Al Jazeera denies Rumsfeld charge it airs killings

[leftchick]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050604/ts_nm/security_rumsfeld_media_dc;_ylt=Ajud0BsSyOEkn1uNCMJQZH6s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2MTQ3MTFjBHNlYwN0cw--

DUBAI (Reuters) - The Arab TV channel Al Jazeera rejected on Saturday as unfounded Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's accusations that it was encouraging Islamic militant groups by airing beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq.


"Al Jazeera ... has never at any time transmitted pictures of killings or beheadings and ... any talk about this is absolutely unfounded," the television said in a statement.

Al Jazeera, repeatedly accused by Washington of biased reporting on Iraq, has often shown video of hostages pleading at gunpoint for their government to withdraw its troops. But it does not broadcast footage of killings, posted on the Internet by militants.

The channel voiced "deep regret and surprise" over Rumsfeld's remarks.

[Doctor_J]

1. Things are really bad when

I see things like this and believe AlJazeera over Rummy. I am sad :-(

[dArKeR]

5. Why would you feel bad? This Adm. and American Corp. Whore Media

have done nothing but lie. The facts are out there.

[K-W]

6. Feel bad? Because you trust a fairly independent media source

over the pentagon?

You should have been doing so all along.

[Doctor_J]

9. yes, but it still depresses me that ALJ is more

trustworthy than my own government

[BattyDem]

11. LOL! I thought the same thing ...

and came to the same conclusion - Rummy's the liar! It would absolutely hysterical if it wasn't so f*cking sad.

[Cooley Hurd]

2. I recommend "Control Room" to those who want to see behind-the-scenes...

...at Al Jazeera. Fascinating.

Rumsfeld's just LYING again.:eyes:

[MrPrax]

7. Yes...Control Room!!

Excellent little documentary--but make sure if you watch it at home, keep the large objects away from you, because you have this need to throw things at those jerks and scream, 'your a liar!!'

Most libraries have the video or DVD--so no one has any excuse!

[leftchick]

8. I was just going to ask where to find it

thanks!

:hi:

[TheFarseer]

3. WHAT!?!?!

This should be REALLY easy to confirm or dismiss.

[readmylips]

4. Rumbutt confusing AlJazeera for Fox....

the bush/rumbutt a$$ licking propaganda channel.

[Igel]

10. Don't know if this particular video was debunked.

If not, it only takes one counterexample to falsify an assertion.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/06/13/1087065028697.html

(on edit: I hate getting negation polarity backwards.)

[Jack Rabbit]

15. See post 14

Aljazeera's media spokesman, Jihad Ballout, said that Rumsfeld was mistaken. "Aljazeera has never ever shown a beheading of any hostage," Ballout said.

Perhaps this is a little weaselly. The 2004 execution described in the Sydney Morning Herald is a bullet through the back of the head, not a beheading.

[Igel]

18. I'll stick by my attempt at falsifying al-Jazeera's statement,

at least as reported in the OP:

""Al Jazeera ... has never at any time transmitted pictures of killings or beheadings and ... any talk about this is absolutely unfounded," the television said in a statement.

"Al Jazeera, repeatedly accused by Washington of biased reporting on Iraq, has often shown video of hostages pleading at gunpoint for their government to withdraw its troops. But it does not broadcast footage of killings, posted on the Internet by militants."

Unless there's some funky stipulation omitted by the ellipses, or the report's wrong, it just takes one example of their having aired a picture of a killing. If nothing else, the repeated airplay of the marine killing the wounded guy in a mosque falsifies the statement.

There's a weaselly out, of course: omit the comma from the last sentence in the second paragraph I quoted: so it's not that they didn't broadcast footage of killings, just not of killings posted on the Internet by militants. In that case, it's possible that the statement, if translated for the reporter, was accurate and the translator goofed.

[0007]

12. Captain Philip Francis Queeg (Humphrey Bogart) - Caine Mutiny (film)

Donald Rumsfeld is a dead ringer for Captain Queeg. Not in looks but in actions that speak louder than words.

?x=380&y=281&sig=KjWNT4ViNkoTEiM49SEPiQ--

[IndianaGreen]

13. Rumsfeld wants Al-Jazeera to carry the Jacko trial and the Paris Hilton

upcoming nuptials.

Let's face it, the Bush gang wants the press to be mouthpieces of their propaganda. It is galling that they expect the foreign press to become like the subservient lapdogs in the American press.

[Jack Rabbit]

16. That almost goes without saying

Right or wrong, al Jazeera covers the news as its editors see fit, not as the Bush regime would like. When al Jazeera isn't embarrassing the Bush regime with news contradicting their lies, then it's often embarrassing autocratic Arab regimes, some of whom are in the good graces of the US autocratic regime.

Frankly, I think the Bush regime wants al Jazeera off the air.

[Jack Rabbit]

14. Al Jazeera link

From al Jazeera
Dated Saturday June 4 10:45 GMT (3:45 am PDT)

Rumsfeld blames Aljazeera over Iraq
By Lawrence Smallman

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has alleged that Aljazeera is encouraging armed Islamist groups by broadcasting beheadings of foreign hostages in Iraq.

Speaking at a security conference in Singapore on Saturday, Rumsfeld said that "if anyone lived in the Middle East and watched a network like the Aljazeera day after day after day, even if he was an American, he would start waking up and asking what's wrong" . . . .

Aljazeera's media spokesman, Jihad Ballout, said that Rumsfeld was mistaken. "Aljazeera has never ever shown a beheading of any hostage," Ballout said.

"While we work hard to give a comprehensive and balanced account of everything that goes on in Iraq - people clearly have a right to know what is happening on the ground - we have never broadcast images of a hostage being beheaded," Ballout said.

Read more.

[Up2Late]

17. CHECK OUT THIS QUOTE!!!!!!! RUMMY'S Lost His Way!

Rumsfeld earlier said:

"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 told a security conference in Singapore.

"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 said.
<http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L04248939.htm>