BBC accused of broadcasting "lies"

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/184479.html

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has been deplored for spreading lies over its claims that the NATO was conducting “precision bombing” in Libya.

Campaigners attending the annual conference of Stop the War Coalition, including anti-poverty charity War on Want, slammed the BBC on Saturday for claiming that the Western military alliance's invasion of Libya will protect civilians, because they are using modern military technology to avoid civilians' deaths.

War on Want executive director John Hillary lashed out at the broadcaster for giving coverage to NATO airstrikes, particularly attacks by US-made remote-controlled Predator drones, against Libyan people since late April.

A BBC correspondent had written in March that the “NATO coalition were "plainly making big efforts to avoid killing civilians”.

"The old myth of pinpoint precision bombing has become much more of a reality", said BBC correspondent John Simpson.

"Drones can hit military targets more easily in urban areas, minimising the risk of civilian casualties," wrote another unnamed reporter.

But, John Hillary dismissed claims of increased precision as sheer “lies”, because the use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan is an explicit example of indiscriminate killings.

A study carried out by western military experts David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum in 2009 consolidated the fact that of the more than 700 people killed in Pakistan by drone attacks that year, only 14 were known al-Qaeda operatives and the rest were civilians.

The War on Want executive director described drones as indiscriminate weapons, the use of which violates international law.

“…yet the BBC with absolutely no backing or justification feels happy to go out and say these are precise bombing instruments", said Hillary.

"We have to stand up and say enough with these lies from the BBC.

"This is not precision bombing - this is indiscriminate bombing with massive civilian casualties," he added.

The use of drone missiles has also been described by the UN's special rapporteur on extra judicial killings Philip Alston as a crime against humanity.

The New America Foundation, a right-wing body that monitors drone attacks, has reported that at least 2,431 people have been killed by drone bombings in Pakistan since 2004.

'Britain seeking to launch new war'

Source: Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/170760.html

The UK government has been accused of launching a new war in North Africa despite failing to secure Iraq and Afghanistan, where Britain participated in their occupation.

The British-based Stop the War Coalition condemned Britain and its allies for launching a "new war" after the "bloody and failing" occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Air attacks on Libya will not help end the civil war but will escalate it and could be the prelude to a much wider war,” said a spokesman for the campaign.

“They will not help bring the downfall of Qaddafi. He is already portraying the UN's decision as an act of western colonization and himself as the defender of Libyan sovereignty. Air strikes by the US and Britain will strengthen, not weaken, his position," he added.

"History shows us that the consequences of western intervention are almost always disastrous and not in the interests of those it claims to support.”

Andrew Murray, national chair of the coalition, wrote that the decision to "attack Libya and impose regime change" was "instigated by the despots of the Arab League, desperate to secure deeper western involvement in the region to save them from their own peoples".

Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Paul Flynn and the Green Party's only MP, Caroline Lucas, supported the Stop the War Coalition's stance.

"Is the prime minister now suggesting we should develop a foreign policy that would be prepared to countenance intervention elsewhere where there are attacks on civilians, such as Saudi Arabia, Oman or Bahrain? I hope he has thought this whole thing through," Corbyn, MP for Islington North, told the House of Commons.

MP McDonnell also told the Commons, "I support the freedom struggle and I'm a supporter of the United Nations but I have grave and serious concerns about the use of force by western powers in this region, both the short-term and long-term consequences. In the short term, in the interest of conflict resolution, is there to be a final offer from the United Nations to Gaddafi for peace talks?"

Lucas said Britain had "lost the moral authority" when it came to military intervention in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I very much worry that this would be portrayed by Qaddafi as yet more neocolonial exploits," whether there is a UN resolution or not, she said.

The Stop the War Coalition said it has organized a series of protests in London and across the UK to warn the government against rushing to military intervention elsewhere in the world.