In that same interview Steven Emerson, who calls himself ‘an expert on terrorism', also said — with great conviction and passion, I should add — that in some parts of London ‘religious police' harassed and hurt people who did not abide by the Muslim code of dress. Mr Emerson later retracted his comments and issued an apology for his, as he called it, ‘terrible error'.
My comments on FoxNews about Birmingham were totally inaccurate. Birmingham, please accept my apology; I was wrong. Steve Emerson
— InvestigativeProject (@TheIPT) January 12, 2015
As Fox News has a huge audience, both in America and around the world, the interview went viral courtesy of social media, resulting in really funny jokes and sarcastic comments posted worldwide.
RT @mominbinmohsin: RT @pavanwar: Jam jars across Britain are becoming radicalised. #FoxNewsFacts pic.twitter.com/YwonNiacFF
— Rob Lyons (@Robspiked) January 12, 2015
If you are a non-muslim and would like to visit Birmingham #illridewithyou #FoxNewsFacts
— Rabeb Othmani (@Rabeb_Othmani) January 11, 2015
But here's the downside to all the fun. How are the rather stupid and misleading comments about Birmingham different to some of the ‘information' that is being provided by mainstream Western media about, say, Ukraine or Russia or the situation in the Middle East, in countries like Syria, Iraq or Libya?
In fact, Mr Emerson's blatantly false statements come across as harmless when it comes to misleading people — especially when compared to all those talking heads on the box across the Western world who say absolutely outrageous things and get away with them.
Let's take Ukraine as an example, because that is where we get some outlandish 'comments' from stern looking journalists and all sorts of self-styled experts. How did they manage to get away with presenting the anti-government coup in February last year in Ukraine as a ‘popular revolution'? Since then the coverage of the crisis in Ukraine has gotten absolutely out of control when it comes to objectivity and impartiality.
Western media outlets immediately began accusing Russia of interfering in Ukraine's affairs and praising the ultra-nationalists who helped pull off a coup in Kiev as democrats and liberals and all sorts of other flattering names. And what about the 'unity government' that was formed in Kiev? Everyone pretended that it was a perfectly legitimate process, even though the unity government didn't have a single representative from the east and south of the country.
And the referendum in Crimea, with its overwhelming vote to become part of Russia, was subject to some pretty wild commentary in the Western media, with some ‘analysts' even going as far as saying that ethnic Russians were a minority on the peninsula and that Crimea had absolutely nothing to do with Russia and its history and that it was the 'ancient Ukrainians' who colonised it, along with the Tatars. Eat your heart out, Mr Emerson!
And we have this sort of 'coverage' of Ukraine going strong. Mythical tank divisions and columns of armoured personnel carriers from Russia have been ‘crossing' into Ukraine and 'thousands of Russian troops' have been operating on the territory of eastern Ukraine — the spinning has been in full swing since the conflict began.
The latest 'revelation', of course, was made by no other than Ukrainian Prime Minister Yatsenyuk, ‘Yats' to his friends in the US and EU, who also helped him secure the PM post. With an air of a prominent historian he told German TV that Russia had invaded Germany — and Ukraine — back in 1944! The fact that Germany was liberated from the Nazis by the Red Army at a huge sacrifice of its soldiers' lives, and that Ukraine could not have been invaded by the Soviet Union for the simple reason that it was a constituent part of the USSR, was completely lost on the German TV presenter, and most German media and the political establishment.
All this makes Mr Emerson and his comments on Fox News tamer than tame, compared to what seasoned Western hacks and politicians came up with. At least he apologised for his comments about Birmingham but have you ever heard a single Western media outlet or a Western politician, for that matter, accept that they were wrong in their comments about Ukraine? That has yet to happen, quite possibly right after a blue moon.
We now have a Cold War situation again in Europe, all thanks to the distortions and misinformation about Russia's role in Ukraine and in other parts of the world, like Syria for example, and we have the Middle East on the verge of exploding, with Western media stubbornly refusing to accept that the crisis has been created by the interference of Western nations.
For what is ISIL if not the creation of the Obama administration and its allies, who armed, trained and financed anyone who was keen to fight the government of Syria? And yet, we have a torrent of interviews about the situation in Iraq and Syria by all sorts of experts who come up with the most ridiculous statements, making the Birmingham story pale in comparison.
