Bush wanted al Jazeera bombed

[Donna Ferentes]

Yes! It's the Al-Jazeera Don't Bomb Us blog...

 

[fela fan]

Yes! It's the Al-Jazeera Don't Bomb Us blog...

Well, good on boris. Now for someone to give him the memo...

 

[nino_savatte]

About Bush wanting to bomb Al-Jazeera.

However, your comment above implies that it is only the US that has ever contemplated such a tactic.

It's one of the reasons I don't generally get involved in debates like this - rather than focussing on the stupidity of the idea itself, it becomes a 'US is the great evil for thinking this' as tho they are the ONLY country to ever consider or do it.

That's the way you read it Kyser...or is it because you wanted to read it that way? In any case, the Pentagon's attitude towards unembedded, foreign and independent journalists has been appalling, if not downright murderous. Bush was talking about bombing an independent broadcaster in a so-called friendly country: not because the station in question was broadcasting propaganda in a latter day Lord Haw Haw fashion but because al Jazeera dared to be independent. That is the difference between today and whatever went before; and that is the difference between the US and other countries.

 

[Streathamite]

What I'm taking issue with is the fact you are singling out the US as being some kind of sole example of a combatant engaging this strategy when they aren't. It's a tactic used in war across the world and the US is not unique in doing so, which your posts imply.

no, but it IS the only nation in recent years to have shouted about the necessity of going to a war on a country that was not a threat to them to 'librate the country' and give it Friddum and Democracy woah yeah.
and what the Us does affects more than what - say - the Congo does. so it will be commented on more.

 

[oi2002]

Boris Johnson

If someone passes me the document within the next few days I will be very happy to publish it in The Spectator, and risk a jail sentence. The public need to judge for themselves. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. If we suppress the truth, we forget what we are fighting for, and in an important respect we become as sick and as bad as our enemies.

 

[nino_savatte]

Boris Johnson

 

[PrinceToad]

I'm stuck trying to think of a recent dictatorship trying to bomb or attack a news outlet located in a neutral state. This is a kind of first I think: or at least a very rare event.

I can't even remember AQ attacking a news station of any kind. Shooting journalists is quite common in Iraq I suppose, as it was in the wars in Yugoslavia. But of course, that action was not in an neutral state.

I reckon Tony would be better of just ditching the dumb bugger and letting him hang himself at the end of his own rope.

 

[ska invita]

Blunket has 'fessed up for the bombing of Al JAzeera - sly cunt.

David Blunkett, the UK's former home secretary, has said that during the 2003 invasion of Iraq he suggested to Tony Blair that Britain's military should bomb Aljazeera's television transmitter in Baghdad.


Aljazeera television said on Thursday that Blunkett's claims - made in an interview with Britain's Channel 4 television to be aired on Monday - support its belief that the US and Britain deliberately bombed its Baghdad offices during the war.

Cant he be arrested for war crimes on that one?

I seem to remember that 4 People died in that raid...
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9A630ED2-D7F7-40F2-A04E-DF6D08CBC7F6.htm

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Blunket has 'fessed up for the bombing of Al JAzeera - sly cunt.


Cant he be arrested for war crimes on that one?

I seem to remember that 4 People died in that raid...
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/9A630ED2-D7F7-40F2-A04E-DF6D08CBC7F6.htm

Hmmm... but a transmitter isn't necessarily the same place as the bureau.

You can have more remote transmitters, and I'm not sure whether that was what David Blunkett was referring to or not.

Regardless, whether he was referring to an office populated by people or an ananimate transmitter tower, I think it's appalling, it makes journalists every where fair game.

I mean, his arguing that Al Jazeera shouldn't be allowed to broadcast, and therefore it's -- in his opinion -- a legitimate target, well, erm, turn that on its head for a moment: what if some terrorists thought it was okay to bomb the BBC's white city.

Okay, actually, that's already been done, but there was outrage over that incident. But now, any claim for independence of the press and to say that journalists should not be targetted, well coming from the British government, it would seem hypocritical now if they were to say the BBC bureaux around the world shouldn't be terrorism targets, because David Blunkett's expressed an opinion that journalists *are* fair game.

 

[ska invita]

You right in every way - supposedly (in the link) they ruled out actually killing journos (arent they thoughtful) jsut go for the transmitters - but the overall efect is as you say...