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Snicker. To my fellow "brainwashed" colleagues on TM:

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How TV spreads wrong messages
By Mohammed A.R. Galadari

khaleej times online
18 September 2004

I WAS watching a Fox TV talk show and I liked the way it showed how most Americans have no hatred towards Muslims and Arabs. The show had Oliver North and a former US ambassador engaged in a discussion that touched upon the US elections, among other things.

The anchorman asked the former ambassador why he didn’t want Bush re-elected. The Ambassador said this was because, under his rule,

“We antagonized the whole Muslims around the world, and we made them feel we have a war with the Muslim world”.

Oliver North responded, saying, “You say we antagonized the Muslim world. Don’t you recall September 11, when 19 Muslims and Jihadis came and killed over 3000 people? They took our four aircraft and indulged in the worst kind of attacks on us. The reputation of America was affected.”

The ambassador replied that the fact remained no Muslim country was involved in the attack in any way. They were terrorists and they didn’t do it at the behest of the Muslim world. Bush rightly turned to Afghanistan, because Bin Laden, who claimed responsibility for the attacks, was holed up there. But, Bush didn’t finish the job there when he diverted his attention to Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with Osama bin Laden or the Sept 11 attack, he said.

Dear readers, we all say, and I too say it, that these 19 men were not human beings. They were devils. They did not belong to a country or represent a country. And no one supports anyone for what happened on Sept 11. The whole world has condemned it in strong terms.

It is clear to all that Muslim countries had nothing to do with the attacks.

Even all American leaders have admitted that they have nothing to show there was involvement of Iraq or any other country in the attack.

The fact is that every community, every religion, has terrorists in their ranks. Look at the Oklahoma bombing that killed many. It was a Christian American who did it. But that does not mean all Americans are devils. And no one takes a cue from Oklahoma and says Americans are terrorists.

I am not surprised that Oliver North talked like this on talk shows. What I could make out is that he is fully anti-Muslim. He is brainwashing Americans and bad-mouthing Muslims. The problem, as I said earlier in this column, is that certain anchormen in Fox News are bent on projecting a wrong image about Muslims. I have never seen this in any other American channel. They are showing anger openly against those they don’t like. They don’t mind that some 30 million Americans are watching what they say.

As far as Oliver North is concerned, it proves he is an extreme rightist conservative, with no respect to anybody other than the neo-conservatives.

Readers’ response may be forwarded to marg@khaleejtimes.com

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/comment/2004/September/comment_September19.xml&section=comment

Putin: Complicit West harbours terrorists

(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-09-18 08:55

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, Friday accused the West of harbouring Chechen terrorists, speaking hours after rebel leader Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the Beslan school massacre.

In a statement likely to further chill Russia's cooling relations with Europe and the United States, Putin said the West's "patronising and indulgent attitude to the murderers amounts to complicity in terror".

His remarks came the day after Moscow summoned Britain's charge d'affairs, Stephen Wordsworth, to the Russian foreign ministry to hear complaints about London's decision to grant asylum to a Chechen politician and an exiled Russian tycoon.

Wordsworth was told that the men, Chechen rebel spokesman Akhmed Zakayev and tycoon Boris Berezovsky, should be stopped from making "slanderous statements".

Meanwhile, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe has criticised Moscow for failing to provide accurate coverage of the Beslan siege and accused the government of opening a "credibility gap" between the state, media and the people.

A day of dramatic announcements began with the statement, via a rebel website, that Chechen guerrilla leader Basayev was finally accepting responsibility for the Beslan attack, saying a unit named Riyadus-Salikhin carried out the operation.

But Basayev insisted it was government forces, not his rebels, that were responsible for the massacre two weeks ago that has left 326 dead and another 100 people missing.

"A terrible tragedy occurred in the city of Beslan. The Kremlin vampire destroyed and wounded 1,000 children and adults," said the Basayev statement.

He repeated an earlier offer of peace if the Kremlin would grant Chechnya independence, something Moscow has ruled out. "We can guarantee that all of Russia's Muslims would refrain from armed methods of struggle against the Russian Federation, at least for ten to 15 years," said the statement.

The United States Friday denounced Basayev's admission. The US deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage, said: "He has proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that he is inhuman."

Basayev's comments have also ended speculation that the Beslan slaughter might trigger a pause in fighting, with the rebel leader, Russia's most wanted man, saying more attacks would follow.

"We are not bound by any circumstances, or to anybody, and we will continue to fight as is convenient and advantageous to us, and by our rules," he said.

What sort of attacks those rules allow is unclear, but Russia has been battered by a violent summer of attacks that its security forces have been powerless to prevent.

Putin, meanwhile, accused the West of hypocrisy by fighting against Osama bin Laden while at the same time giving sanctuary to Chechen rebels. "We faced double standards in the attitude towards terrorism," he said.

Putin warned that attempts to negotiate with Chechen separatists were as dangerous as the appeasement of Nazi Germany in the years before World War Two.

"I urge you to remember the lessons of history, the amicable deal [with Adolf Hitler] in Munich in 1938," he said. "Any surrender leads to them widening their demands and makes losses worse."

Putin's comments are likely to put further distance between Russia and the West, which has repeatedly criticised Russia for human rights violations in Chechnya.

Britain is in the firing line because of its decision to give Berezovsky and Zakayev asylum.

Russia regards Zakayev as a terrorist, and wants Berezovsky, a former television mogul and power-broker, to return to Russia to face fraud investigators.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2004-09/18/content_375631.htm