It is now four years, to the day, since the US-led invasion of Iraq. To those who supported and prosecuted the war, what can be said but, “job well done”?

(Images courtesy of Juan Cole.)

From Arab Media Watch:

AMW disappointed by media ommission of Olmert's Lebanon admission

16 March 2007

Given the frequent media criticisms and depictions of Hezbollah instigating a war last summer that Israel did not want, Arab Media Watch is disappointed that the Guardian and Independent were the only British national dailies to report, on 9 March 2007, the revelation by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that the invasion of Lebanon was in fact premeditated.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,2029731,00.html

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2341366.ece

This confirms previous allegations of Israel preparing for a premeditated war long before Hezbollah's kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers, and using the kidnappings as a convenient excuse to launch the invasion of Lebanon.

Such allegations were reported last summer by the New Yorker, the Guardian, the San Francisco Chronicle, the New Statesman, the Daily Mail, CNN and the BBC, among other media outlets. Further details are available at:

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/CountryBackgrounds/Lebanon/Invasion/tabid/330/Default.aspx

Certain columnists and editorials in much of the British media have suggested, during and since the conflict, that the blame lies with Hezbollah for instigating a conflict that would not have otherwise happened.

On 8 March 2007, the Israeli daily Ha'artez reported a leaked testimony by Olmert to the Winograd Commission, the body charged with investigating the 34-day war, in which he admits he first discussed the possibility of war in January 2006 and asked to see military plans in March.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=834572&contrassID=1&subContrassID=5

Now that the matter is beyond dispute, AMW is discouraged to note that those who were so quick to lay the blame for war on Hezbollah have remained completely silent when Israel, the instigator, has owned up to its actions.

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/Articles/PressReleases/tabid/77/newsid391/3744/AMW-disappointed-by-media-ommission-of-Olmerts-Lebanon-admission/Default.aspx

Peter Hitchens is an interesting fellow. Like his more famous brother Christopher, he is one of those commentators who seems to enjoy pushing contrarian posturing to its outer limits – even if he is consequently requied to support the most absurd of conlusions.

Appearing on Question Time on March 15, he propounded this little gem of insight. It wasn’t just de facto oil industry employees that were skeptics on the facts of anthropogenic climate change, he claimed – for he himself (in his wisdom) was a skeptic, after all, but was certainly not funded by the oil industry.

Indeed he isn’t, as far as we know. What he is, however, is a man prepared to applaud in the highest terms documentaries packed with the oil industry’s pseudo-scientific representatives as “brilliant” and “devastating” pieces of work, without the slightest clue what he’s talking about. Hitchens exposed his magisterial grasp of science in an earlier column, noting that “The greenhouse effect probably doesn’t exist”. So you’d better wrap up warm, reader – since apparently the earth’s climate is “probably” no different from that of the moon.

Still, on Question Time it’s posturing that counts, and the posturing of Hitchens is second-to-none. He goes on, on the same programme, to point the finger at the Chinese – why should we do anything about climate change, he asks, when they certainly aren’t going to? The question he is apparently unwilling to consider is why a developing country, with per capita emmissions a small fraction of the UK’s level (and an even smaller fraction of the US’s) should make the slightest adjustments until the developed world is prepared to do so – of how much more hypocrisy can they rightly accuse us?

But throughout his confused and quixotic repertoire of denial – whether denying the facts of basic physics or the solid, overwhelming consensus of peer-reviewed science – there has been one fixed point: an attempt to prevent any action being taken by the UK to deal with its contribution to the overwhelming threat of climate change. That the BBC, or any sector of the British press, feels the need to grant him the implicit legitimacy of a column or a seat on the Question Time panel simply beggars belief.

“The jury’s still out”

But Hitchens, unfortunately, is not alone. On the evening of the broadcast of the “Great Global Warming Swindle”, The makers of the film were on Richard & Judy peddling the same line. Once they’d finished, ever the impartial mediator Richard Madeley gave us the benefit of his expert opinion: “as a journalist”, he said, he had “always thought the jury was still out on man-made climate change”. But don’t accuse Channel 4 of unfairness just yet, because on March 16 Madeley had Al Gore on his programme. Admittedly, we should probably forget the stringent interrogation he gave this campaigner against climate change – including playing a clip from his former interview with the “Swindle” makers; let’s also forget the fraudulent pseudo-science, misrepresentation of sources and oil-industry frontmen which riddled the documentary from start to finish (and for which the documentary-makers already had a well-deserved reputation). And let’s ignore the fact that anyone without knowledge of the subject would have received the impression that Gore represented an embattled minority – or, at the very best, one half of an equal debate.

And thus, dear reader, the media paradigm of “balance” is upheld, by both its defenders on the BBC, and on Channel 4. Next week’s highlights include: a debate on the Holocaust featuring David Irving; a debate on whether cigarettes really are bad for you (with contributions from the tobacco industry); and a discussion on astronomy, featuring experts from NASA and the flat earth society.

Perhaps George Monbiot should have the last word:

“The misunderstandings and misrepresentations [these commentators] have published would be sufficiently grave to oblige them to seek employment elsewhere, if they involved any other subject. But such is the ignorance of science among journalists, and such is the determination of some editors to cast doubt upon climate change - with or without evidence - that they continue working without the least embarrassment.”

http://turnuptheheat.org/?page_id=5

For more on The Great Global Warming Swindle, see the following pieces for the best dissections:

http://www.ukwatch.net/article/channel_4s_swindle
http://www.ukwatch.net/article/pure_propaganda
http://www.ukwatch.net/article/channel_4_s_problem_with_science
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/swindled/
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article2359057.ece