I emailed the BBC after Lanagan's lamentable program on Iraq (see below).
The program echoed the British Foreign Office (bullshit) line so closely, that
by the end of it I was convinced that he was on Robin Cook's payroll! Of
course the editorial team didn't get back to me, hopefully because they were
snowed under by complaints (but probably not, knowing the Britsh public's
shameful apathy towards Iraq). By the sound of it, his romp through Palestine
was much the same... Lounging around the pool, making stuff up, insulting
towelheads, spouting government propaganda and swanning round like
Middle East like the sun never set on the British Empire.

Let's just hope that someday he really puts his big goose-stepping foot in it
and that his 'disarming sense of humour' fails him while at the wrong end of a
Kalashnikov!

LANAGAN, FUCK OFF BACK TO THE DAILY MAIL!!!


> I'm writing to complain about the shoddy, hack journalism > shown in last
night's 'Lanagan Behind the Lines'. Lanagan > exposed himself as an
opinionated, pompous, blinkered,
> bigot who is all to keen to regurgitate Foreign Office
> apologist rhetoric. Clearly the man has little grasp of
> the objective 'truth' that he feigns to aspire to. To
> make up for the fact that Saddam's minders kept him on a > tight reign his
paranoid imagination was left to run
> wild, painting a picture of a country and dictator 'Worse
> than Stalin's Russia'. Exactly what did this man see that
> could have lead to such a statement? How much of this
> opinion was formed as he lay tanning himself on a sun-
> lounger by the pool? How much of his opinion was formed
> from Foreign Office press releases, read before coming to
> Iraq?

> He was taken to a hospital to see the effects of the
> US/UK sanctions on the health of the nation's children.
> His disdainful cynicism after being shown Iraqi children
> dying of Leukemia made me sick. Of course Saddam Hussain
> is eager for the rest of The World to see the very worst
> effects of a population exposed to over 300 tonnes
> Uranium 238 in spent shells and aerosolized powder,
> coupled with 10 years of crippling economic sanctions and
> continued, systematic bottlenecks in the UN 'food for
> medicine' program. His opinion, remarkably close to that
> of the Foreign Office, that Saddam is simply manipulating > the media,
seeks to undermine the brute fact that at
> least 300,000 children have died as a direct result of
> Desert Storm and the 10 years of US/UK lead sanctions. If
> Lanagan was at all objective he may have also considered > the Foreign
Office's flagrent manipulation of the UK
> media in regard to it's universally condemned, murderous
> foreign policy on the people of Iraq.

> His lack of professionality astounded me. Asking the man
> at the bookstall and in the Shia mosque, on camera, in
> front of Saddam's minders, whether they were free to talk
> openly about Saddam, putting their lives at risk for the
> sake of a video diary. His overall lack of sensitivity
> and cultural savvy makes me fear how this smug oaf will
> manipulate public opinion about Palestine next week.
> Presumably he will reinforce arab stereotypes and issue
> more government line opinion.

> The Ayatollah shown talking to Lanagan, prayed that he
> would take his responsibilities as a journalist
> respectfully and to do his job well. It is a shame that
> his prayers appear to have been in vain.

I agree with your opinions - the guy was curiously unskilled in the areas of Arabic culture and language and yet was swanning around the Middle East playing at journo-tourism.

I watched the episode of Iraq with a friend and we both agreed that while the programme offered a great bird's-eye view of the Baghdad we never get to see it also failed to offer any real insight into the people and their politics/feelings/culture.

Loved your analysis - spot on. Makes my blood boil twhen I think that it's all at licence-payers' cost too. GRRR!!!

Dan