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| U.S. taxpayers subsidize terrorist propaganda in Arab world. |
| 2007-05-01 |
| Testifying under oath recently, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice misled Congress in her strong defense of Al-Hurra, the taxpayer financed Arab TV network. It was unwitting, though. She herself was misled. During the March 21 House Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee hearing, Rep. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) pressed Ms. Rice on the wisdom of providing a platform to Islamic terrorists, citing Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's Dec. 7 speech, which Al-Hurra aired live. The broadcast speech "went on for 30 minutes," she responded, "followed by commentary, much of which was critical of Nasrallah." In fact, Mr. Nasrallah's speech was carried in its entirety, roughly an hour and eight minutes. The commentary that followed--a 13-minute phone interview with Wael Abou Faour, a member of Lebanon's governing coalition--was indeed critical of Mr. Nasrallah. He accused the Hezbollah leader of not being anti-U.S. and anti-Israel enough. While Mr. Nasrallah had claimed Lebanon's governing coalition was aligned with the U.S. and had backed Israel during the war last summer, Mr. Abou Faour said that Hezbollah was actually closer to the U.S and added that any Lebanese faction that assisted "the Israeli enemy" should not be allowed to engage in political discussion because "the only place they should be [is] in prison." The secretary of state's testimony was without doubt delivered in good faith. But the same cannot be said of the information about the broadcast Al-Hurra provided to the State Department. |
| Posted by:Nimble Spemble |
| #2 I'm obliged to add that this is one more glaring example of how little the Bush administration understands or is able to properly administer any sort of media. They just don't get it. Not here at home and especially abroad. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-05-01 22:20 |
| #1 Allow Nasrallah's speech to be broadcasted in its entirety was stupidity on a grand scale. If this sort of thing is to be done, it must be in segments with refuting arguments inserted at each break. Otherwise, you have distributed the enemy's propaganda whereafter the audience can merely turn their sets off. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2007-05-01 22:17 |