# Bush wanted to bomb al-Jazeera HQ in Doha, Qatar? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 22, 2005, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282 "2005-11-22T18:06:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2005, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282/201 "2005-12-01T17:41:22Z")
> [@Dishfunctional](#): > > Is that really your opinion of flag wavers and patriots, or is this more of that message board _inside baseball_ that I’ll understand only after three or four thousand posts? You know what I mean. Rah rah rah. Wave the flag. We’re better than they are. We don’t do bad things. But when we do, it’s OK because it’s us doing it. Don’t question anything. Support it all. You know exactly what and who I mean. Show every last bit of it on national television during prime time. let the people see exactly what they are supporting. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282/202 "2005-12-06T00:31:56Z")
This new editorial from _The Nation_ provides some background info I was unaware of, and which helps put the whole story in perspective – [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/scahill:](http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/scahill:) > [@](#): > > Then in late November came a startling development: Britain’s Daily Mirror reported that during an April 2004 White House meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, George W. Bush floated the idea of bombing Al Jazeera’s international headquarters in Qatar. This allegation was based on leaked “Top Secret” minutes of the Bush-Blair summit. British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has activated the Official Secrets Act, threatening any publication that publishes any portion of the memo (he has already brought charges against a former Cabinet staffer and a former parliamentary aide). So while we don’t yet know the contents of the memo, we do know that at the time of Bush’s meeting with Blair, the Administration was in the throes of a very public, high-level temper tantrum directed against Al Jazeera. The meeting took place on April 16, at the peak of the first US siege of Falluja, and Al Jazeera was one of the few news outlets broadcasting from inside the city. Its exclusive footage was being broadcast by every network from CNN to the BBC. > > The Falluja offensive, one of the bloodiest assaults of the US occupation, was a turning point. In two weeks that April, thirty marines were killed as local guerrillas resisted US attempts to capture the city. Some 600 Iraqis died, many of them women and children. Al Jazeera broadcast from inside the besieged city, beaming images to the world. On live TV the network gave graphic documentary evidence disproving US denials that it was killing civilians. It was a public relations disaster, and the United States responded by attacking the messenger. > > Just a few days before Bush allegedly proposed bombing the network, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Falluja, Ahmed Mansour, reported live on the air, “Last night we were targeted by some tanks, twice…but we escaped. The US wants us out of Falluja, but we will stay.” On April 9 Washington demanded that Al Jazeera leave the city as a condition for a cease-fire. The network refused. Mansour wrote that the next day “American fighter jets fired around our new location, and they bombed the house where we had spent the night before, causing the death of the house owner Mr. Hussein Samir. Due to the serious threats we had to stop broadcasting for few days because every time we tried to broadcast the fighter jets spotted us we became under their fire.” ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282/203 "2005-12-06T01:25:22Z")
Wow. Could there be any better illustration of this admistration’s arrogance, intolerance for contradiction or criticism and complete contempt for innocent human life? ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282/204 "2005-12-06T04:12:08Z")
Well, I guess, in that instance, al Jazeera would have been the “voice of the enemy.” Of course, Fallujah had almost nothing to do with al Qaida, and the “enemy” happened to be the local people whom we had alienated, following Moqtada Sadr in his attempt to throw off U.S. occupation (while grabbing some power for himself, of course), rather than either the Ba’athists whom we had overthrown or the “outside” agitators that we claimed were causing all the problems. ---
**Author:** ![Latro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a87d85/32.png) [@Latro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Latro)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 10:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282/205 "2005-12-06T10:02:35Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Well, I guess, in that instance, al Jazeera would have been the “voice of the enemy.” 😕 You mean “the voice of everyone that is not with us” ? ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282/206 "2005-12-06T12:53:15Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > 😕 > You mean “the voice of everyone that is not with us” ? The funny thing about that formulation is that there ARE, after all, two choices; And whereas from their own immediate interests folks might not choose to be against us, if the price of exiting the “against” camp means you have to sign on to stuff that is just too icky, the ticket to ride may be too costly. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 12:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282/207 "2005-12-06T12:56:20Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Well, I guess, in that instance, al Jazeera would have been the “voice of the enemy.” > > Of course, Fallujah had almost nothing to do with al Qaida, and the “enemy” happened to be the local people whom we had alienated, following Moqtada Sadr in his attempt to throw off U.S. occupation (while grabbing some power for himself, of course), rather than either the Ba’athists whom we had overthrown or the “outside” agitators that we claimed were causing all the problems. When bartlet says the story is “outlandish” it ignores longstanding military policy targeting communications facilities–didn’t we slam the Serbian TV station the first night out of the box? ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282/208 "2005-12-06T12:58:28Z")
I think there’s no doubt that to bush it was the enemy and I have no doubt that he was all set to go just like the story. They’re sitting too hard on it to be otherwise. Goldsmith has never bofore run out an official secrets warning as here. They straight up murdered 3 or 4 al j stringers, and one is still in gitmo I think, or just recently out. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282/209 "2005-12-06T14:46:50Z")
> [@Latro](#): > > 😕 > You mean “the voice of everyone that is not with us” ? No. Given the formulation that **Dishfunctional** originlly presented, that of being the resource used to convey the thoughts of those who oppose the U.S., if al Jazeera was the only outfit broadcasting from within Fallujah, they would have been that “voice.” (We might still be able to quibble over the issue if al Jazeera never interviewed any fighters within the city. If they only reported the fighting, then I would still not make them a “voice” of the “enemy,” but I do not know whether or not they were interviewing Sadr’s fighters.) It is simply a description of a situation. I do not agree that al Jazeera was the “voice” of al Qaida, because if al Jazeera had not existed, bin Laden and his buddies would have simply moved on to any number of other outlets. (And, once they had their six hours of breaking lead time, al Jazeera always passed on copies of the al Qaida tapes to the other news agencies–all of which played those tapes.) Frankly, I did not think of the Fallujah situation in the earlier discussion for two reasons: I had not known that al Aribiyah was not also broadcasting on the one hand, and, more importantly, Fallujah was a situation that we created. Sadr may have been a power hungry climber, but the decision to “invade” the city was our choice. As you noted, they were those who “were not with us,” but we did make them enemies (particularly from the perspective of Bush). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/bush-wanted-to-bomb-al-jazeera-hq-in-doha-qatar/332282.md?page=10)