Are cartoons from the Middle East really that messed up?

Are you serious?! Al-Jazeera is the propaganda and recruitment arm of half the terrorist organizations currently operating in the Middle East. Every time Al-Queda needs to prove Osama bin Laden is still alive, then send the tape to Al-J, which broadcasts it all over the Arab World. They have televised the beheadings of Daniel Pearl and other victims of terrorist atrocities. They have given horribly slanted views of the Arab-Israeli conflict, doing human interest stories on Palestinian homes destroyed by "Jewish agression" while conveniently omitting the fact that those homes had been used as hiding places for rocket launchers that sent missiles into Israeli civilian neighborhoods.



Actually, no other country has the equilvalent of free speech protection written into the fundamental basis of its government. Even nations that we generally accept as "free", like Canada and the United Kingdom, have stronger government controls over their television and radio media than the United States ever had, particularly where political views and criticism of the government in concerned.



They're between seasons right now. Give 'em time.
 
Yes, I'm serious. Al-Jazeera has gotten into trouble with governments across the Middle East due to its insistence on journalistic independence. It has tapes sent to it by Al-Qaeda simply because it has quite possibly the widest network of journalists in the Middle East right now, and it isn't controlled by some countries' propaganda division. If it didn't exist, those tapes would just be sent to the nearest Middle Eastern news network. Al Jazeera is the largest. So it gets the tapes.

Anyone who calls it a 'propaganda and recruitment arm' has obviously never watched it. Al Jazeera has a stated mission to provide both sides of the debate. It doesn't condone suicide bombing, it simply provides a platform for those typically shunned by Western news media more concerned with events closer to home. Its english-language channel had its first news item as a suicide bombing in Israel, giving frequent air time to coverage of how horrible the event was, and its first major interview with Tony Blair by Sir David Frost for god's sake. You can't get more pedigree free press than that.
 
Yeah, the Holocaust-denying, let's-drive-all-the-Jews-into-the-sea genocidal crowd who are shunned by the Western news media because they're all barking mad. And their English-language channel is less slanted than their home broadcast because that's the only way they'd find buyers for their channel feed in the West.
 
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