(This column was published in the North Shore News on Jan. 1, 2003)
CBC On The Wrong Side of Reality
By Leo Knight
Perhaps it’s just me, but this year it seemed like the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas passed in the blink of an eye.
Then again, watching the antics of the politically correct go through contortions to ensure inclusion of those who don’t care, probably lulled me into a state of suspended animation. Fortunately something interesting and oh, so Canadian woke me from my stupor.
For several months now the Minister of Foreign Affairs Bill Graham and the spud farmer, reincarnated as Solicitor General, Wayne Easter, have been deflecting calls to add the Lebanese group Hezbollah to the official list of proscribed terrorist organizations.
The hand-wringers maintained that because Hezbollah allegedly did some charity work via its fundraising arm, that it couldn’t be all bad. Despite virtually all the Western Democracies blacklisting Hezbollah, Canada whinged and moaned over doing the incredibly obvious and correct thing. This, despite years of
reports from the RCMP and CSIS outlining exactly what Hezbollah was about, and what its members were doing in this country.
Suddenly, with the calls for governmental action making a cacophony of noise while falling on the federal government’s deaf ears, the leader of Hezbollah, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech beseeching his followers to carry their homicide/suicide bombing attacks throughout the West. This came hard on the heels of a taped broadcast outlining remarks,
purportedly to be from Old Weird-beard himself, naming Canada as a target. Suddenly, Graham had some sort of epiphany and announced the blacklisting of Hezbollah and all its components.
The CBC got their morally superior knickers in a knot with that and set out to find the truth as only they can. Following a Washington Times story by Paul Martin (the internationally respected journalist, not the heir apparent to the Liberal throne), outlining the comments made by Nasrallah, CBC dispatched their intrepid Middle East correspondent Neil
MacDonald, “to go to Beirut and document the statements; to find videotape of the reported speeches, include them in a report if possible, and interview Hezbollah about them. Surprisingly, as MacDonald reported on Dec. 11, he concluded that Nasrallah never made them,” according to Tony Burman, Editor in Chief of CBC News, writing in the National Post on
December 21st.
MacDonald, as is his wont, tried to paint Hezbollah as a “national liberation movement” using a twist on the “one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter” argument made common in Ireland’s decades of “the troubles.”
But Burman is hardly innocent either. In the same piece, he writes, “Until last week, Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham had resisted adding Hezbollah's political wing to the list of groups banned under the new Anti-Terrorism Act. The government distinguished between the group's political wing -- which raises funds for schools, hospitals and other services in
southern Lebanon --and its military activities.”
Notice how, according to Burman, the so-called “political wing” raises money for all sorts of warm, fuzzy things like schools and hospitals. Who could argue with that? Perish the thought any money raised went for “political things” like guns, bullets and bombs, which, according to CSIS, is a much more accurate assessment. Burman also uses the term “military
activities” to describe the bloody and deliberate bombing of innocent civilians going about their daily business.
If the Israelis or the Americans accidentally kill civilians during actual military actions against military targets, as tragically happens in every war, they are called ‘war criminals’ by the hand wringers. But the actions of those who go out and deliberately target civilians are accorded the term “military activities” by the all-knowing
CBC.
Were they not drinking each other’s bathwater, one might call for Burman’s head. But that would be as pointless as suggesting the Chretien’s government should be
accountable.
In MacDonald’s case, his choice of words demonstrates his bias. Hezbollah is a murderous terrorist group. They emanate from Lebanon and maintain sanctuary in the Bekka Valley, nurtured by money from the ayatollahs in Iran and what they can raise in countries like Canada, who are stupid enough to give them succour. To describe them as a “liberation movement” is
not only inaccurate, but wildly misleading.
Israel has, until Nasrallah’s call for an escalation in the insanity, borne the brunt of Hezbollah’s wrath. That is not to minimize the car bomb attacks on the US Marine barracks in Beirut and others, for certainly America has seen its share of blood spilled by Hezbollah fanatics.
To my knowledge, the only army of occupation in Lebanon belongs to Syria and Hezbollah surely doesn’t stand up to them. Quite the opposite actually.
To no great surprise, the Washington Times is standing by its story and an American university professor has verified the quotes from tapes made of Nasrallah’s speech. Also to no one’s great amaze, Paul Martin (the reporter) has filed suit against the CBC, Neil MacDonald and of course, The Toronto Star which always seems to be in lock-step with
the morally pure at the CBC and reprinted their story.
The CBC tries to paint itself as the last bastion of fairness and objectivity in their news reporting. They are anything but, as evidenced in this little episode. Much like The Globe & Mail telling us “Perspective is everything” as long as it is their perspective, the CBC is subtly trying to tell us what to think. And they are shamelessly using our tax
dollars to do it.
Ah yes, this is as Canadian as Coach’s Corner. Which ironically, is about the only thing the CBC produces that most Canadians actually care about.
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