I know this will get me flamed, but so be it. My honest-to-goodness reaction to news reports that Bush may have wanted to bomb Al Jazeera is:
“Who didn’t?”
At any rate, he didn’t, and I will wait to see if this is true or just a distortion of idle conversations. I have my doubts.
Steve S
The Mirror is something of a London tabloid, so I’m not sure how much faith I would put in it.
Ohwell, as long as we can all agree that it’s appropriate for Pat Robertson to be assassinated, and Fox News bombed, I don’t see that we’ll have much argument on this.
erics
Yep, I quess that in this war the bad guys would be cleared to bomb Fox and CBN. I mean this is total war right?
Oh yea, free press is only free if it agree’s with the powers that be… arg…
ppGaz
Well (poor John, you are going ‘Oh fuck, it’s him’) ….
This is why some people should blog, and some should be presidents. And they aren’t the same people.
You, you should blog. You’re good at it, even though I disagree with you about 33 percent of the time.
But Bush, he should not be president. What a fucking maroon! Being president requires a little more understanding of the world than just going around and acting on your first impulses. That’s why we scorned Clinton’s blow job. That’s why we scorn a president who says “Wanted Dead or Alive” and then promptly demonstrates that he meant no such thing. Or blurts out “Bring it On!” when “it” means death and destruction for a lot of innocent people … ooopsy! Or thinks “A-yuk, I cain’t seem to find them danged WMDs …. yuk yuk” is funny.
See, that guy is an IDIOT, but not just any idiot, but an idiot who can get a lot of people killed with his stupid mouth. And has. And will.
It’s a subtle point, not everyone will get it.
Pb
John Cole,
The real news here is that Bush may have wanted to bomb downtown Qatar. Just bombing news outlets is so passé.
foolishmortal
I have to ask: do you mean to imply only that bombing Al Jazeera is desirable or that it is also wise?
srv
I didn’t. Bombing a news organization you don’t agree with, well, like Steve S. says, there are a few others I’d prefer he start with.
ppGaz:
It’s not subtle. These are all flashes of insight into GW’s true nature. His natural instinct is almost always wrong, unless you live in a cowboy western. Which sadly, most voters seem to think they do.
Mr Furious
ppGaz is right. The early defense on this story is that it wasn’t serious. It was Bush musing aloud, like “it would be easier if this was a dictatorship.”
That was a dumb thing to say, this if it turns out not to have been a serious strategy, is wresting away Doug Feith’s trophy for “fucking stupidist guy on the planet” dumb.
The best defense they can offer up with now is that the guy with his finger on the button, who was actually conducting war at the time was just spitballin ideas or crackin’ around?
There is a reason why you are not supposed to crack jokes about a bomb in your suitcase when at the airport. That shit ain’t funny and is actually a danger. Guys in control of nuclear arsenals should shut the fuck up when the urge to make jokes about bombing people arises.
Pb
I should also mention, because this doesn’t seem to be at all clear in John’s post… whether or not the United States under Bush bombed al-Jazeera is not in question–we did. On several occasions, and in several locations. This was just the office that we *hadn’t bombed yet*. Because, you know, it was in Qatar, and not in Afghanistan or Iraq.
foolishmortal
Furthermore, wasn’t there considerable ire raised on your side of the aisle over a certain CNN exec’s belief that the US military targeted journalists? Your decidedly unshocked reaction would also imply you consider such a belief plausible.
Steve
I’ll ask a serious question, since there are many people on this blog who know everything. To what extent is it fair to call al-Jazeera a propaganda organ, or to what extent are they simply the top Middle Eastern news network (with a pro-Arab slant, natch)?
Mr Furious
I should clarify. I don’t necessarily think Bush was just joking. I’m just willing to point out how fucking stupid that is as a cover story. I think it’s likely he actually wanted to do it.
Pb
Steve,
I doubt you’ll get many people to agree on that. But here’s the little I’ve heard. Al-Jazeera, especially now, strikes me as the Arab version of the British BBC, or America’s CNN–although having one’s countries of residence demolished and one’s offices targeted by the United States might inform one’s opinion somewhat.
Then there’s al-Hurra, the Arab version of Fox news, except that (to the extent that there’s a difference here) al-Hurra is a propaganda arm of the government of the United States–we’ve literally spent millions on them. However, from what I’ve heard, that effort has been a failure. Maybe they could learn a thing or two from the American left (who, according to John Cole, are apparently sinister propaganda specialists–better than the Nazis!).
Mike S
It would have been a brilliant move. The hearts and minds of the entire middle east would have been won in an instant. The citizens of Qatar would have been having a parade for us while throwing flowers at the feet of our soldiers.
foolishmortal
IMO, to very little extent are they a propaganda organ: ownership does not to my knowledge have any editorial control. Before 9-11, al-Jazeera was widely praised as a democratic and economic success, as they were the first major independent network in the ME. Like all networks though, they play to their audience. I don’t know huge amounts about them, but I tend to think of them as fox news for the arab world.
Mike S
There is a difference. FOX is a propaganda tool of the GOP and is happy to attack the government of the United States, providing that said government is a Democratic one as opposed to a Republican one.
neil
Why aren’t we hearing about all the media organizations Bush didn’t bomb?
Alternate snark: I believe you’re trying to say ‘Bush wanted _our troops_ to bomb al-Jazeera’ which would of course be a war crime. Why would you pass along this disgusting, baseless smear, other than the fact that you hate soldiers?
Paddy O'Shea
Another day another example of Bush idiocy to have to explain away.
No wonder you guys are so busy.
srv
They are the top ‘independent’ ME-based network by default. Everything else is western (BBC) or state controlled. The Qatari Emir funded the whole thing, and while he’s perceived as not being anti-American (we’ve had bases in Qatar since the first Gulf War), he’s apparently not playing Rupert with the network either.
I don’t think anyone, anywhere, considers a-J to be propaganda free, but compared to state run organizations and , well, Fox, they’re not any worse.
erics
What seems important is that for all of its warts al-jazeera was the most open media in the middle east from the middle east. The it was even thought that they were an reasonable target is quite troubling.
This administration really does not like a press that is critical of its actions, this sort of stuff if true is very problematic.
neil
Oh, by the way, I don’t really think you’re approaching this unreasonably, except that if that was really your ‘honest-to-goodness’ reaction and not your gut or instant reaction. I don’t think these are the same things; maybe this is what differentiates me from the Bushies? Probably not though.
Andrei
There you go John! It’s damning and outright heinous to insinuate our soldiers used “chemical weapons” to kill civilians in a war where they are being used as shields, which implies our soldiers acted like war criminals, but to hell with it… we can just let everyone in the Middle East know we’re fine about bombing one of their media centers because you know, they are all asking for it with the way the talk about us.
Yeah… that makes a whole lot of sense. Gotta win the hearts and minds by telling them to watch their backs and get ready to have some stuff blown up.
The more you talk, the more I see you coming from the alpha male school of thought, where everything is resolved from fighting and violence and ranting and name calling, while little is resolved from actual discussion and even less still results in real intellectual thought.
Go ahead… call me an idiot. Make my case for me.
Stormy70
Ask the Spainish about Al Jazeera’s “reporters”.
I would hope that we are on a crusade against Islamic terrorism. And if they are still pissed about the Crusades, then they have serious issues that have nothing to do with America. I am not going to modify my speech to satisfy a backward, repressive ideology. Ask Zarqawi how winning the hearts and minds of Muslims is going for him this week.
B-B-B-B-Bush! Ack! Clunk!
ppGaz
To exactly the same extent that Fox News is a propaganda organ. About 95%.
Stormy70
You guys will believe anything written by an anti-Bush publication. You have become farce.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Geek, Esq.
To suggest it as a joke is perfectly understandable.
To suggest it as a realistic plan is perfectly insane.
John S.
Oh, Stormy. Why do you hate history?
ppGaz
Stormy: Saddam Hussein’s lawyer’s opening argument to the jury:
“You guys will believe anything written by an Anti-Saddam publication.”
Pb
Stormy,
Oh, the irony!
Happy Thanksgiving to you too!
Richard Bottoms
Are folks on the Right just plain blood-thristy and nuts?
Otto Man
Amen. That’s the Bush Doctrine in a nutshell: They’ll love us if we just drop enough bombs on them.
Pb
Otto Man,
I’m sure that the DoD has someone, somewhere, working on a ‘freedom bomb’ as we speak. Maybe it can also spew confetti.
Steve
Okay. ¿Qué pasa con los reporteros de al-Jazeera?
Esperaré una respuesta.
Are there any commenters from Spain on this blog? Or should I email [email protected]_internet.com?
Otto Man
Do we have any ordinance from a French company? Because we’d obviously need to rename those things anyway.
Tim F.
Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean that Arab governments like them any better. They are the top muckrakers and independent journalists in the Arab world. In some ways that’s like being the tallest guy at a short convention, but nonetheless it your average Arab leader was Bush and Jazeera was American they’d be a lot closer to Dan Rather than Brit Hume.
p.lukasiak
“just joking?” The reporting on the transcripts strongly suggest that Tony Blair had to talk Bush out of his “little joke”.
Lets not forget that Bush wanted to invade Iraq immediately after 9-11, and had be talked into deferring those plans and instead attack the country where the perpetrators of 9-11 were being “harbored.”
And regardless of what anyone says, you gotta respect a 24 hour news network that doesn’t spend any time reporting on missing white women…..
stickler
Let’s recap. So far, George W. Bush has managed to lose a global propaganda war against Saddam Hussein. He proclaimed “Mission Accomplished” just as the insurgency was getting started.
And now, among other things, he’s topped Reagan’s penchant for jaw-dropping stupid remarks. “The bombing begins in five minutes…”
Oh, and he has three years left to think up new ways to get into the history books. Hang on.
Steve S
One of my coworkers is Palestinian Christian. So he has an interesting perspective on lot’s of stuff. His take on Al Jazeera is that it’s pretty much just like a CNN/BBC, only with a different slant. Although he does say that they are very naive/amteurish as it’s new. But most of what the West has disagreed with them on have been things like publishing messages from bin Laden, etc., and from their perspective they consider it scooping the story, not propaganda.
I think calling them propaganda comes from the same mindset as those who think only reporting bad news out of Iraq means you hate soldiers.
Steve S
What Tim F. said on Al-Jazeera. They’re a thorn in the side of the Syrians and others as well.
Thomas
When is Bob Woodward going to proudly declare himself bombable in sympathy with his fellow reporters at Al-Jazeera?
Mike S
They have exceeded our expectations of Shear stupidity so many times that it’s hard not to believe a story that shows more stupidity.
Faux News
Folks, I’m not feeling the love here on this thread. With all of this “bomb Faux News” comments.
I feel, well “dis-empowered”
Group hug anyone?
:-(
Ahmed Chalabi
It would have been a brilliant move. The hearts and minds of the entire middle east would have been won in an instant. The citizens of Qatar would have been having a parade for us while throwing flowers at the feet of our soldiers.
CaseyL
Hard not to, when they’ve got such great material to work with.
Andrew J. Lazarus
al-Jazeera is light years ahead of the state-run media in the Middle East on lack of democracy, government corruption, status of women, and other issues impacting the daily life of Arabs. They’re also willing to interview Israelis and to report from Israel, which many other Arab news organizations will not. I’d say their target is the Western-oriented Arab middle class, but this group is unlikely to be any more enthusiastic than the Islamic Brotherhood about signs of American neo-colonialism in Iraq.
I believe Stormy is stating, elliptically, that an al-Jazeera reporter who has interviewed Osama bin Laden was arrested and sent to prison on suspicion of actually aiding al-Qaeda.
Vlad
If it was a joke, it was in poor taste and unhelpful to his cause, but not really a hanging offense.
If it was in earnest, it was a spectacularly bad idea, and we should all be grateful that he didn’t follow through.
Ahmed Chalabi
“Oh, Stormy. Why do you hate history?”
Ask her why “water boarding” is her favorite sport :-)
pmm
The Daily Mirror is the same tabloid that ran the “British Abu Ghraib” photos that turned out to be from an S&M site, so I have problems w/ their credibility. Assuming it’s true, the story reminds me of the time Pres Reagan joked into a live mike:
John S.
Well, Bush does aspire to be like Reagan…
jg
Bush couldn’t carry Reagans jock strap.
Pb
…and then had to be convinced not to follow through with it by a friendly foreign leader. Nope, not buying it.
Jon H
Well, you know, Al-Jazeera was in posession of WMD, such as the insidious SM-57.
The Disenfranchised Voter
I didn’t. And in all honesty, I think Al-Jazeera is more credible than sources such as NewsMax and WorldNetDaily.
TallDave
HOW DARE YOU CRUSH AL-JAZEERA’S PATRIOTIC DISSENT!!
Mike S
Dumbest guy on the internet.
ppGaz
Tomorrow’s talk-about story is this Bush PDB shortly after 911, which explains to Spud that there is no reason to believe that there is a connection between 911 and Saddam Hussein. See MSNBC for more.
Mike S
Or read Murry Waas’ full article.
But wait. Didn’t Cheney continue to claim there was evidence of a connection even after the war started?
John S.
You ain’t just whistling Dixie, ppgaz.
From the MSNBC story:
This should be interesting.
John S.
Here’s the original National Journal article by Murray Waas.
ppGaz
Yes, and the LCs (lying c-suckers) not only winked at that nonexistent connection then, THEY ARE STILL DOING TODAY AS WE SPEAK.
(Nobody can lick our big) Dick Cheney just this week was hinting at such a connection, IIRC.
These bastards have no shame.
Mike S
Yup. Here’s the Knight Ridder piece on it.
a guy called larry
In the wrong hands, they can do lots of damage.
Sine.Qua.Non
I get it completely – I lived in Texas while this moron governed and destroyed everything he touched, just like now. Nothing has changed, he just has a lot more money to throw away and no clue how to legislate. He hasn’t figured out yet that government is not a damned coporation, baseball team, or oil company — several of which he bankrupted.
ppGaz
Yes, SQN … my “subtle point” thing was a bit of sarcasm. But I can imagine being a Texan and having this nincompoop as governor ….. We’ve had some rather colorful governors out here in AZ. One of them is now a convicted felon.
Anyhoo … I’m walking through the kitchen where a tv was on, and I could SWEAR I hear Tucker Carlson defending the idea of bombing Al Jazeera.
I stood there in shock for a moment, and then they went to commercial … not sure if I was hearing it correctly since I missed the main part of the segment ….
Are we now going to have righties defending the idea of bombing Al Jazeera?
Just when you think you’ve seen everything …..
Pb
Man that PDB story is something else.
What’s that you say, MS-NBC? Bush lied?
I’ll start cooking up the crow now, I think we’re going to need a lot of it here…
Pb
ppGaz,
You heard right. Apparently he holds state-run media ‘propaganda’ outlets to a different standard. He backed a way a little, and said that we should at least be able to consider bombing them. Rachel Maddow made a couple of good points I think, but there are always good points out there to be made.
I would have argued that al-Jazeera is Qatar’s equivalent to the BBC. And let’s say that Iran didn’t like the ‘biased’ coverage they were getting on the BBC–would they be within their rights to bomb them? I think they’d at least be able to consider it, according to Tucker’s standards.
ppGaz
Good lord.
Next we’ll be planning to bomb bloggers. Lefty bloggers.
OH SHIT WHAT IS THAT WHISTLING NOISE?
[ loud noise, tape ends ]
Jess
Has anyone here seen “Control Room”? Very interesting film for those who are curious about rather than hostile towards the other side of the story. A-J does have a bias, of course–as do all of our media outlets–but they do seem far more sincere than Fox (not hard to do) in their efforts to get at the truth and maintain their independence. But we’ll never know for sure what a truly even-handed story is since we’re all biased as well.
Steve S
So we all agree then?
The Bombing of Fox News begins in five minutes.
Pan Pan (anon)
Did anyone see the Frontline about Hurricane Katrina? That was a great Frontline.
Gray
“I know this will get me flamed, but so be it.”
Mr. Cole, I understand you want to get rid of those nasty liberal commenters. Congratulations. By lowering the intellectual level of this site to the lows of the average troll, you may succeed in the long run. Your reputation seems to be a small price for you to pay for achieving your goal.
ATS
I’m sure endorsing the bombing Al Jazeera will give John a leg up with the Izzy Asper/Murdoch crowd, but it is a despicable sentiment. The differences between Fox News and Al Jazeera would elude anyone who is neither an arab nore a tub-thumping American jingoist.
skip
This AM on C-Span Richard Perle said (among other inane things):
1) His nominee for best correspondent in Iraq is (still) Judith Miller.
2) Israel was against the US invasion of Iraq
3) The best scholar on Islam in the whole world is Bernard Lewis.
Addressing these bizarre opinions in turn, Perle is asking us to believe:
1) That the best reporter in Iraq was one who was wrong about everything.
2) That absolute the correlation between Netanyahu’s “Clean Breakl” and the US neocon agenda are a mere coincidence.
3) That the world’s best scholar on Islam is an Jewish-American professor in New Jersey.
In presenting the discredited Perle as an authority on the war, C-Span supplanted Jon Stewart as the funniest thing on telelevison.
snabby
Pathetic. Nothing but. You guys love the rule of law, except when you don’t.
Dee Schroeder
The governments of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran, Iraq, even Qatar are often very upset with Al-Jazeeria — BECAUSE THEY ATTACK ANYTHING THEY THINK IS WRONG — REGARDLESS OF WHO OR WHAT COUNTRY IS DOING IT!
But although most governments in the Mid-East don’t like Al-Jazeeria exposing wrongs — MOST PEOPLE IN THE MIDDLE EAST LOVE THE STATION!
And the station always gives those with opposing views the opportunity to come on the air & express them.
Now, Bush has done too many things to limit FREE SPEECH in the USA for me to mention here — AND NOW HE WANTS TO LIMIT FREE SPEECH IN ANOTHER COUNTRY!
Qatar is perhaps our strongest ally in the Middle-East — and for Bush to advoctate blowing up the TV station there — AT THE SAME TIME HE SPEAKS OF FREEDOM OF THE PRESS AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH — SHOWS CLEARLY THAT WE’VE PUT INTO OFFICE THE BIGGEST IDIOT IN THE WORLD!
In recent polls 55% of the people in Iraq dislike Bush & want us out of the country.
And Muslims all over the world hate Bush–WHY WOULD HE WANT TO INCREASE THE HATRED WITH A BOMBING OF AL-JAZEERA.
The guy clearly has shit for brains!