But Tony Blair talked him out of it. So says the Washington Post, also known affectionately as the "Bandar Beacon":
LONDON -- President Bush expressed interest in bombing the headquarters of the Arabic television network al-Jazeera during a White House conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair in April 2004, a British newspaper reported Tuesday.The Daily Mirror report was attributed to two anonymous sources describing a classified document they said contained a transcript of the two leaders' talk. One source is quoted as saying Bush's alleged remark concerning the network's headquarters in Qatar was "humorous, not serious," while the other said, "Bush was deadly serious."
In Washington, a senior diplomat said the Bush remark as recounted in the newspaper "sounds like one of the president's one-liners that is meant as a joke." But, the diplomat said, "it was foolish for someone to write it down, and now it will be a story for days."
"We are not interested in dignifying something so outlandish and inconceivable with a response," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the Associated Press in an e-mail.
Al-Jazeera has frequently aired recorded statements from al Qaeda figures. Bush administration officials have contended that through that type of broadcasting the network often serves as a conduit for terrorist propaganda...
Would be for shutting down their propaganda source, but only if we could take down the NYTimes at the same time.
But then why shut down such rich sources of amusement and comedy ?
l think shutting a few more papers would be grand,, in Canada the "Globe and Mail" is one big joke. but then lower sales his helping all of us.
Since when did it become wrong to bomb an enemy target? Al-Jezeera, the network the terrorists trust.
Balrog;
Exactly.
My only regret is that the "memo" wasn't "leaked" on the first day of the war. Would have been interesting to see how many staffers remembered doctor's appointments, their kids school play, sick relatives...
Re Globe and Mail:
Would rather wade through a swamp than try and get through a Ralston Saul article (lol).
Are these lefties constipated or what ?
Foolish to talk about. Foolish not to do.
Gosh, then some misguided mahometans might respond by taking out c-BS and the al-BBCera. Then where would we get our saudi propaganda from?
A plot by some Muslim terrorist group to bomb Bush House, BBC headquarters, so it was somewhere reported, was foiled early on. One greeted the news with mixed emotion.
Talk is cheap, W. Even disjoint, dislexic rambling.
My post on this issue
I think the issue is not only the anonymous sources, but the willingness of the Washington Post to spread the poor journalism of other papers. That certainly isn't news to any of us (eh, pun intended?), but still one that has to be called out.
One president states as national policy its intent to wipe Israel off the map and its dismissed as jovial banter by the office water cooler. Another president supposedly engages in jovial banter by the office water cooler about surgically excising the propaganda organ of the Islamist and it is confirmed as a sinister plot for total world domination. If we only had satellite transmission of the Goebbels News Service into every home 65 years ago, we wouldn't be facing these problems today.
McClellan gave the wrong response. It should have been along the line of the movie 'Patton': "The president never said that. He never said any such thing. But he wishes he had."
The Bandar Beacon reports this as if we are supposed to be outraged. Most Americans would be quite happy to see al-jezerra off the air, permanently.
There are certain things Al Jazeera has become famous for. It is the willing mouthpiece of Islamic terrorists like Osama bin Laden, Zawahri and Zarqawi, it peddles anti-Western and antisemitic trash, and shows videotapes featuring the beheadings of several hostages, all to fuel the fiendish minds of its depraved viewers. It is time to spell out the whole truth and nothing less about this wicked satellite channel, just as it is time to remove the PC blinkers and spell out the whole truth about Islam, and what the world will be like if it sinks into the Islamic abyss, and six millennia of learning disappears without trace. This truth offensive needs to start immediately for the sakes of future generations, otherwise they will never get to enjoy the freedoms we have taken for granted since WWII.
Blair should have told Bush that shooting Islamic nations' communications satellites out of orbit would be vastly more productive than the bombing of a measly (though admittedly pesky) single Arab terrorist broadcasting station.
AT the risk of repeating myself... Even the liberal-democrats-anti-war BBC reported that Bush may well have said this as a joke.
Can anyone seriously believe Bush would want to attack Qatar - which is essentially the US headquarters in the Middle East? Are you nuts?!
And the Arabs accuse Al Jazeera of being a front for the MOSSAD/CIA.
This is as interesting as Muslims claiming that Bush invaded Iraq because of Sharon and the Likkud, a theory also enjoined by those addicted to conspiracy theories, who are not Muslims and in fact are also for the most part Christians.
One side denounces the other side for asserting essentially similar claims.
And each side asserts that it is righteous.
Good point, damn good point, but your President is not the brightest bulb in the Chandelier and neither are his staff and advisors, just look at the pile of feces they got us into in Iraq and now Afghanistan.
nariz;
Please, those piles of feces were already there.
The mistake Dubbya and his staff made was twofold;
1. Trying to polish a turd.
2. Thinking they could come up with a solution in the ME by injecting logic and rational thought.
this is not true, the daily mirror is a marxist british tabloid. their paper will be produced for toliet paper once the right wing revolution takes hold. people please stop buying this garbage.
hey sheik yer'mami
"Connect that to the mosques and the mobile phones and they can organize a demo in 10 minutes that brings out thousands.
Its about time we get organized in a similar fashion!"
hey mate, can you imagine if thousands of right wing, anti islamic demonstrators took to the streets in the west? the imans in power would call out the army and massacre us! they are scared of us, so terrified in fact that they are already trying to ban the british national party, clamping down on the austrain freedom party, making plans to emascualte the dutch nationalists, and mention le pen in france and you risk getting called a racist and locked up! we have no chance, our only weapon is the ballot and before that we have to shut up! but once our little vote goes through, then we move, we retake our streets, our estates, counties and country. france will be the first to vote le pen, then holland, austria, germany, the UK, then like war weary refugees we will emerge from our houses, bleary eyed and greeting out neighbours as though we had just awoken from the dead. when in fact we probaly had. thank god for democracy!