Phony Threats and Great Accents: A&E's MI-5

British Prime Minister Tony Blair's recent visit reminded us of Britain's stake in the war against terrorism. For more than three decades, the British have fought a war of their own against the IRA that has cost thousands of lives on both sides of the Irish Sea.

More recently, we've learned that English cities have become hotbeds for radical Islam. The would-be "shoe bomber," Richard Reid, is a product of this.

With all of this real-world material to draw from, you wouldn't expect a television program about Britain's elite security service to portray a made-up threat to British security. But that's what has happened.

On July 22, the A&E network began airing the BBC series MI-5, named for Britain's domestic intelligence agency. The first episode was titled "Thou Shalt Not Kill."

In the episode, MI-5 operatives learn that twenty bombs have disappeared somewhere between Ireland and Britain. A short while later, their worst fears are confirmed as a car bomb goes off, killing a mother and her child.

One bomb accounted for, nineteen left. It's obviously just the start of a prolonged terror campaign. Who's behind it? If you guessed the IRA or al-Qaeda, you would be wrong. No, the threat to British internal security comes from pro-lifers -- and not just any pro-lifers, but American pro-lifers.

The Osama bin Laden equivalent in the premiere episode is the wife of a man facing execution for the murder of an abortionist. As the MI-5 website sums up her beliefs, she is a "fanatic, convinced that murder is justified in her war against abortion."

If Britain is in danger from anti-abortion violence, domestic or imported, I have missed it. But in a show depicting the personal sacrifices made to protect the British homeland, the producers lead off with a phony threat. Why?

Part of the answer, of course, is animosity toward Christians and the pro-life movement. In television and movies, the words 'believer' and 'fanatic' are interchangeable.

But there's something else at work here, a suffocating political correctness that will offend Christians but then goes to ridiculous lengths not to offend other groups. An example of this was last summer's blockbuster THE SUM OF ALL FEARS. In that film, a nuclear attack on the United States was perpetrated by neo-Nazis instead of Islamic terrorists as was the case in the Tom Clancy book on which the movie is based.

It didn't matter how preposterous this scenario was; it was better than offending Islamic groups, some of whom lobbied the producers for the change. And THE SUM OF ALL FEARS was hardly alone in this regard. Since September 11, we've seen a total disconnect between what we read in the news and what we see onscreen: Newspapers and magazines tell us about Islamic "sleeper cells," and movies and television bend over backwards to avoid putting blame on Muslims.

But, of course, we still need villains. And since pro-lifers are an unpopular bunch with the cultural elite, they'll do. The BBC is making a pattern of this with its campaign against Bush and Blair for supposedly misleading us on Iraq. This just underscores why the entertainment media is the last place to turn to if you want to understand what's going on in the world -- no matter how charming the accents might be.

What's really amazing is that the episode is called, "Thou Shalt Not Kill." Now that's chutzpah!

Colson was off the mark on "The Sum of All Fears": In the book, the bomb was planted by what can only be described as a coalition of America haters. There were Islamic terrorists involved in finding and preparing the bomb, but it was actually planted by European Red Brigade/Baader-Meinhoff types and some American left-wing nuts, i.e., I remember one of them was an American Indian who was into the whole sixties revolutionary thing. Of course, if I were running the studio, I would have stuck to the book or made Al-Qaida the enemy organization.

Colson gets it dead on otherwise. The next time some idiot tells you that TV has no effect on people's behavior, ask them why the entertainment industry has been so careful to avoid any bad depiction of Muslims. Media dips stupidly believe that Middle American types are a hairs-breadth away from pulling a Kristallnacht on all the Muslims. It's an idiotic theory, but the fact that they think they could set it off by having TV cops bust a sleeper cell or two is very revealing.

Bottom line: The "pro-life terrorist" is one step away from being a total myth, but terrorism by America's abortion providers costs us 4,500 little kids a day and hundreds of millions have died at the hands of Islamist and socialist/communist terror (IRA is Marxist). But then, these folks at A&E come from the same political philosophy that wants us to believe this:

Between 1 May and 1 August, 52 soldiers died in combat in Iraq. This is a catastrophic disaster and is worthy of your attention and anger, because a Republican is in charge. During the same period, 66 residents of DC were murdered in the streets. This is just business as usual and is not worthy of your attetnion and anger, because Democrats are in charge. Return to your homes, nothing to see here.

Sound dumb? Sure is. About as dumb as thinking pro-lifers are as bad a threat as professional terrorists.

Thank you for the compliment. That insight was not anywhere near as brilliant as it appeared--I used to sell advertising for a living, and I'd sometimes make the point to reluctant customers that if TV and the other media had no real effect on folks, there were a whole lot of companies buying ad time that hadn't heard about it. Then I'd relate it to print (my particular domain): "Companies are concerned about what the public might be said about them in "the papers" because people read the papers, and if you're ad's there, they'll read that, too."

My boss had been selling print ads for twenty years and taught me more about sales in my first week than I'd known up until then. One of the reasons I got out was because I figured if he couldn't make me a great salesman, nobody could.

HI Silverback, 1st time poster... THought this article on Spooks (US title MI-5) might interest you.

BBC in hate race row Jun 10 2003

By Graham Young, Evening Mail

Nearly eight million people tuned into a BBC drama which featured a suicide bombing, despite a graffiti attack on Central Mosque in Birmingham and continued protests from the Muslim community.

A boy blew himself up in a playground at the end of last night’s edition of Spooks which featured a city cleric training youngsters to become suicide bombers.

As the boy prepared to pull a cord, a former Algerian agent trying to dissuade him spotted a soccer shirt beneath his coat.

“Suicide is extreme even for a Villa fan,” he said - before the boy blew them both up.

Controversy has lasted for more than a week because the episode was first screened on digital channel BBC3 last Monday.

Overnight figures show that last night’s episode was watched by nearly eight million viewers. A BBC spokesman said today: “Before the episode was screened we received some 500 calls from people with various concerns ahead of its transmission on BBC1. After the episode was screened the volume of calls reduced and we received 150 calls of complaint.

“These will be analysed in due course but we are not planning to make any further comment.”

The mosque was defaced on Sunday with the slogan “Suicide bombers inside - kill the bombers”.

Following a meeting between TV chiefs and the Muslim Council of Britain yesterday, BBC1 controller Lorraine Heggessey refused to take Spooks off the air.

But she said the corporation would work closer with the Muslim community to improve the way Islam was portrayed on future BBC programmes.

Dr Mohammed Naseem, chairman of Birmingham Central Mosque, branded the BBC as “irresponsible” and claimed the graffiti could be the first in a long line of attacks against local Muslims.

“The decent thing would have been to withdraw the programme,” he said.

Starring Matthew Macfadyen and Keeley Hawes, last night’s episode of the Bafta award-winning series about MI5 featured a terrorist bomber who finds sanctuary in a fictional Birmingham mosque.

In one scene young boys chanted “death to the West” as an undercover agent entered the mosque to investigate a militant mullah. When the MI5 man’s cover is blown he was brutally tortured.

MCB media committee secretary Inayat Bunglawala said the programme was defama-tory against Muslims.

“The main character is an ‘Abu Hamza’ figure who everyone in the local community just accepts.

“That could not be further from what is actually happening in the Muslim community,” he said.

In a letter to Mr Bunglawala last week, Ms Heggessey said the programme was inspired by a true story of an Algerian agent. “We do not believe that the programme reinforces negative stereotypes of British Muslims, nor does it pander to offensive or Islamophobic caricatures.”

Sorry to disagree with you but the baddies have been everybody from the IRA, Al-Quaeda, Left wing Anti Globalists, Ex - KGB and of course the main threat to the UK...France! as well as Anti-Abortionists, It is worth watching all the way to the end. Unlike 24 with its wishy washy PC ending, Spooks goes after everybody, including our American cousins.

Hey, thanks for posting that, and allow me to say that we all appreciate Britain's unwavering friendship during this trial.

Sorry to disagree with you but the baddies have been everybody from the IRA, Al-Quaeda, Left wing Anti Globalists, Ex - KGB and of course the main threat to the UK...France! as well as Anti-Abortionists, It is worth watching all the way to the end. Unlike 24 with its wishy washy PC ending, Spooks goes after everybody, including our American cousins.

You make a good point here, and certainly you've seen more of the show than I have. However, I stand by this statement:

The "pro-life terrorist" is one step away from being a total myth, but terrorism by America's abortion providers costs us 4,500 little kids a day and hundreds of millions have died at the hands of Islamist and socialist/communist terror (IRA is Marxist).

The number of “pro-lifers” who’ve killed doctors in three decades of decriminalized abortion can be counted on one hand, the number of bombers on (IIRC) one finger (two if you count a guy who sent white powder to some clinics), yet media types often pick pro-lifers when they need a strongly motivated, violent figure for a story. I don’t even watch that much TV, and I’ve seen no less than three hospital shows here in the U.S. where the emergency rooms were handling mass casualties from clinic bombings. In every single one of them, some nurse would loudly mention that the clinic also functioned as a pre-natal care center, as if the writers needed the extra effort to get across to the audience that bombing abortion clinics is a bad thing. I think they believe that the folks in middle America hear “clinic bombing” and think, “Goody! Whomp some abortionists for Jesus!”

BTW, what was the one with France as the oppos about?

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.