PrintFinancial Times goes anti-American
After having followed the Financial Times for quite a while now, the other day I called the editors' very pleasant PA, and expressed my conviction that they were increasingly playing the anti— American card. She didn't seem too perturbed by my outrageous suggestion, so I guess I'm not being paranoid after all.
I look forward to the day when my accusations are robustly challenged by the offended individual or media organization, but it hasn't happened yet. The BBC, the Guardian, and the Independent are good at slinging the mud at Americans, but not so good at taking it.
I welcome the Financial Times to the anti—American hall of fame.
The new anti—Semitism of our times has infected much of the British press since Bush's 2000 election victory, with an ensuing surge of contamination after 9/11. Perhaps, expecting the poison not to reach into a paper of longstanding repute such as the FT was a naive assumption.
But it certainly is common knowledge that the FT is a pro—EU newspaper. They must have some kind of admiration for a bureaucracy that's never had its books signed off by an independent auditor, or they wouldn't support it.
Finance is supposedly the FT's domain of expertise — and they are always editorializing about good corporate governance — so it strikes me as odd that such a mindset would be as supportive as it appears to be, of a wasteful and blatantly corrupt EU.
The champagne—colored newspaper sure made a fuss, and quite rightly, over the Enron and Parmalat debacles. Make what you will of the contradiction in their treatment of corporate baddies on the one hand, and the admired European Union, on the other. Doesn't make an awful lot of sense, but then again, these days much of the British press makes no sense at all.
However, leaving generalities aside, the FT provided us with a good example of their anti—American bias in this weekend's Saturday edition.
The article in question [available only with a paid subscription] is sheepishly titled: 'Tehran supports Sistani calls for calm', and is written by Gareth Smyth in Tehran. After dissecting this rather biased and shallow report, it appears as if Gareth may have spent a little too much time in Iran. The whole gist of Mr Smyth's piece is that the Iranians aren't meddling in Iraqi affairs (honest), as the dumb Americans would have us believe.
Tehran has, like Mr Sistani, condemned the US for failing to establish security and called for power to be handed over to Iraqis. But there is no sign Iran is endorsing the violent attacks on American forces by supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al—Sadr.
Condemning the US and other Coalition forces and personnel for being attacked by radicals, and calling for the non—existent Iraqi security forces to take over is a pretty good hint that al—Sadr is Iran's boy. Is Mr. Smyth so naive that he doesn't realize what would happen if the Coalition just packed up and left? In such an event, al—Sadr would most likely make his play for power, and the Iranians —— who are great chess players as it happens —— understand that only too well. Someone had better wake up the FT editor.
US officials this week said that Mr Sadr was receiving $5m (
