Posted on 08/23/2006 1:46:33 PM PDT by Saveaplant_Eatavegan
“In the Footsteps of bin Laden” is the work of Christiane Amanpour and Peter Bergen, the CNN consultant who famously interviewed the terrorist in a cave in Afghanistan in 1997. Mr. Bergen, on whose book “The Osama bin Laden I Know” this program is partly based, is mindful of the ways his subject manipulates the American media. He admits that Mr. bin Laden gave his first interview to Peter Arnett on CNN because he wanted to “use” the cable news channel to promote jihad. Nonetheless, in tonight’s documentary, Mr. Bergen sounds awed anew by the cloak-and-dagger shenanigans that Mr. bin Laden and his crew staged for the interview nearly 10 years ago.
On the one hand, the producers here are attentive to Mr. bin Laden’s skill at media manipulation. On the other, they themselves seem half-seduced by the portrait of the pure-hearted Arab revolutionary that has so captivated parts of the Muslim world.
The documentary spends almost no time with critics in the Arab world who see Mr. bin Laden as a dangerous fanatic who may have pushed the world to the brink of a global catastrophe. Hasn’t Mr. Bergen learned anything in the eventful nine years since he met the terrorist? The documentary’s view that Mr. bin Laden’s zeal for jihad was corrupted into a murderous, revolutionary ideology by Egyptians like Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri seems like exactly the kind of thing Saudis like Mr. al-Faisal might tell impressionable visitors.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I hope this reporter has a nice severance package locked in.
Christiane Amanpour has the hots for OBL and kindred sorts...she is one evil journalist.
so far I would say it's not biased, neutral.
"birth of Al qaeda" is about to start in the show
I don't think he would be interested in her -He's got the hots for Whitney Houston.
This years crop of afganistan opium poppies are the best in a few decades!
Just damn, bin laden gets a Mr. in front of his name in NYT's articles and the President is just called Bush.
I caught just a small portion of the show last night and I noticed that they pointed out that Obama was energized by "the U.S. Government's" lack of response to the U.S.S. Cole bombing, though there was no mention of just who the U.S. President was at the time. I was going to hang around to see if they were more specific about events that occured during the current presidency but I got tired of listening to Cristiane drone on and on..... and on....
Actually- Clinton was shown giving a speech after the Cole- and it was mentioned that the government did not go after UBL at the time. I didn't watch it all- but it wasn't bad for CNN..
Obama?
I wonder if it will get an Award?
Did I say that? Oh, I'm sorry, I keep getting Osama and the Democrat's young rising star confused... ;-)
I don't know what they see in that guy.
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