June 04, 2005

Al Jazeera helps militancy - Rumsfeld

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Saturday that Arab news channel Al Jazeera was encouraging Islamic militant groups by broadcasting beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq.
[...]
"If anyone lived in the Middle East and watched a network like the Al Jazeera day after day after day, even if he was an American, he would start waking up and asking what's wrong. But America is not wrong. It's the people who are going on television chopping off people's heads, that is wrong," he said.

"And television networks that carry it and promote it and jump on the spark every time there is a terrorist act are promoting the acts," he told a security conference in Singapore.
[Yes, the news networks, the alphabets plus cable news, you know who you are.--Jen]

Al Jazeera's offices in Baghdad and in the Afghan capital, Kabul, have been hit by U.S. fire but Washington said the bombings had been accidental and had not targeted the network.
[Heh.--as Glenn Reynolds would say!]
[...]

Al Jazeera is forbidden to report from Saudi Arabia, and Iraq's U.S.-backed authorities have closed the network's office there, accusing it of supporting insurgents.

I love Rummy; his press conferences are almost as great as President Bush's.

*I apologize for the posting hiatus, but I had to take a Memorial Day/week holiday!
When you've been blogging this war for almost 3 years straight, it starts to get to one, dontcha know?
It was definitely time for some rest and play away from the blog.*