Reagan once said he was going to bomb the Soviet Union in five minutes during a sound check. What Reagan said was ridiculous and he didn't mean it.
Let's assume, arguendo, President Bush said it and meant it. What's wrong with the idea other than there are better ways to stop or use Al-Jazeera?
The media could not care less about terrorists killing American soldiers, blowing up children seeking candy, car bombs in mosques, or beheading snuff videos. Those happen to the peons. We must try to understand the root causes and legitimate grievances of the alienated underclass, blah, blah. But if someone notices the media is the primary weapon in the terrorists' arsenal, suddenly moral lines must be drawn in the sand.
"That's other people. Now you're talking about the MEDIA!"
Let me shed a brief tear for these brave media types who report nasty things about our soldiers from the safety of the Green Zone, or embed themselves with terrorists who kill our soldiers. OK, I'm finished.
How many op-eds have you seen taking on the many war crimes committed by terrorists? I don't recall any. Shouldn't the media which turns mass murderers into soldiers hold them to the standards of soldiers? In the real world, of course not.
Shock, outrage, disbelief!
We all hope and pray that the American President was engaging in nothing more than neo-con Tourette-style babble about blowing things up. We are quite prepared to believe that the Daily Mirror is wrong. We are ready to accept that the two British civil servants who have leaked the account are either malicious or mistaken. But if there is one thing that would seem to confirm the essential accuracy of the story, it is that the Attorney General has announced that he will prosecute anyone printing the exact facts.
"Fairness"
To be fair to the Americans, we must also accept that they had good grounds for resenting al-Jazeera. The station is hugely respected in the Arab world, has about 35 million viewers, and yet it gives what can only be described as a thoroughly Arab perspective of current affairs. It assists in the glorification of suicide bombers; it publishes the rambling tapes of Bin Laden and others among the world's leading creeps and whackos; it is overwhelmingly hostile to America and sceptical about the neo-con project of imposing western values and political systems in the Middle East.
This from a Euro-weenie who thinks the UN is something more than a group of totalitarian kleptocrats.
They're not "western values" jackass, they're "universal" values.
Haughty, self-righteous, self-aggrandizing, selfish, faux-fair journalists should feel the terrorist acts they love to promote. Then, perhaps, the preceding document will apply to more than just the United States.
UPDATE: As if I need to prove what I just said, as it's self-evident to anyone who reads the news, I will anyway.
Typically value-neutral coverage of a mass murder of civilians by suicide car bomber
Suicide Car Bombing Kills 30 in Iraq
By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer
28 minutes ago
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide car bomb detonated outside a hospital in the center of a town south of Baghdad on Thursday, killing 30 people including four police guards, three women and two children, a doctor said. The bomber was targeting U.S. military vehicles parked nearby, an Iraqi army officer said.
The U.S. vehicles were parked near the hospital in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of Baghdad, where U.S. soldiers were distributing toys to children in the hospital, another Iraqi soldier said.
Dr. Dawoud al-Taie, the director of the Mahmoudiya hospital, said 35 people were wounded in the morning attack.
Iraqi army Capt. Ibrahim Abdeallah said two U.S. soldiers were among the wounded and one Humvee was damaged.
Mahmoudiya is a religiously mixed town in the so-called triangle of death, a region known for attacks on coalition forces and Shiites moving through the area to visit shrines south of the region.
In the southern Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, gunmen ambushed a police patrol on Thursday, killing four officers, police Capt. Qassim Hussein said.
In a separate attack, a bodyguard for the head of the Iraqi Islamic Party branch in Khalis, 50 miles north of Baghdad, was wounded in a drive-by shooting Thursday morning. Hussein Abid al-Zubeidi, who is also a member of the Diyala provincial council, said he escaped unharmed from the attack near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.
In a similar shooting, former Iraqi army Col. Hussein Mohammed was killed late Wednesday in Baqouba, said Dr. Ahmed Fouad, a morgue attendant.
There have been repeated in insurgent attacks in the Khalis-Baqouba area, mostly focusing on Iraqis who join the security forces or participate in politics.
Elsewhere, three American soldiers from Task Force Baghdad died of gunshot wounds Wednesday, the U.S. military said. Two died in southwest Baghdad, while another died in central Baghdad, the statement said.
Government spokesman Laith Kubba predicted insurgent attacks would rise before elections on Dec. 15. "Muslim extremists and Saddam (Hussein's) criminals" will be making their last stand, he told a news conference on Thursday.
On Wednesday, gunmen wearing Iraqi army uniforms burst into the home of a Sunni Arab sheik, killing him, three of his sons and a son-in-law in an attack police said may have been aimed at discouraging members of the minority from participating in next month's election.
Khadim Sarhid al-Hemaiyem, who lived on the outskirts of Baghdad, was the leader of a branch of the Dulaimi tribe, one of the biggest in Iraq. His brother is a candidate in the Dec. 15 parliamentary election, three of his sons had been policemen and another son was slain last month north of the capital, police and family members said.
The brutal attack on the sheik and his family took place amid a major campaign by U.S. and Iraqi authorities to encourage Sunni Arabs to vote next month in hopes of luring them away from the insurgency.
Some insurgent groups have declared a boycott of the election and have threatened politicians who participate. Police said they suspected the sheik's death was designed as a warning to Sunni Arabs against heeding the U.S. call.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's biggest Sunni political group, also condemned the assassination and demanded that the Defense Ministry "control its forces and punish the perpetrators."
Police Maj. Falah al-Mohammedawi denied that government forces were involved in the killings and blamed the insurgents.
Wascawy caws, always detonating! At least the shahid was trying to kill American soldiers. Just some collateral damage, nothing to see here.
OMG, a "brutal attack" on a sheik. Now THAT is something to be concerned about.
Training Iraqi security forces might take a little longer if they continue to 'fight' on both sides.
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