Technically, it’s “devastation”, Luc, but you’d actually have to open the dictionary to find that out.
What does that have to do with anything I said?
The Pentagon is lying? Congress is lying? Why?
Do you ever tire of these non-sequiturs? How does not wanting to view a snuff video make me “ignorant?”
By the way, are you admitting that those links go to beheading videos?
Well done BrainGlutton for being the first person with the balls to link to Aljazeera.net. Anyone brave enough to follow an Aljazeera link would find it’s a respectable news organisation, with a code of ethics that should be mandatory for all news organisations worldwide. Respected British broadcaster Sir David Frost recently joined their new English language TV station, and for the record, they’ve never shown hostage beheading videos. Aljazeera news tends to be Middle-East centric, but that’s because they’re based in the Middle East. They’re independent and politically impartial, and in that they put CNN to shame.
… We know that.
No, seriously, we know that.
Al-Jazeera is a good news organization, exactly the sort of allies in the fight against ignorance that Americans should want.
That Bush’s faith-based administration should see them as an enemy is sad, but we did know their quality.
I’ve re-read the relevant posts and I apologize. I clearly responded to a charge you never made. There were any number of other points you raised to which I should have replied, including your main statement about the meaningless comparison, but I did not, and for that I again express regret.
I don’t believe, however, that I was attempting to justify any specific deaths that have occurred in Iraq by displaying those statistics, rather to illustrate that death occurs in war, no matter the time, no matter the cause, no matter the theater. If war is to happen, people will die. My underlying point was that death in and of itself is not a reason to declare a war immoral or unjust. The argument re: “devastation” was a semantic one, obviously, and one in which I was apparently too eager to engage.
I don’t know, and neither do you. I’m not satisfied yet that these acts, if indeed they did occur, weren’t carried out by non-military personnel. This is not a dodge, for I make a major distinction between the uniformed and intelligence services, and I would hope as a vet, you would, too.
Ignorant in the very meaning of the word, not in a pejorative sense. If we choose to ignore something, we have deliberately chosen to remain unaware, resulting in a lack of relevant information or knowledge: ignorant. Speaking for myself, I am ignorant of many things, some by happenstance, but very few by design. When I see what appears to me to be intentional ignorance in another, particularly when it relates directly to an issue being discussed, it seems appropriate to comment. Again, using my own experience as a benchmark, I’ve been given a “heads up” on more than one occasion, and I suspect there will be more. Personally, I think I’m the better for it. You, however, are of course free to make these decisions for yourself. If you choose to avoid gaining an accurate awareness of one of the defining characteristics of the enemy the world is currently engaging, so be it, but don’t expect me to make any allowances for it. When you speak of “atrocities” in this conflict, yours is an obsolete and irrelevant definition.
BTW, if posting links to beheading videos is verboten, I did not know that. I will await clarification and/or instruction from you or anyone else who knows, while trying to keep an open mind.
As I noted above, if posting links to beheading videos is verboten, I did not know that. I will await clarification and/or instruction from you or anyone else who knows, while trying to keep an open mind.
Not accepting for one minute that Bush ever seriously considered taking out al Jazeera, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for the CiC to look askance at the virtual voice of the enemy, along the lines of the infamous “Tokyo Rose” case after WWII. It’s entirely possible that, given the rather shabby outcome of the legal proceedings against “Tokyo Rose”, cooler heads prevailed early on in any such discussions, and the idea was shelved as bad to the bone.
It would seem to me, then, that if such an operation ever were actually considered and ultimately rejected, for whatever reason, the fact that it was rejected should argue the case for good judgment rather than the shallow condemnation I’m reading here… that is unless it’s only “sad” because Bush didn’t follow through on this ridiculous plan, robbing you of all but this pathetic hypothetical to kick around.
Eric Schmeltzer’s blog at the Huffington Post has scored an interesting connection. (Interesting and germane, even!)
Schmeltzer ran down an article by neocon Frank Gaffney, Jr. titled “Take Out Al Jazeera” It was written Monday, September 29, 2003. Gafney’s contention is that Al-Jazeera is a tool for enemy propaganda and as a such a legitimate target (although he coyly doesn’t go into details about what sort of action he wants. Money quote:
Schmeltzer goes on to point out that Gaffney was the “Undersecretary of Defense for Ronald Reagan” and currently functions as a Pentagon advisor. Furthermore, Gaffney, along with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Libby and bunch of other names you’d recognize, was a member of the Project for the New American Century, a neo-con organization founded in 1997 “to promote American global leadership.”
In my opinion, the idea to “take out” Al-J probably didn’t originate with Bush, but it was probably discussed seriously among the people he talks too, especially Cheney & Rummy. That’s how it looks to me, anyway.
Tokyo Rose was never a serious threat to the U.S. any more than Lord Ha Ha was to Britain. They were proscuted for traitorous behavior as individuals (aid and comfort sort of thing), not for actually harming their respective nations.
There is simply no legitimate reason to target a news agency unless it actually begins broadcasting stolen military plans. If we do not like the news they present, then we should make sure that our actions are so pure as to be above reproach. Shooting the messenger is both immoral on its own and counter-productive (as it creates martyrs).
Of course, even those points ignore the fact that al Jazeera has not once been the “voice” of the “enemy.” While al Jazeera has broadcast opinion shows that have been extreemely hostile to the U.S. (much as Limbaugh, O’Reilly, Beck, and others are mindlessly hostile to many groups in the MENA region–to say nothing of the vitriol that Coulter puts out), the actual news reporting on al Jazeera has been quite even-handed throughout the the various wars we have launched in the region.
I tend to doubt that Bush seriously considered a strike on al Jazeera, but if he did, it would indicate a level of idiocy that would be nearly unbelievable except by those who already believe him a fool.
Actually we do. How it compares with your act I have no idea.
Freedom of Information Act
I suspect that some things could be withheld under the Official Secrets Act, but from what I’ve read on this board, not everything comes into the public domain in the USA either.
I believe that what we have here is the legendary Brit gift for droll, understated sarcasm.
Well, seeing as how I disagree that Al-Jazeera is the ‘voice of the enemy’ any more than CBS News is, I’m going to say that it is, in fact, sad.
It is sad that when an independent, journalistically respectable news agency opens, by virtue of it being in the middle east, it is labeled the ‘voice of the enemy’. It does not show the American perspective, it shows the Arab perspective. Arabs are not the enemy. And learning what they think is highly useful, is it not? Iraq’s Minister Of Information was the ‘voice of the enemy’. You remember Baghdad Bob, right?
Al-Jazeera is an indepentently owned and operated news organization that, considering the culture of the Middle East, operates with a surprisingly high degree of objectivity.
“There ought to be limits to freedom” -Bush (1999), in reference to a website that criticized him.
I tend to believe that he did want to bomb Al-Jazeera.
You’re right, Tom, and I don’t know what happened to that FBI link… looks like they took it down to do a re-write? Seems a bit dramatic when a simple FTP upload would do the trick. Anyway, it gave a pretty good run-down as to who “Tokyo Rose” really wasn’t (she was a fictional amalgam) and how badly the case went against the one woman they (we) prosecuted. I used Tokyo Rose as an example of the type of communication operations that draw the attention of those who would control the battlefield. I wasn’t condoning or condemning such tactics, just commenting that it is done.
For the record (since it seems to be necessary), I agree.
Sorry for being so vague. I thought it fairly common knowledge that al Jazeera has been and remains the news outlet of choice for Islamic terrorists, to include Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahri, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, to name just a few. In that sense, al Jazeera is the voice of the enemy… not exclusively, but they certainly have performed that function. Again, I’m not being judgmental here, but you sure seem to be a bit touchy. And to demonstrate just how even-handed I’m trying to be here, I’m going to accept at face value that there is no inherent bias in your characterizing al Jazeera’s hostility as “extreme” while Limbaugh’s is “mindless”.
Couldn’t have said it better.
”It” being al Jazeera or CBS News? I think there’s a misplaced modifier in there somewhere.
I’m sorry, E-Sabbath, but it seems you’ve assumed facts I never asserted. I don’t care if the news outlet is in the Middle East or Middle Earth, if they routinely broadcast messages from our enemy and those messages cannot be heard anywhere else, then they are the de facto voice of that enemy.
Thank you for not trying to sell me advertising. You could have had me at “Baghdad Bob”!
Well, I don’t, but that’s already pretty obvious. I can believe that he wouldn’t miss their “extreme” hostility if they went off the air and failed to return, no more than he misses Dan Rather’s fair and balanced réportàge, but it’s going to take more than that website crack to tip me over the edge.
By the way, Bush isn’t as whacked as you seem to think that quote makes him look. If you don’t think you have limits to the freedom you enjoy on this website, you haven’t read enough stickies.
But they have also performed the function of broadcasting the comments of Bush and Blair, Powell, Rice, and Rumsfeld to that corner of the world. Does that mean that they are the “voice” of al Qaida’s enemy? Or that they are simply doing a good job of presenting news, including press releases from all parties?
(al Jazeera has broadcast some extremely vitriolic opinion pieces against the U.S. When various administration spokespersons were first openly discussing steps to silence al Jazeera or to expel their reporters from Iraq in the summer of 2003, they frequently opened with charges that al Jazeera was “unfair” in its reporting, but when challenged, always replied with examples of third-party editorials–many of which were pretty nasty. Limbaugh, while capable of an amusing delivery, is mindless and the rest of that crowd lacks hius capacity for humor.)
You are ignoring his “mayor league asshole” insult launched to an American reporter too. The point was that Bush is that whacked against hard/mild criticism, so one does not need to use any imagination for what he has in store for things that he (mistakenly) perceives are threatening the nation.
Looking at the past, I don’t think this is new for other administrations. Even when the radio could be used by the “enemy”. I only need to remember the case of Radio Venceremos: during the Salvadorian civil war the Salvadorian army and the US state department claimed the radio signal originated from Nicaragua, so sure they were of it that in one occasion the lapdog press in El Salvador described the daring raid that the army and assumed help from US intelligence did to destroy a radio station in the coast of Nicaragua closest to El Salvador.
It was a nasty surprise when Radio Venceremos continued to broadcast somewhere in El Salvador…
To this day there was never a disclosure of what exactly those commandos destroyed, or how many died to prove then that bad intelligence comes also from the “allies” you have. Then and now I would not be surprised that bastards like Chalabi originated “great” ideas like the one that would think it would be OK to destroy a station in a different country. The problem is to have a leader that is so credulous, if not wicked.
We really need to impeach this guy.
Point taken.
I don’t get to listen to or watch al Jazeera because we just don’t get it here. I wish I did so I might make my own judgments instead of relying on those of others (not that I doubt you). It’s just that all I know is what I read. I understand that it was vehemently and single-mindedly pro-jihadist during the initial stages of the invasion (and who could blame them for being so?), but that it has gone through a major maturation process since that time, having taken on additional levels of professional managerial and editorial staff, attracted experienced journalists from other credible news agencies, opened several well-staffed satellite bureaus, initiated co-op news-sharing agreements with competing news outlets, broadened its programming to include debate-style opinion shows, that sort of thing. All of this is good. Without a trusted, public source of news, people are left to rumor, gossip, distortion and lies. If al Jazeera is providing such a source, good on them.
I guess I have a problem with the word “mindless”, especially when I agree with you that he has an exceedingly clever wit and an amazingly intuitive sense for political machination. He never let’s his listeners forget, either, that he’s an entertainer, not like some in political punditry who take themselves way too seriously while lacking any real talent. I was just visiting another thread where the majority of posters don’t seem to understand the difference between (or the varying functions of) commentary and news. I learned something here… maybe they’ll do the same over there.
Aljazeera described the terrorists who murdered an eight months pregnant woman and her for children - the youngest just two - shooting each child repeatedly at point-blank range, Aljazeera described those murderers as “freedom fighters” on a “heroic operations”. Now, if that is not respectable reporting, I don’t know what is - but are you sure a news organisation that would call, for instance the Abu Ghraib, a “heroic operations” and Lynne England a glorious freedom fighter, is realy what the US needs the most at this time?
Anyway I’ve heard Chaque Chirac has suggested mining and bombing Fox News and sowing the earth undernethe the rubble with salt. I think we can all agree that my word is as good as anys, and just take that as a fact. What a complete idiot that Chaque Chirac is, huh?
IIRC, this was not an “insult launched to an American reporter”… it was a private jibe Bush made to Cheney that was inadvertently caught by an open mic. But, you can continue to characterize it any way you choose.
Not familiar with the operation, but it doesn’t surprise me. As a licensed amateur radio operator, I know only too well how easy it is to disguise a radio’s location using a low-power transmitter into a remote high-power repeater on a mountain top miles from the control operator. I once activated one such wide-area repeater using a ¼-watt mobile radio with an incandescent light bulb as an antenna! (That was before I got my license from the FCC)
Yeah, that’s a problem, all right.
Hey, it’s a free country. See ya at the rally!