Only dictators ban television news (Helen Thomas)

[UpInArms]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/150333_helenthomas30.html

WASHINGTON -- The raid by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials on an Arab television network bureau in Baghdad and the ban on its broadcasts hardly fits my idea of how to spread democracy in the Middle East.

Isn't that the first thing dictators do -- shut down broadcast outlets and newspapers? For those in power, tolerating a free press is difficult, even in a democracy. As a foreign occupier in Iraq, we are proving it is intolerable.

The terrible irony here is that we pride ourselves on offering a model to the rest of the world on how to design -- and live by -- our constitutional freedoms. Journalists around the globe have been taught to emulate our approach to newsgathering, hopefully in an atmosphere free of government restraints.

At the same time, we're snuffing out news outlets we don't like.

...more...

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. The only reason we don't do it here

is because Chimpy has paid off all the major news outlets.

[LARED]

2. Huh?

On Monday, the U.S.-appointed Iraqi government raided the Baghdad bureau of the Al-Arabiya TV network. The network's crime was to broadcast an audiotape from Saddam Hussein complaining about Iraqis who were cooperating with the U.S. occupation force and calling for resistance. The tape had been sent to Al-Arabiya's headquarters in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates.

Sorry Helen, you dropped the ball on this one. This is perfectly sensible given what was broadcast. Our boys are getting killed daily and she wants to allow Saddam a voice encouraging Iraqi's to help kill more.

I'm disgusted.

[TacticalPeek]

3. Well, that would be the "free" part of "freedom of the press".

?

[LARED]

5. With freedom comes

responsibility. Iraq has not had a free press for a few generations. It still does not have a free press, and will hopefully someday get one that will handle its freedom responsibly.

Until then I have no problem whatsoever quenching freedom of the press in Iraq when it advocate killing Americans solders.

[IndianaGreen]

6. I assume you will then support concentration camps

for all those Americans that don't support Bush's wars.

You just bought Fascism, lock, stock, and barrel!

PS: The press merely reported the news, i.e., a Saddam tape, which is legitimate news. Do you like the sanitized news from Iraq better? Do you approve of the people "dancing in the streets"?

What is killing our troops is our occupation of Iraq. Get it?

[LARED]

9. Bull

I assume you will then support concentration camps

Yeah sure. Can't you create a better strawman than that?


The network's crime was to broadcast an audiotape from Saddam Hussein complaining about Iraqis who were cooperating with the U.S. occupation force and calling for resistance.

This is not reporting about a Saddam tape as if they told Iraqis about the tape. This is a broadcast that was intended to scare Iraqis that just spent decades under his dictatorship. It was intended to help kill Americans solders.

What is killing our troops is our occupation of Iraq. Get it?

Of course I get it. Do you get it is perfectly sensible to censure Saddam since we are there? Or are you one of those that figures the higher the American death toll the better things will get?

[forgethell]

11. Still

that's no reason to let the Irais broadcast information that helps them kill Americans. Iraq is NOT free, they are occupied. Occupiers have to take steps to ensure their own safety. the fact that they should NOT be there to begin with is of no immediate relevance to the peopel charged to protect them. Get it.

[IndianaGreen]

13. Occupiers deserve what they get, get it!

US troops are in the same role as the British before them, of the Germans in Occupied Europe, or the French in Algeria.

Many cheered the German army when it marched across the border into Poland. Some Germans, the true patriots, refused to join the cheering throngs.

If you care about the troops, bring them home NOW!

[Gman]

15. And occupyees always have the right to fight for their country

and expel the occupiers. You can't tell me we wouldn't do the same thing here.

No one wants to see America troops killed. But American troops have no legitimate business being in Baghdad, period, stop. Get America troops away from where they don't belong and they won't get killed. That's the answer.

[smaug]

7. Think again

Unfortunately, this is one of the requirements for a free press. I equate Bremer's shutting down of alternative news sources with Stalin's "democracies" in Eastern Europe. Bluntly, think. Is that too hard for you? You sound like a troll to me.

Go back to listening to the drug addict on dittohead radio.

[LARED]

10. How about putting your thinking cap on

Iraq does not have a free press. It hasn't had one in decades. Hopefully it will get one in the near future. Until that time I have no problems censuring Saddam if he is advocating what is essentially the killing of Americans.

[Jax]

12. Great response

LARED believed the lying appointed deserter about Iraq having 'weapons of mass destruction'. Sickening.

And welcome to DU.

Jax

[LARED]

16. Jax

LARED believed the lying appointed deserter about Iraq having 'weapons of mass destruction'. Sickening.

Huh?

If you insist upon lying about me at least address me.

[Gman]

14. I'm not in the least bit disgusted

Believe me, if Bush could silence people here in this country that oppose him in the very same manner, including DU, he would do it.

Censorship is censorship no matter how it occurs. You mean to tell me Fox wouldn't broadcast Saddam's speech if they got the chance? Yeah, right.

[LARED]

17. Censorship is censorship no matter how it occurs

I wonder if you really believe that?

So if I found out where you lived and took out an ad to entice someone to kill your family, you're OK with that because censorship is censorship no matter how it occurs.

There's not a great distance between the hypothetical scenario I just stated and what Hussein was doing?

[TacticalPeek]

4. Helen's voice has that ring of the wilderness.

"Even now, with the administration's pro-war arguments reduced to a pile of confetti, many news outlets have failed to demand accountability from the Bush administration for what appears to be systematic dishonesty in trying to justify the U.S. attack."

Too bad if the foreign press looks to us for their example.

[Lefty48197]

8. Will somebody please open the hallway door?

So we can hear what Helen is saying?