November 24, 2005

Plan to bomb al-Jazeera officially denied

So Bush really was going to bomb al-Jazeera. A comment below said how al-Jazeera had reported the bomb plan in quite neutral terms. I think this response from John G (Game, I think) deserves more prominence:
I don't think it's surprising that Al-Jazeera carried the story in a neutral way. It's true that if, for example, CNN, were to be targetted in this way, they would get pretty frenzied. Thats because everyone would know that if something like this was exposed, it wouldn't happen again. That's not the case for Arab journalists. The US has been killing reporting staff from Al Jazeera for years now (as well as getting its allies to trump up charges against them and have them locked up) and the extent of global concern has been restricted to a few peripheral documentries late at night.

Of course if US public opinion moves (which it is in the process of doing of course) there might be a change. For the moment however Al Jazeera know that they are targets and they don't want more of their staff murdered. Hence the neutral careful reporting.

Thats the world we live in. Thats what the President of the United States and his vice President of torture represent in the world today. If you're an Arab journalist and you disagree they kill you. If you're a western journalist they just go through your tax returns. The North-South divide.
The Guardian seems to be pursuing this story more than other UK papers, on its front page and in its editorial column.

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