like their ‘mistake’ flushed rapidly down the Memory Hole.

To make it a tad harder for them, this post tells the story for posterity. The information on which it’s based comes from a pro-Syrian tweeter called Hey Joud, whom I’ve found to be well informed and savvy.

A few hours ago the BBC posted a story on its website (Middle East section) entitled Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows. The latest update is given as 04.40 GMT. It has some rather unremarkable graphics – a photo of a UN observer witnessing bodies in sheets and a map showing the location of Houla, near Homs.

However, a friend of Joud’s was smart enough to take a screenshot of an earlier version of this story. Then he/she did some homework – and discovered the dramatic image which it featured prominently was in fact a photo from Iraq dating from several years ago (according to the associated image data, May 2003). It’s featured as image no 52 on this webpage. The accompanying text makes it clear the bodies had been removed from a mass grave.

Hey Joud tweeted about this discovery. That’s how I became aware of it:

@BBCWorld propaganda:http://imageshack.us/photo/my-image … showing a pic of bodies from Iraq claiming it’s the?#HoulaMassacre? ?#Syria? http://shineyourlight-shineyourlight.blogspot.ca/2012/01/9-nike-years-of-war-in-iraq.htmleyourlight-shineyourlight.blogspot.ca/2012/01/9-nike… …

By the time I went to check the same BBC’s story online for myself, the photo from Iraq was no longer there. At any rate, it doesn’t appear now on the equivalent BBC webpage, viewed from here in Australia.

BBC Story 'Syria massacre in Houla condemned as outrage grows' - Version 2

I’d guess the most likely explanation is that the original (highly deceptive) photo was taken from BBC archives, used in this article for its high dramatic impact – then quickly replaced when the BBC became aware someone had spotted the deception. If that’s not what actually happened, perhaps the BBC would care to correct me?

This is not the first time I’ve reported on image fakery with regard to Syria. The western media’s sustained attack on that beleaguered nation has now been underway for more than a year. A comprehensive account of all its deceptions and misreporting over that period would fill many volumes.

No-one ever seems to be held accountable for the gross breaches of journalistic ethics that do come to light. Jobs in organisations like Reuters and the BBC must be relaxing. Unlike humble bloggers out here in the ‘real world’, these folk don’t need to bother about truth and accuracy. If they ever do get busted by a wary public, their butt is always well-protected.

George Orwell’s book 1984 is often viewed as a parody of totalitarian states such as Soviet Russia, even though the tale was actually set in England.

I think there’s another possibility. In the early 1940s, Orwell spent a year devising war propaganda for the BBC. Working at the Beeb was probably all the inspiration he needed to write the most famous dystopia of his century..