Why Isn't This Story At The TOP OF THE GREATEST PAGE?

It's similar but probably better than the Downing Street Memo, & this time http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00363.htm&hl=en">There is no shortage of mainstream reports about it on Google News

It's a revelation that could finally push * over the edge.

It's the talk of the blogosphere down under. And Scoop News is leading with it.

So why when I search the greatest page for Blair's name is it nowhere to be found. There is a fast rising Al Jazeera thread... but it only has 13 votes so far.

If you think this story should be on the DU agenda reccommend this thread.

al

:)

(And yes, it's Greatest Page-able.)

look it up...

and that`s our mouthpiece...

Can you give me their link so I can add that to my list?

http://www.voanews.com/english/portal.cfm

From Wikipedia...
"The Voice of America (VOA) is the official broadcasting service of the United States government. It is one of the best-known stations in international broadcasting and is similar to international broadcasters such as the BBC World Service, BBC World, Deutsche Welle, and Radio France Internationale."

:freak:

It's been ALL over the UK, Canadian, Australian and Kiwi press for days.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/latest/tm_objectid=16414980%26method=full%26siteid=94762-name_page.html

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/topstories/tm_objectid=16407582%26method=full%26siteid=94762-name_page.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1648590,00.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5443579,00.html

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm051128/text/51128w06.htm#51128w06.html_sbhd4

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/11/29/worldviews.DTL


Results 1 - 60 of 60 related articles. Search took 0.61 seconds.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&ncl=http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2005/11/29/aljazeera051129.html

is the USA! :grr:

I hope this lying scandal is the one that finally pushes junior off a cliff...but I've thought that so many times before.

One of these man-made disasters has got to be the charm!:)

the us has blown up two of their offices and that is a war crime. seems to me that if blair is withholding evidence he could be in alittle trouble....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5443579,00.html
Blair Denies Knowing of U.S. Bomb Plans

Monday November 28, 2005 9:31 PM


AP Photo BAR885

LONDON (AP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday he had received no information suggesting the United States planned to bomb the Al-Jazeera television network.

The Daily Mirror last week published a document it said was a transcript of an April 2004 meeting between President Bush and Blair in which Bush spoke of attacking Al-Jazeera's headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

The newspaper, citing unidentified officials, said Blair argued against an attack. It quoted officials as disagreeing about whether Bush's alleged comment was a joke or was meant seriously.

A White House spokesman last week called the claims ``outlandish and inconceivable.''

Lawmaker Adam Price asked Blair in a written question made public Monday ``what information you received on action that the United States administration proposed to take against the Al-Jazeera television channel.''

Blair replied: ``None.''

I can't understand how he's still around. Along with John Conyers, Robin Cook is my model for a truly fine politician, a person of great intellectual and personal integrity.

Thanks for the reminder.

the media in US are playing it down

Please help Al - I posted this and would appreciate some input, also any publicity Scoop can give - *please* - the Christian Peacemaker Teams are international and they deserve our attention!

<http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5478561&mesg_id=5478561>

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0511/S00569.htm

Indyop... I will make sure we keep an eye on this story and give it some prominence on the site...

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10357895

Auckland man held hostage

01.12.05
By Mathew Dearnaley and Claire Trevett


An Auckland University literature student is one of four humanitarian volunteers being held hostage at gunpoint in Iraq and accused of spying.

Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, a Canadian citizen born in Africa to Indian parents, travelled to Iraq after finishing the academic year in Auckland last month and was kidnapped in west Baghdad at the weekend.

He is a single man who arrived in this country early in 2003, has gained residency here, and hopes to obtain dual New Zealand-Canadian citizenship.

I think my post (and PM) to Alistair may have encouraged him to put it on the front page of Scoop -- and I heard more about it on AAR this morning because they were responding to Limbaugh insanity: Rush said he was glad the peacekeepers had been kidnapped because it shows how out of touch with reality peace activists are and this just demonstrates to the American public why the US must stay in Iraq to keep people safe. F*'er.

as of this posting. The memo story is no longer the lead. http://www.scoop.co.nz/

I think my post (and PM) to Alistair may have encouraged him to put it on the front page of Scoop -- and I heard more about it on AAR this morning because they were responding to Limbaugh insanity: Rush said he was glad the peacekeepers had been kidnapped because it shows how out of touch with reality peace activists are and this just demonstrates to the American public why the US must stay in Iraq to keep people safe. F*'er.

I believe they roll over ever 24 or 48 hours...so maybe this story has been up there already, possibly numerous times. Just a thought. I rather doubt it's indicative of any sitewide apathy to the issue.

Edited to add: You're on the Greatest Page now, but you still won't be able to search on "Blair" and find anything...since you didn't indicate what the thread was about in the title. :)

Blair's name doesn't have to be in the thread's title to get a search hit - unless, of course, you search only within the 'Thread Only' search box.

to target news outlets, chalking up another war crime the bushole would've involved us in if given the chance.

UK bloggers beating Fleet Street once again.... incredible work - and solid blogtage by the lads from Blair Watch. From Blair Watch




My understanding of this is

#1. Blair issued a gag order on the British press preventing them from even discussing a memo that supposedly has as its contents Bush's desire to bomb an Al-Jazeera affiliate in a nation friendly with the US. Such gag orders are rare in Britain.

#2. The justification for the gag order was later given that there was an ongoing trial involving two ex-officials who leaked this document and they wanted to avoid tainting the trial. This rationale is common in Britain and ongoing trials are not discussed in the media. (Freedom of press is different there.)

#3. However, the trial has to do with an entirely different memo, that is, there are two memos. In this case, the gag order was probably only made to avoid considerable embarrassment over the contents of the "Al-Jazeera" memo.

#4. If you want everyone to talk about something, issue a gag order. Everyone wants to know the contents of the "Al-Jazeera" memo. The reasons they want to know vary from "How crazy is the US?" to "Let's embarrass Blair some more."

#5. The content of the "Al-Jazeera" memo may be much worse than just the bombing of Al-Jazeera.

This is my understanding. Those who have followed the story more closely please make corrections.

What is implied is that there is a wild-ass crazy memo out there exposing (further) the recklessness of Bush and the complicity of Blair. The ham-handed attempt to bat it down makes it even more interesting.

Tis worth pointing out that none of the rules that apply to the British media about reporting something before the courts apply to the US Media. They can report to their hearts delight about this if they choose to do so.

well..look...we are torturing people right now for the "war on terror" and nobdody seems to care. What's a little bombing of a "radical" Muslim TV station? This is war isn't it? I really am appalled and realize that any attempt at believing we are civilized people is over. It's numb fatigue or something. It's horrifying. It's too believable and unbelievable but I really don't think anybody cares. I think that would take a bomb on their own home to get it. That's what war is..pointless death of innocents over and over and a few of the ones your side deems bad.

They don't have the actual proof in their hands and even if they did well it didn't happen did it? They can barely work up the outrage in the media here for things that did happen.

I'm disgusted to be an American. And what DU knows is so much more than 90% of the rest of this country does or they would be in the street.

reports, especially British publications. But I said in one that I saw and published it in a thread here for DU, this is the Coke can all shook up and just waiting to blow.

I think there is plenty to say the least, going on behind the scenes about this at AJ. All it needs is a little time and it will be on Headline News around the world. They sent Blair a letter already demanding it be shown to them. And a woman who's husband was killed in the first Al Jazeera destruction is now seriously looking into suing the U.S. also because the first bomb damage was also likely intentional.

Add to all that, that the leak to someone who will publish it is incredibly likely. If you listen, you can almost hear it coming now. pffffffttttt.

Quite so...

BOOM!!!

DU moves fast, and it can be hard to keep up.
This story was ALL OVER DU when it broke (over 1 week ago).
This story was dominant on the Greatest Page for a couple of days.

Do a simple search with the keywords "al jazeera bombing" and you will get 58 hits.


:patriot:

Can you imagine what is in this transcript of Bush....

For years we have been speculating on what * says behind closed doors. If they are so sensitive about this it is for a reason.... methinks that when this is released - and it will be - then whatever remains of *'s public persona will be well and truly destroyed.

So far as DU is concerned... this like the Downing Street Memo is an opportunity for us to get active and demand that it be released.

While D notices can be served in the UK.. they have no force in the US... why hasn't one of the US Papers obtained a copy of it yet.

IT IS TIME THE US PROGRESSIVE JUGGERNAUT STARTED PUBLICLY DEMANDING TO SEE THIS....

Remember that floor of a hotel that was occupied by reporters and shelled by a tank. I think the civies in the Pentagon definitely has "hit squads" out there who's task is to take out reporters.

There is NO WAY, that the insurgents are targeting reporters. The Islamic world has known for quite some time that press coverage of military operations by westerners in the Middle East helps them considerably.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0304/S00223.htm#target
TARGETING OF JOURNALISTS

But so much for the official spokespeople, what about the reporting of the war from the field

Well for a start it paid in spades for reporters to be accredited and embedded, and for them to consent to the U.S. government censorship that this entailed. It paid because the main alternative to being embedded appeared to be to become a target.

Again with the benefit of hindsight it was not that surprising that the ranks of Journalists experienced a remarkably high level of casualties in this war. What was perhaps remarkable was the lack of hard questions asked about this to the military hierarchy by their colleagues.

It was not surprising because of what we had seen from the earlier war in Afghanistan. Then the U.S. bombed Al Jazeera too. And then there was the warning given to the BBC's Kate Adie before the war began.

On March 10th, Adie, a senior BBC war correspondent told Irish national radio broadcaster Tom McGurk.

" I was told by a senior officer in the Pentagon, that if uplinks --that is the television signals out of... Bhagdad, for example-- were detected by any planes ...electronic media... mediums, of the military above Bhagdad... they'd be fired down on. Even if they were journalists .."

( Pentagon Threatens To Kill Independent Reporters In Iraq )

Strangely this apparent Scoop, which was picked up and widely distributed by the independent online media prior to the war, was as far as I can see not reported in any other mainstream media at all.

Later, after numerous independent journalists were targeted – allegedly accidentally of course–the question about Pentagon shoot to kill policies regarding independent journalists were raised by several Journalist related bodies, if not by many actual media outlets.

On April the 10th after the most egregious examples of Journalist targeting on April 8th FAIR issued an advisory press release headed: " MEDIA ADVISORY: Is Killing Part of Pentagon Press Policy?". This said:


"On April 8… U.S. military forces launched what appeared to be deliberate attacks on independent journalists covering the war, killing three and injuring four others. In one incident, a U.S. tank fired an explosive shell at the Palestine Hotel, where most non-embedded international reporters in Baghdad are based. Two journalists, Taras Protsyuk of the British news agency Reuters and Jose Couso of the Spanish network Telecino, were killed; three other journalists were injured. The tank, which was parked nearby, appeared to carefully select its target, according to journalists in the hotel, raising and aiming its gun turret some two minutes before firing a single shell.
…

Earlier in the day, the U.S. launched separate but near-simultaneous attacks on the Baghdad offices of Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV, two Arabic-language news networks that have been broadcasting graphic footage of the human cost of the war. Both outlets had informed the Pentagon of their exact locations, according to a statement from the Committee to Protect Journalists. "
(Links: http://www.fair.org/press-releases/iraq-journalists.html
MEDIA ADVISORY: Is Killing Part of Pentagon Press Policy? )

Something like half a dozen Reuters' reporters have been killed in Iraq by US military.

Reuters' doesn't toe the line/carry water anything like AP, NYT, WaPo, CNN, etc.

P.S. Are UK reporters the only ones with balls this war?

DU ROCKS

:yourock:

:yourock:

:yourock:

:yourock:

:yourock:

:yourock:

:yourock:

:yourock:

:yourock:

More than I could have possibly expected... 8 more votes and we have mission accomplished...

Methinks we should start linking to threads, resources and efforts underway to get this story REALLY PUMPING!!!

Think about it for a while and you will see why I am so hot about this.

- There is already a 5 Page transcript of* talking dangerous moronic crapola of the most virulent kind in the wild.
- * is in this transcript seeking to bomb a TV station owned by a staunch US ally, a TV station which is probably the most popular news outlet in the muslim world (i.e. imagine the damage this is doing to US interests in the Arab world).
- *'s admin have already bombed Al Jazeera twice. This once revealed will lead to a long overdue PROPER INVESTIGATION into those incidents.
- Poodle Blair & Mclellan have already publicly denied the content of this leak (After slapping a D Notice on it and explicitly confirming its content, but B4 the content has been reported!!!) - once WE GET TO READ THE TRANSCRIPT is released they will be demonstrably liars
- This story comes with a custom made delayed action fuse, which will enable all the forces who recognise the significance of this story and ENSURE MAXIMUM IMPACT ONCE IT MAKES THE FRONT PAGE OF EVERY NEWSPAPER AND NEWS BULLETIN ON THE PLANET.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/11/30/al_jazeera/
Did Bush plan to bomb Al-Jazeera?
The American press is predictably ignoring the story. Yet it is only too plausible that Bush wanted to wipe out what he saw as a nest of terrorists.

By Juan Cole

Nov. 30, 2005 | Last week, the British newspaper the Daily Mirror reported that George W. Bush had told U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair in April 2004 that he was planning to bomb the Al-Jazeera offices in Qatar. The report, based on a leaked top-secret government memo, claimed that Blair dissuaded Bush from bombing the Arab cable news channel's offices. An anonymous source told the Mirror, "There's no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." The Mirror quoted a government spokesperson, also anonymous, as suggesting that Bush's threat had been "humorous, not serious." But the newspaper quoted another source who said, "Bush was deadly serious, as was Blair. That much is absolutely clear from the language used by both men."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan brushed off the report, telling the Associated Press in an e-mail, "We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response." In a response to a question asked in Parliament, Tony Blair denied that Bush had told him he planned to take action against Al-Jazeera. The two men involved in the leak have been charged with violating Britain's Official Secrets Act.

The report kicked off a furor in Europe and the Middle East. It was, predictably, virtually ignored by the American press. It would be premature to claim that the Mirror's report, based on anonymous sources and a document that has not been made public, proves that Bush intended to bomb Al-Jazeera. But the frightening truth is that it is only too possible that the Mirror's report is accurate. Bush and his inner circle, in particular Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, had long demonized the channel as "vicious," "inexcusably biased" and abetting terrorists. Considering the administration's no-holds-barred approach to the "war on terror," the closed circle of ideologues that surround Bush, and his own messianic certainty about his divine mission to rid the world of "evil," the idea that he seriously considered bombing what he perceived as a nest of terrorist sympathizers simply cannot be ruled out. Add in the fact that the U.S. military had previously bombed Al-Jazeera's Kabul, Afghanistan, and Baghdad, Iraq, offices (the U.S. pleaded ignorance in the Kabul case, and claimed the Baghdad bombing was a mistake), and the case becomes stronger still.

.... snip ...



.. snip ...

& the final para....




Snap...

:)

be ranting about taking 'em out... why that's outrageous, inaccurate, inconceivable, inexcusable, vicious nonsense and

COMPLETELY BELIEVABLE

That's our boy - whatever it takes, dead or alive, plain spoken cowboy.

In fact, local medical authorities put the number of dead at Fallujah, most of them women, children and noncombatants, at around 600.

As the London Times pointed out on Sunday, Bush's conference with Blair, at which he announced his plan to bomb the channel's Doha offices, occurred the very next day.

What a sad day this is, our President ordering a hit on a news enterprise. I just realized that they may have gotten David Frost, who now works for that concern.

Thanks for the reminder althecat. We needed that!

Pressure Mounts For Release Of Transcript Of Bush & Blair Discussing Bombing Al Jazeera

Wednesday 30, November 2005 (Front Page)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0511/S00374.htm

- British Prime Minister Tony Blair is coming under opposition pressure to release a memo which reportedly show that he dissuaded President Bush from ordering the bombing the Head Quarters of Al Jazeera TV in Qatar, an ally of the United States. See... Pressure to Release "Bomb Al Jazeera" Transcript
MORE:

We here on DU care. Journalists care.

But I don't think I'm being cynical to think that Joe Average probably says "what's wrong with taking out Al-Jazeera?"

To most Americans, Al-Jazeera = Osama's mouthpiece and good riddance.

Most people haven't seen "Control Room" or heard interviews with those involved. They aren't able to distinguish between Arabs and Moslems, between Shi'a and Sunni, between fanatics and everyday ordinary Moslems. In the minds of many, they're all bad, they all contributed to 9/11, bomb them back into the Stone Age.

Now getting a blow job outside the covenant of marriage - THAT's bad...

had this to say on Monday (I wonder if he may have actually seen the 'memo'?), emphasis added: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1652234,00.html


<snip>

What the attorney kept under wraps

Marcel Berlins
Monday November 28, 2005
The Guardian

Lord Goldsmith has been a busy attorney general in the past few days, caught up in two controversies and having to scatter denials and explanations all over the media. Question one: Is he trying to gag newspapers by threatening to use the Official Secrets Act against those who publish the contents of the memo said to contain President Bush's idea of bombing al-Jazeera and Tony Blair's advice to him not to do so?

Not at all, says the attorney general. Me, of all people, gag the press? Heaven forfend. He was merely reminding papers, in the words of his note to them, "that to publish the contents of a document which is known to have been unlawfully disclosed by a crown servant is itself a breach of section 5 of the Official Secrets Act". True, but only (Lord Goldsmith omitted to say) if the prosecution can prove that what was disclosed was damaging (I summarise) to the country's security or to its international relations and - an important "and" - that the newspaper knew (or had cause to believe) that it was damaging.

I have been trying all weekend to think of ways in which disclosing the memo - even if, apart from the al-Jazeera bits, it also contains what Bush and Blair said about the US attack on Falluja - could cause the damage required by the act. I have failed.

On the radio Lord Goldsmith added another warning, pointing out that there was a "live" prosecution. In other words, watch out, the media, that you don't commit contempt of court. But that would be triggered only by publishing something that creates a "substantial risk of serious prejudice" to a forthcoming trial. I cannot see how revealing more about the Bush-Blair conversation could create that degree of prejudice (or indeed any) to the case of the two men facing the official secrets prosecution. The final score: Threats to the media by Lord Goldsmith 2; empty threats 2.

DUers are educated about the targeted assassinations of reporters and the Bush Administrations blatant violations of human rights.

I would not be surprised if Bush had to be dissuaded from arresting every Liberal activist in the UNited States.

It was a good show. I can't believe no-one has got the document yet. It needs to be seen NOW! Who cares what they do after, the info will be a bombshell...

calling for U.S. forces to "take out" the al-Jazeera broadcast tower in Baghdad, in the early days of the Bush-43 Iraq invasion. I saw this on the TV at a local lunch spot and couldn't believe my eyes and ears. An American "news" "anchor" openly saying that the U.S. military should attack another news operation?

I didn't know who Smith was at the time, being a rare Faux viewer. I just thought of him as "that Ken doll guy." Now I see on the Faux web site that Smith is "the second most trusted news anchor in the country." Who's first? Sean Hannity?

Now that this story (Bush ordering an offensive against al-Jazeera) is coming out, I can't help wondering if Smith's statement was part of a coordinated effort to make the attacks on al-Jazeera palatable to the American public. Or was he just speaking from the heart that day? Either way, it's chilling.

...an awful lot of Americans have swallowed the GOP line that Al Jazeera is nothing but a mouthpiece for Osama Bin Laden and therefore would DESERVE any attack by the US.

I'm pretty sure that's why this story got no traction.

Besides, what about the non-embedded AMERICAN reporters in that hotel in Baghdad that were DELIBERATELY KILLED by US troops early in the invasion? If that story got more press, it might cause a bit more outrage...

... the ruse worked and it is up top and destined to stay there four a couple of hours more methinks...

http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/2107
Submitted by editor on November 30, 2005 - 1:28pm.
By Danny Schechter
Source: TomPaine.com


The recent news that President George W. Bush might have threatened to bomb Al Jazeera is hard to believe. We don’t want to believe it. And given the source of the allegation—a British tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mirror —it deserves scrutiny. But it also deserves investigation, which so far the American press has been slow in pursuing.

Here's the background: Last week The Daily Mirror reported leaks of another memo from 10 Downing Street (a website in England called Blair Watch reports there may actually be two memos). The memo allegedly reported that, in a 2004 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush discussed bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar. According to the allegation, Blair talked him out of it. The meeting between Bush and Blair occurred as U.S. troops were engaged in brutal combat in Fallujah—an offensive aired with all its gore by Al Jazeera but mostly sanitized in the United States. Bush was reportedly outraged that Al Jazeera was reporting the high number of Iraqi civilians killed in the assault.

The White House dismissed the bomb threat report as “outlandish.” For his part, Tony Blair tried to ignore it, and later derided it as a “conspiracy’ theory.

more...
http://mediachannel.org/blog/node/2107

The media treatment of the shocking allegation is one more chapter in the great gap that persists between the “all about us” coverage of Iraq by the U.S. media and the reporting in the rest of the world. Much of the U.S. media downplayed the story of the bombing threat after first ridiculing it as a “joke”—intimating that if the comment had been made at all, it wasn’t intended to be taken seriously. But how will the world know whether or not Bush was joking if the media won't even investigate the memo? It remains to be seen if U.S. media outlets will return to this and many other unanswered questions about the allegation. Surely, such a hot-button issue that has inflamed antagonisms in the world—and the world of media—deserves more investigation and outrage.

Go Danny!!!

Just got this in the inbox.....


Dear Friends,

As a MediaChannel.org blogger and on-line journalist I know that work posted on the Internet can be ephemeral, here today, gone tomorrow. That's why I also write books that permit more reflection and elaboration. I want to tell you about my two latest efforts that I hope will interest you.
One, THE DEATH OF THE MEDIA is a media manifesto, the other, WHEN NEWS LIES examines media complicity in the Iraq War (my film WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception is included in the book). The book charges that among the war crimes we have been reading about are media crimes that go way beyond the transgressions and duplicity of individual reporters like Judith Miller, who has just left the New York Times.

I am appealing to those of you who think these subjects are important to help me get the word out by forwarding this e-mail to interested friends and publications. The small publishing houses that publish my work are at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace. It takes a grass roots campaign to alert potential readers. I have to reach out to people I’ve met and know.

Please also request these titles at bookstores and libraries and tell people and journalists who you think might be interested.

In this holiday season, we are also seeking support to continue the work of MediaChannel.org which carries my daily News Dissector blog. Tax-deductible donations to support MediaChannel can be made out to our fiscal sponsor, The Global Center, and sent to 575 8th Avenue, #2200, New York, NY, 10018, or you can donate online at: www.mediachannel.org/membership

MediaChannel is at the forefront of an emerging media and democracy movement, I hope these books and our work can become a WMI -- Weapon of Mass Instruction. We need media reform more than ever, but first we have to educate the public about issues that for obvious reasons are often not covered in our media.

You can order these books on line at: http://www.newsdissector.org/store.htm.

For an additional tax-deductible gift of $50, I will sign the books as well.

Onward,
Danny Schechter
News Dissector
Editor Mediachannel.org
Danny@mediachannel.org
Here's more on the books:

THE DEATH OF MEDIA: And the Fight to Save Democracy
The Publisher writes: So, how do we revitalize the Fourth Estate? In a book that is half manifesto and half piercing investigation, Schechter searches for an answer-exploring the promise of new media and considering how these new outlets are fueling the efforts by average citizens to reclaim the public airwaves. THE DEATH OF MEDIA is an inspiring guide to what can be done now. And thanks to Schechter's passion and vast experience, it is also something more: a brilliant and thrilling look at a turning point in our history. “

WHEN NEWS LIES: Media Complicity and The Iraq War

The book includes the feature-length DVD of the prize-winning film WMD: Weapons of Mass Deception and the complete script. WHEN NEWS LIES also includes a foreword by acclaimed media writer and Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff and prefaces by independent Iraq reporter Dahr Jamail and information warfare specialist Colonel (Ret) Sam Gardiner, a war analyst for the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Danny Schechter will be doing media appearances and lectures about the book and film.

For more on WMD, and to order the video: visit www.wmdthfilm.com

For earlier books and films: http://www.newsdissector.org/dissectorville

Sign up for our free emails. Support our action campaigns for better media on Mediachannel.org: http://www.mediachannel.org/email/

To reach Danny Schechter: Danny@mediachannel.org

FORGIVE US IF YOU RECEIVE MORE THAN ONE ANNOUNCEMENT.

Bush And Bomb Threats
Danny Schechter
November 30, 2005

“News Dissector” Danny Schechter edits Mediachannel.org. His latest books are The Death of Media (Melville Manifestos) and When News Lies on media complicity and the Iraq war (Select Books). See www.newsdissector.org/store.htm.

The recent news that President George W. Bush might have threatened to bomb Al Jazeera is hard to believe. We don’t want to believe it. And given the source of the allegation—a British tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mirror —it deserves scrutiny. But it also deserves investigation, which so far the American press has been slow in pursuing.

Here's the background: Last week The Daily Mirror reported leaks of another memo from 10 Downing Street (a website in England called Blair Watch reports there may actually be two memos). The memo allegedly reported that, in a 2004 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush discussed bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar. According to the allegation, Blair talked him out of it. The meeting between Bush and Blair occurred as U.S. troops were engaged in brutal combat in Fallujah—an offensive aired with all its gore by Al Jazeera but mostly sanitized in the United States. Bush was reportedly outraged that Al Jazeera was reporting the high number of Iraqi civilians killed in the assault.

The White House dismissed the bomb threat report as “outlandish.” For his part, Tony Blair tried to ignore it, and later derided it as a “conspiracy’ theory.

The specter of Bush threatening the Middle East’s most popular information source becomes less far-fetched when you consider the lengths this White House has pursued to censor damning information and the record of U.S. military attacks on the media. Many Americans don’t recall how, under George W. Bush, the U.S. military knocked out Saddam’s TV complex and attacked Al Jazeera offices in Kabul in 2001 and Baghdad in 2003. These incidents have for many U.S. viewers become “fog facts," in writer Larry Beinhart’s phrase—information we once knew, but has since disappeared from view.

more...

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051130/bush_and_bomb_threats.php

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5479125&mesg_id=5487237

snap

Guess you posted it while I was reading it!

Thanks for posting this story. Highly recommended!

THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW
Washington's Most Unofficial Source
1312 18th St NW (5th Floor)
Washington DC 20036 202-835-0770
Fax: 202-835-0779
Editor: Sam Smith

REVIEW E-MAIL: mailto:news@prorev.com
REVIEW INDEX: http://prorev.com/
LATEST HEADLINES: http://prorev.com
NEWS BY TOPIC: http://prorev.com/heads.htm
UNDERNEWS: http://prorev.com/indexa.htm


.. snip...

PAGE ONE MUST
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

LEADING MEDIA CRITIC HELPS BUSH BURY AL JAZEERA BOMBING STORY

MEDIA CHANNEL - Howard Kurtz, America’s official media critic, devoted
about 20 seconds to the story reported in England about the threat to
bomb Al Jazeera. Here’s the trivialization as performed by Kurtz and
former CBS correspondent turned CNN correspondent Bruce Morton on CNN’s
Reliable Sources program:

KURTZ: Bruce, this British tabloid report in "The Mirror" relying on one
unnamed source that said that the Bush -- that President Bush considered
bombing Al-Jazeera's offices but Tony Blair talked him out of it. The
White House says us that ludicrous.

Should CNN and lots of newspapers and other news organizes have reported
that?

MORTON: I don't know that there is any evidence of that. "The Mirror" --
the British tabloids are famous -- and "The Mirror," to be fair, is not
known for reliability. It ain't "The New York Times." You know.

KURTZ: Yet just about everybody picked it up, with the White House
denials, of course.

MORTON: I think we could have laid off that probably.

KURTZ: All right.

http://www.mediachannel.org

-- The problem with Kurtz's dismissal of the supposedly nonexistent story
is that British government has charged two, apparently in connection
with releasing it. --

CBC, CANADA - Two British men have been charged with leaking a top
secret government document to a backbench MP, but no one, not even their
lawyers, is being allowed to see what is in the document. Civil servant
David Keogh, 49, and former legislative researcher Leo O'Connor, 42,
appeared in court on Tuesday to face charges under the Official Secrets
Act. . . Many people in Britain know, or think they know, what the
secret document is. They believe it's a British government memo on a
conversation between U.S. President George W. Bush and British Prime
Minister Tony Blair, in April 2004. It is suspected that the document
led to a front-page scoop in a London tabloid accusing Bush of
apparently raising the possibility of bombing the headquarters in Qatar
of Al-Jazeera, the Arabic all-news network. According to the report
Blair talked him out of it. . .

The government retaliated with a threat to prosecute under the Official
Secrets Act if anything further was published. "The government is very
keen to keep this memo under wraps, they don't want to see it
published," said Maguire.

http://www.cbc.ca/storyview/MSN/world/national/2005/11/29/aljazeera051129.html


JUAN COLE, SALON - The report kicked off a furor in Europe and the
Middle East. It was, predictably, virtually ignored by the American
press. It would be premature to claim that the Mirror's report, based on
anonymous sources and a document that has not been made public, proves
that Bush intended to bomb Al-Jazeera. But the frightening truth is that
it is only too possible that the Mirror's report is accurate. Bush and
his inner circle, in particular Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld,
had long demonized the channel as "vicious," "inexcusably biased" and
abetting terrorists. Considering the administration's no-holds-barred
approach to the "war on terror," the closed circle of ideologues that
surround Bush, and his own messianic certainty about his divine mission
to rid the world of "evil," the idea that he seriously considered
bombing what he perceived as a nest of terrorist sympathizers simply
cannot be ruled out. Add in the fact that the U.S. military had
previously bombed Al-Jazeera's Kabul, Afghanistan, and Baghdad, Iraq,
offices (the U.S. pleaded ignorance in the Kabul case, and claimed the
Baghdad bombing was a mistake), and the case becomes stronger still. . .


Ironically, Rumsfeld himself had telegraphed the strategy during an
interview in 2001 on . . . Al-Jazeera. On Oct. 16, 2001, Rumsfeld talked
to the channel's Washington anchor Hafez Mirazi (who once worked for the
Voice of America but left in disgust at the level of censorship he faced
there). Although most such interviews are archived at the Department of
Defense, this one appears to be absent. Mirazi showed it again on
Monday, and it contained a segment in which Rumsfeld defended the
targeting of radio stations that supported the Taliban. He made it clear
right then that he believed in total war, and made no distinction
between civilian and military targets. The radio stations, he said, were
part of the Taliban war effort. In fact, Al-Jazeera bears no resemblance
to the pro-Taliban radio stations that Rumsfeld defended attacking. . .

Al-Jazeera was founded in the 1990s by disgruntled Arab journalists,
many of whom had worked for the BBC Arabic service, though a few came
from the Voice of America. The station was a breath of fresh air in the
stultified world of Arab news broadcasting, where news producers' idea
of an exciting segment is a stationary camera on two Arab leaders
sitting ceremonially on a Louis XIV sofa while martial music plays for
several minutes. In contrast, Al-Jazeera anchors host live debates that
often turn heated, and do not hesitate to ask sharp questions.

Despite the false stereotypes that circulate in the United States among
pundits and politicians who have never watched the station, most of
Al-Jazeera's programming is not Muslim fundamentalist in orientation.
The rhetoric is that of Arab nationalism, and the reporters are only
interested in fundamentalism to the extent that it is anti-imperialist
in tone. This slant gives many of the programs the musty, antiquated
feel of an old Gamal Abdul Nasser speech from the 1960s. In the Arab
world, clothes speak to politics. The male anchors and reporters usually
sport business suits, and the mostly unveiled women might as well be on
the runway of a European fashion show. . .

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/11/30/al_jazeera/

CBS NEWS - Prime Minister Tony Blair said Monday that he had received no
information suggesting the United States planned to bomb the al Jazeera
television network. . . Lawmaker Adam Price asked Blair in a written
parliamentary question made public Monday "what information you received
on action that the United States administration proposed to take against
the al Jazeera television channel." Blair replied with a one-word
answer: "None."

EDWARD M. GOMEZ, SF CHRONICLE - After the British tabloid the Mirror
reported this news, gleaned from a leaked top-secret British-government
memo, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, warned that anyone who dared
to publish the actual contents of the document would be prosecuted under
the provisions of the country's long-standing Official Secrets Act. . .

The British weekly the Observer reported: "Government officials
suggested Bush's comments were nothing more than a joke... the
White House described the allegations as 'unfathomable,' although,
according to those who have seen the memo, 'there is no question Bush
was serious.' ... ne indisputable fact, though, is that part of the
memo -- 10 lines to be precise -- concerns a conversation between Bush
and Blair regarding Al-Jazeera, the Arabic satellite-television station
that the U.S. accuses of being a mouthpiece for Al-Qaeda."

After all, "most gallingly" for the Bush administration, Al-Jazeera's
"reporters have told a story that Washington either disagrees with or
would rather remain untold: that the kind of war America is prosecuting
in Iraq is messy and heavy-handed; that civilians are too often the
victims, and that the insurgents are not shadowy, sinister figures but
ordinary men with more support than politicians would like to
acknowledge."

Worth keeping in mind, too, is that, at the time of Bush and Blair's
April 2004 meeting, Bush's war making in Iraq wasn't going well and
Al-Jazeera was dutifully reporting the bad news that "the Americans were
fighting in Falluja against Sunnis backed by foreign fighters linked to
the Al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," and that "ore than 600
Iraqi civilians were reported to have been killed in the offensive."
(Times)

In a radio interview, Lord Goldsmith tried to play down his threat to
invoke the Official Secrets Act against anyone who dared to publish the
contents of the memo about the April 2004 Bush-Blair powwow. "I wasn't
seeking to gag newspapers; what I said to newspapers was you need to
take legal advice," Goldsmith told a radio interviewer who accused him
"of trying to silence the media for political expediency." . . .

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson, a member of Parliament and the publisher of
the British magazine the Spectator, wrote in a commentary in the
Telegraph: "If someone passes me the document memo] 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."

Or as the headline of a news story about the leaked memo in the Observer
put it, referring to Bush's urge to drop bombs: "Why is the world's most
powerful man so worried about a TV station?"

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/11/29/worldviews.DTL

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10269701/site/newsweek/

The Case of the Secret Memo
The White House denies plans to bomb Al-Jazeera. But a warning sent out to British newspaper editors has given the controversy a fresh twist.

By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 5:44 p.m. ET Nov. 30, 2005
Nov. 30, 2005 - A British government crackdown on government leaks may have backfired by calling world attention to an ultrasensitive secret memo whose alleged contents have embarrassed President George W. Bush and strained relations between London and Washington. The document allegedly recounts a threat last year by Bush to bomb the head office of the Arabic TV news channel Al-Jazeera.

U.K. authorities consider the memo, described as minutes or a transcript of an April 16, 2004, White House meeting between Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, so diplomatically sensitive that Blair’s attorney general last week warned U.K. media by e-mail that they could face prosecution under the country's draconian Official Secrets Act if they reported on its contents. But all the legal threat appeared to do was call more attention to the still-mysterious document and, at a minimum, appear to confirm its existence.

Bush administration officials initially dismissed the memo’s allegations about Bush’s threat against Al-Jazeera as “outlandish.” U.S. officials later suggested that if Bush did talk with Blair about bombing Al-Jazeera, the president was only joking. Asked directly today about Bush's purported threat to bomb Al-Jazeera, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said: "Any such notion that we would engage in that kind of activity is just absurd." McLellan did not respond to follow-up questions as to whether Bush actually said what the memo says he did.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10269701/site/newsweek/

WMDs in "your" office. What a hoot that was.

http://dontbomb.blogspot.com/

Worth keeping an eye on, some good stuff there.

:kick:

Published on Thursday, December 1, 2005 by The Nation
The War on Al Jazeera
by Jeremy Scahill


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.

The Falluja offensive, one of the bloodiest assaults of the US occupation, was a turning point. In two weeks that April, thirty marines were killed as local guerrillas resisted US attempts to capture the city. Some 600 Iraqis died, many of them women and children. Al Jazeera broadcast from inside the besieged city, beaming images to the world. On live TV the network gave graphic documentary evidence disproving US denials that it was killing civilians. It was a public relations disaster, and the United States responded by attacking the messenger.

Just a few days before Bush allegedly proposed bombing the network, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Falluja, Ahmed Mansour, reported live on the air, "Last night we were targeted by some tanks, twice...but we escaped. The US wants us out of Falluja, but we will stay." On April 9 Washington demanded that Al Jazeera leave the city as a condition for a cease-fire. The network refused. Mansour wrote that the next day "American fighter jets fired around our new location, and they bombed the house where we had spent the night before, causing the death of the house owner Mr. Hussein Samir. Due to the serious threats we had to stop broadcasting for few days because every time we tried to broadcast the fighter jets spotted us we became under their fire."

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1201-35.htm

...and in fact are seen as the "propaganda arm of the terraists" by many.

But then FAUX is the propaganda arm of PNAC and that doesn't seem to bother them.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200512050005
Panic in Whitehall
Martin Bright
Monday 5th December 2005




Exclusive - For three months, behind the scenes, senior civil servants have been trying to stem an outbreak of leaks on the Iraq war which are proving highly damaging to Tony Blair. Martin Bright, who has had a ringside seat, reports on a government in disarray

Early in September a flurry of confidential e-mails started to fly around Whitehall between civil servants desperate to identify the sources of a series of high-level leaks that had appeared under my name. On 28 August, I had reported that Michael Jay, the top civil servant at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, had warned the government as early as May 2004 that the issue of Iraq was fuelling Muslim extremism in Britain, contradicting repeated denials from Downing Street that the war had made the UK a target for terrorists. A week later, two further leaks revealed that MI6 was planning to infiltrate Muslim extremist websites posing as Islamic radicals and that Foreign Office officials had recommended approving the visa application of the controversial Qatar-based cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi to avoid a Muslim backlash in Britain.

Andrew Noble, head of the FCO's security strategy unit, and Chris Wright, the Cabinet Office's director of security intelligence, were deeply irritated that such sensitive documents had found their way into the public domain. They launched a leak inquiry immediately. They even considered putting pressure on my editor at the time, the Observer's Roger Alton, to stop me running the stories. They agreed that "stopping any further leaks should be our priority".


http://www.newstatesman.com/200512050005