BBC AND WAR CRIMES

When a sovereign nation is forced to defend its citizens against terrorists who use their own people as human shields you would think the rules and the prevailing attitudes around the world to such conduct would be uniform throughout the world.

Alas, it seems that they are not and that, in fact, there is a double standard at work.

Here's an example:

BBC World News reporter Frank Gardner is in Afghanistan reporting on the US led Nato offensive against the Taliban. Yesterday at 1248 local time, he was interviewed live in Kandahar by a host presenter in London who asked whether suggestions by an Afghan general that the Taliban were using civilian shield could be confirmed. This is how a dead pan straight-faced Frank Gardner responded:

"Well, the investigation into those twelve civilian casualties is still ongoing but the initial indications are that the rocket that was fired by the US troops in Marjah did not go astray. It hit exactly the target it was supposed to and that target was a building where the insurgents were firing on US troops, we're told, and in that building there were civilians. So I think the insurgents were well aware of the propaganda value of civilian casualties and there is an absolute three line web from the top here, from General Stanley McCrystal to avoid civilian casualties whatever the circumstances so they're hardly using any air drop bombs at all."

The entire interview was conducted in a matter of fact manner and without the sneering cynicism that BBC reporters dealt with when confronted with a similar fact situation when Israel was fighting Hamas in Gaza last year. I guess there will be no Goldstone Mission into the death of Afghanistani civilians, no war crimes alleged and no finger pointing and hysterical hatred of the people who the NATO forces represent.

According to the Orwellian standards applied by the BBC, the world just loves Hamas and what it stands for and it can do no wrong.