Rumsfeld Tells the Truth
Charles Johnson
Fri Nov 21, 2003 at 2:46 pm PST • Views: 197
Today Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced that a new US-run satellite TV channel will begin broadcasting to the Arab world, to counter the blatant anti-American, pro-jihad bias of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya: Rumsfeld Slams Two Arab TV Stations.
“At the present time, two of the most popular stations, Al-Arabiya and Al-Jazeera, are violently anti-coalition and were pro-Saddam Hussein, in the case of Al-Jazeera, in such an obvious way,” Rumsfeld said at a town hall meeting with Pentagon workers. “It will take some time to persuade people to watch alternative programming.”U.S. military officials have repeatedly accused Qatar-based Al-Jazeera and Dubai-based Al-Arabiya of having an anti-American bias, accusations which the networks strongly deny. Both networks have aired audiotape messages purported to be from Saddam Hussein.
Representatives of Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, of course, denied that their stations have any bias; in other words, they lied through their teeth, standard behavior for Arab media:
“Al-Jazeera always presents the facts on the ground, in a very professional and understandable manner, allowing for different opinions. We don’t deal in politics but in news,” said Al-Jazeera spokesman Jihad Ballout.“We are not going to censor ourselves. It is not our job to make things look good or bad.”
Salah Negm, Al-Arabiya’s news director, said Friday: “Al-Arabiya’s coverage is meant to be of the highest professional levels, and we think it is objective in displaying all points of view and all sides of the story of Iraq.”
Frank says: