COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

In other words, "bad" journalists deserve to die and you are saying "Hell yea!" as their bodies continue to smolder, but the "good" journalists may be allowed to live--and the distinction between a "good" journalist and a "bad" journalist is to be determined by the Israeli "Self Defense" Force? Is that really the point you are so proud to associate yourself with? If broadcasting the wrong message makes a civilian technician into a legitimate military target, effectively there are no civilians in a modern, developed society.

Think about it from the perspective of enemies of the US. By your own logic, enemies of the US or Israel may justifiably bomb every working US or Israeli journalist at every operating US or Israeli broadcast station that has gone on air pimping Cheney's or Olmert's catastrophes in Iraq and Palestine and Lebanon and you won't have jack to say about it because they were obviously propagandists for the US and Israeli causes. How could rational enemies of the US pass up targeting major propaganda nodes such as the television broadcasting networks of the United States or Israel and still look themselves in the mirror in the morning?

This leads me to a second question:
I seem to recall you were quite outraged by the reality-based suggestion that the US army has been intentionally killing journalists. Why not "Hell, yeas!" all around if you think it's such a great idea?

By the way, I've never knowingly met a member of the International Federation of Journalists so my disgust with your remarks is no reflection on them.

Wow. I hadn't heard of them either. 500,000 journalists and nobody's a member.

I'm surprised you aren't discerning the difference between a free and independent media and a communications asset in the literal employ of an armed and hostile force? I mean, you really think The Hezbollah Television Network is the same as, say, "every working journalist" for NBC News?

Al Manar itself proclaims itself part of Hezbollah. And the U.S., via an executive order signed in September of 2001, formally categorizes al Manar as a terrorist organization. Al Manar is banned from accessing US airwaves. It's not like we're acting unilaterally - several European countries have similar sanctions against al Manar.

You know, these are the guys responsible for planting the rumor that 4,000 Jews were playing hookie from work at the WTC on Sept 11, 2001.

They serve as Hassan Nasrallah's principal means of mass communication. It's also one of Hezbollah's principal tools for fundraising. Yes, they have telethons, just like NPR. Except their fundraiser buy bombs for school busses and Pizzarias.

One of al Manar's senior officers publicly declared its purpose as "to help people on the way to what you in the West call a 'suicide mission.'

It calls for and incites the killing of US soldiers in Iraq. It has called for the murder of Israelis many times. Its children's shows pay homage to suicide bombers.

And you're going to try to draw parallels between al Manar and, say, Fox News?

Al Manar is no independent or inconvenient media outlet. Al Manar is, in effect, the Ministry of Communications for a brutal and murderous quasi regime.

And they made themselves a target when the first dime they raised went to Hezbollah.