Monday, October 20, 2003
BBC edits latest Osama text: omits inconvient facts - conceals that he also attacks Iraq's Baath Party
Eric Mueller comments:
NOW here's something a little more interesting. On Saturday, October 18, 2003, two audio tapes of Osama bin Laden were broadcast by al-Jazeera.
One was an address directed to the Iraqi people, the other an address to the American people. Several hours later, the BBC published translations of what it called "full texts" of the tapes.
On the al-Jazeera website there was a link to the audio recording of the message to America, but not of his message to the Iraqi people.
The moderate Islamic website Islamonline later put up a link to an audio recording of excerpts (only) of that message by Bin Laden in Arabic to Iraqis. Today some Arabic websites have published a complete Arabic transcript of Bin Laden's message to the Iraqi people. [Arabic text].
WHAT is interesting is that the BBC "full text" of Bin Laden's message to the Iraqi people is actually a translation of only the first page of a two-and-a-half-page Arabic message.
The BBC text concludes with "God is the sole source of our strength." But the Arabic text goes on for another page and a half. Perhaps significantly, the first thing Bin Laden says after the BBC's "full text" cuts off is:
"I address this appeal to the Muslims in general and the Iraqi people in particular, and I say to them: Beware of supporting the American Crusader troops and those who band together with them. Whoever cooperates with them and with what comes out of them, regardless of their names or labels, is an apostate and infidel. And the same goes for those who support the infidel political parties, like the Arab Socialist Baath Party, the Kurdish Democratic Parties, and the their likes."
One wonders if the BBC didn't want to inform readers that Bin Laden was launching a verbal assault on Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, which is currently the leading force in the resistance to the US occupation of Iraq.
The US and Britain are trying to convince the world that they are confronting a monolithic "global terror network." Yet here is Bin Laden putting the Baath party in the same category as the American-appointed governing council in Baghdad and the Kurdish parties that are working hand-in-glove with the US occupation.
If this passage was too politically ackward for the BBC to include in its translation, they could at least have billed their version as an "excerpt" from Bin Laden's message. A "full text" it most certainly is not.
Arabist Eric Mueller is this website's expert on Middle Eastern affairs. He was a featured speaker at the Real History weekend at Cincinnati, Labor Day, 2003.
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