Froomkin: The al-Jazeera Dodge

[understandinglife]

The al-Jazeera Dodge

By Dan Froomkin
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, December 2, 2005; 1:54 PM

For some reason, the White House refuses to provide a straight answer to this question: Did President Bush raise the idea of bombing the headquarters of the al-Jazeera television network in an April 2004 conversation with British Prime Minister Tony Blair -- and if so, was he serious or was he joking?

Reporters who have asked press secretary Scott McClellan to respond to the claim first published in the British Daily Mirror almost two weeks ago have gotten two crude non-denial denials.

The first one was delivered last week, in an e-mail to the Associated Press: "We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response," McClellan wrote.

The next day, I predicted in my column that "nothing arouses White House reporters more these days than a non-denial denial." But I apparently overestimated the mainstream press corps' baloney detectors.

More at the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/12/02/BL2005120200961_pf.html

This one is not going away, no matter whether an American journalist besides Froomkin does their job.


Peace.

[understandinglife]

1. The War on Al Jazeera

The War on Al Jazeera

by JEREMY SCAHILL

December 19, 2005 issue of The Nation

If the classified memo detailing President Bush's alleged proposal to bomb the headquarters of Al Jazeera is provided to The Nation, we will publish the relevant sections. Why is it so vital that this information be made available to the American people? Because if a President who claims to be using the US military to liberate countries in order to spread freedom then conspires to destroy media that fail to echo his sentiments, he does not merely disgrace his office and soil the reputation of his country. He attacks a fundamental principle, freedom of the press--particularly a dissenting and disagreeable press--upon which that country was founded. --The Editors

Nothing puts the lie to the Bush Administration's absurd claim that it invaded Iraq to spread democracy throughout the Middle East more decisively than its ceaseless attacks on Al Jazeera, the institution that has done more than any other to break the stranglehold over information previously held by authoritarian forces, whether monarchs, military strongmen, occupiers or ayatollahs. The United States bombed its offices in Afghanistan in 2001, shelled the Basra hotel where Al Jazeera journalists were the only guests in April 2003, killed Iraq correspondent Tareq Ayoub a few days later in Baghdad and imprisoned several Al Jazeera reporters (including at Guantánamo), some of whom say they were tortured. In addition to the military attacks, the US-backed Iraqi government banned the network from reporting in Iraq.

Then in late November came a startling development: Britain's Daily Mirror reported that during an April 2004 White House meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, George W. Bush floated the idea of bombing Al Jazeera's international headquarters in Qatar. This allegation was based on leaked "Top Secret" minutes of the Bush-Blair summit. British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has activated the Official Secrets Act, threatening any publication that publishes any portion of the memo (he has already brought charges against a former Cabinet staffer and a former parliamentary aide). So while we don't yet know the contents of the memo, we do know that at the time of Bush's meeting with Blair, the Administration was in the throes of a very public, high-level temper tantrum directed against Al Jazeera. The meeting took place on April 16, at the peak of the first US siege of Falluja, and Al Jazeera was one of the few news outlets broadcasting from inside the city. Its exclusive footage was being broadcast by every network from CNN to the BBC.

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Conservative British MP Boris Johnson, who is by trade a journalist and is editor of The Spectator magazine, has offered to publish the memo if it is leaked to him. It should be published, and if any journal is prosecuted for doing so, it should be backed up by media organizations everywhere. The war against Al Jazeera and other unembedded journalists has been conducted with far too little outcry from the powerful media organizations of the world. It shouldn't take another bombing for this to be a story.

Link:
http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20051219&s=scahill

CBS News link:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/12/02/opinion/main1093505.shtml