Al Jazeera and MSM

[malaise]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051130/bush_and_bomb_threats.php
<snip>
The recent news that President George W. Bush might have threatened to bomb Al Jazeera is hard to believe. We don’t want to believe it. And given the source of the allegation—a British tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mirror —it deserves scrutiny. But it also deserves investigation, which so far the American press has been slow in pursuing.

This news of Bush’s alleged threat also upset Al Jazeera, which learned from the press how close their news institution and small facility, which I visited earlier this year, might have come to conflagration. A bomb dropped on the 24-hour news outlet could have caused many deaths and casualties.

Blair refuses to meet with Al Jazeera’s director Wadah Khanfar, who is in London. The station now says it is considering legal action against President Bush—a ploy which will probably go nowhere in Washington, where international law is considered an endangered species. The Committee to Protect Journalists is lending its support to Al Jazeera’s appeal to the British government to release the documents.

"We have a newspaper that is reporting very serious charges and saying that there are minutes to this meeting in which this was said," says Joel Campagna of CPJ. "The quickest way to find out is to release these documents."

[RethugAssKicker]

1. We don't want to believe it??

I believe it!... Didn't Al Jazeera get bombed twice already?

Didn't at least one news reporter for Al Jazeera die?

Why would this be a surprise to anyone here?

Bush is a murderous bastard.

[bryant69]

2. Well

The argument "Bush is a bastard, so it must be true" doesn't really sway me, because it applies to anything. I mean is there any crime, high or low, that the Bush Administration isn't potentially capable of? Does that necessarily mean that not a sparrow falls but what the Bush Administration is there, knocking it out of the air?

I'm not saying I don't believe this story; I certainly think it's possible. But I want to see more data come out before I jump one way or the other.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[jmatthan]

3. The fact that the data does not come out

proves that it is true.

If not why hide it?

Why threaten anyone who wanted to publish it?

The two British civil servants are not charged with leaking this memo but the one which was leaked and published in the Sunday Times 2 days before news of this memo was published by the Daily Mirror.

And there is nothing in that memo which could be construed as being directed at Al jazeera.

[bryant69]

4. That's surreal

The absense of proof is proof! That sure makes things easy i guess.

[jmatthan]

5. What was the rational for going to war with Iraq?

You put it correctly "surreality"!

[bryant69]

6. So we should adopt their tactics of irrationality?

I'm not sure about that.