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Michael Palin show criticised over statements about Balkans war
The Guardian ^ | Aug 4, 2008 | Mark Sweney

Posted on 08/30/2008 8:13:11 PM PDT by libh8er

Michael Palin's New Europe has been rapped by the BBC Trust's editorial standards committee over its portrayal of the role of Serbia in the Balkan conflict in the 1990s.

Palin's most recent travelogue was "political commentary rather than a travel series" and gave an inaccurate account of the war in the 1990s Balkan conflict, according to one complainant.

Comments made by Palin about the destruction of a bridge at Mostar, Bosnia in 1993 came in for criticism from the complainant. Palin's comments were made in 'War and Peace', the first episode of the series, which was broadcast on BBC1 in September last year.

In its ruling on the Palin show, published today as part of its monthly update on complaints, the ESC said the presenter's comment that there was "no reason for the destruction" of the bridge at Mostar was "inaccurate".

The complainant also took exception to Palin's suggestion in the show that Serbia was "unfairly blamed" for all the trouble in the region.

In its ruling the ESC said that commentary in the show had oversimplified the issues when referring to who was to blame for the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

The committee said that the programme had "tried to provide context to imply that Serbia was not solely to blame".

(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: balkans; islam; michaelpalin; mohammedanism; montypython; palin; theotherpalin; troll; truthteller
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Michael Palin (One of the better known Palin's until yesterday :)


1 posted on 08/30/2008 8:13:14 PM PDT by libh8er
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To: libh8er
Photobucket
2 posted on 08/30/2008 8:18:03 PM PDT by rfp1234 (Phodopus campbelli: household ruler since July 2007.)
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To: libh8er

“events which were matters of political controversy”

When something is controversial, that is generally because the left are lying their butts off about it.


3 posted on 08/30/2008 8:26:27 PM PDT by dsc
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To: libh8er

And like Sarah, he loves to debate:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy34xQ_XeEg


4 posted on 08/30/2008 8:27:41 PM PDT by HerrBlucher (McCain/Palin v Obama Bin Biden.........thank you Lord, thank you thank you thank you.)
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To: libh8er


The complainant also took exception to Palin’s suggestion in the show
that Serbia was “unfairly blamed” for all the trouble in the region.

Good for Michael Palin. Looks like intestinal fortitude and truth-telling
run in the extended Palin family.

The “plenty of blame to go around” and “why the h-ll did we decide all
the Muslims were good and all the Serbs were evil” theme gets a
good analysis in the book linked below.
And how the West was duped into supporting an Islamic movement that
hid itself behind a “multicultural” facade.
And the Serbs paid the price for being “apparently the only people on
earth that couldn’t or wouldn’t mug for CNN”.

Written by a former spook and presently a Professor of Strategy at
The Naval War College.

http://www.amazon.com/Unholy-Terror-Bosnia-Al-Qaida-Global/dp/0760330034/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220152914&sr=1-1


5 posted on 08/30/2008 8:30:03 PM PDT by VOA
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To: libh8er

I still can’t believe I let my wife and her sister fly into Bosnia to spend time at the Shrine at Medjudorje in 1997. They said it was rather unnerving to have armed troops board the bus and do a walk through ..


6 posted on 08/30/2008 8:38:25 PM PDT by tubebender (Why does a round pizza come in a square box?)
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To: HerrBlucher

Shut your festering gob, you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodourous pervert!


7 posted on 08/30/2008 9:06:59 PM PDT by SlowBoat407 (ANWR would look great in pumps.)
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To: SlowBoat407

“Shut your festering gob, you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodourous pervert!”

Geeze....I come to this thread looking for an argument and I get this abuse????

;-)!


8 posted on 08/30/2008 9:23:33 PM PDT by edh (I need a better tagline)
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To: edh
“Geeze....I come to this thread looking for an argument and I get this abuse????”

Wait’ll the being-hit-over-the-head lesson givers show up...

9 posted on 08/30/2008 9:27:46 PM PDT by decal ("You should make a point of trying every experience once, excepting incest and folk dancing.")
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To: SlowBoat407

Don’t give me that you snotty nosed heap of parrot droppings!


10 posted on 08/30/2008 9:29:54 PM PDT by HerrBlucher (McCain/Palin v Obama Bin Biden.........thank you Lord, thank you thank you thank you.)
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To: SlowBoat407
i'm sorry, this is abuse. arguments are down the hall...
11 posted on 08/30/2008 9:34:24 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist - McCain/Palin'08 = http://www.johnmccain.com/)
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To: HerrBlucher
Don’t give me that you snotty nosed heap of parrot droppings!

Is it just me, or can you vaguely hear Gov. Palin's voice saying that in the debate against Biden?

12 posted on 08/30/2008 10:03:56 PM PDT by SlowBoat407 (ANWR would look great in pumps.)
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To: SlowBoat407

Actually its FAR more likely that Biden will lose it and throw that at Palin while she smiles politely in victory.


13 posted on 08/30/2008 10:06:13 PM PDT by HerrBlucher (Hey DU: Shut your festering gobs, you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodourous perverts!)
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To: HerrBlucher

True, if he doesn’t start out with some kind of vaguely condescending greeting to her.


14 posted on 08/30/2008 10:10:24 PM PDT by SlowBoat407 (ANWR would look great in pumps.)
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To: edh

you need a better tagline? feel free to borrow mine...;)


15 posted on 08/30/2008 10:18:24 PM PDT by stefanbatory (Palin/Cleese '12)
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To: VOA
good analysis in the book linked below

Just out of curiosity, have you read Schindler's book yourself?

16 posted on 08/31/2008 6:44:00 AM PDT by Hoplite
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To: Hoplite


Just out of curiosity, have you read Schindler’s book yourself?

Yes.
Checked it from the Daniel Boone Regional Library in Columbia, MO.

My record may not be perfect, but if I recommend a book, video, TV special,
et cetera, on FR, I usually mention whether I’ve personally “sampled”
a media item or not.


17 posted on 08/31/2008 6:11:03 PM PDT by VOA
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To: VOA
Then how do you reconcile Schindler's unquestioning repetition of Serbian propaganda, some of which has been discredited by the same sources he uses to discredit Bosnian propaganda?

Case in point, he cites the RDC when discussing inflated Bosnian wartime civilian claims, but ignores it when it could have spared him the embarrassment of repeating inflated Serbian claims.

The book reads like it was written in Banja Luka - except if it were, it would likely give a more accurate accounting of Srebrenica, as the Bosnian Serbs themselves gave up trying to water down their actions there when they came clean back in 2004.

18 posted on 08/31/2008 7:42:41 PM PDT by Hoplite
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To: Hoplite

I’m open to Schindler not getting all details right.
But I admit an inclination to lean to Schindler’s account before I’ll
swallow the accounts of Bill Clinton and his functionaries.

And I’m not doing apologetics for the Serbs...just saying there were
some plenty of bad boys on the other side of the wire.

Actually, I’d love for some good investigative reporters to flesh out
who is more correct, Schindler, Bill Clinton, or someone else about
the mess in The Balkans.

Maybe it’s time for Ollie North or some other decent reporter to
fact-check Schindler’s book and the counter-arguments of Clinton and Co.


19 posted on 08/31/2008 8:10:20 PM PDT by VOA
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To: VOA
Get enough details wrong and you're left with something worse than useless.

Try Evan Kohlmann's - "Al-Qaida's Jihad in Europe".

Not the easiest read, but an eminently more scholarly effort which isn't afflicted with the partisanship Schindler's book is, and its conclusions don't suffer the indignity of being inconsistent with our experience in Bosnia.

20 posted on 08/31/2008 8:42:18 PM PDT by Hoplite
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