Informed Speculation

At least I would, because it doesn’t put President Bush (who I strongly support, you may have noticed) in a good light. I’m talking about the story that Bush suggested taking out Al Jazeera to Tony Blair. Christopher Hitchens takes it up again on the eve of the trial in Britain of the leakers, and he makes a pretty good case that: (a) it happened (not much doubt on that score), and (b) it wasn’t intended as a joke.

Why should we care about Al Jazeera, that network that, at best, is guilty of airing video of atrocities and anti-Western propaganda, and at worst, is guilty of active collaboration with terrorists? Hitchens puts it so:

Al Jazeera is not describable, perhaps, as a strictly objective station, but it is the main source of news in the Arab world because it is not the property of any state or party, and it has given live and unedited coverage of things like the elections in Iraq. In 2001, its office in Afghanistan was destroyed by “smart” bombs. In 2003, its correspondent in Baghdad was killed in an American missile strike. If it becomes widely believed that it has been or is being targeted, the consequences in the region will be rather more than Karen Hughes’ “public diplomacy” can handle.

I wonder…in fact, I would be willing to wager that the Arab ‘street’ (boy, is that a tired concept) does in fact believe such a thing already.

In any event, I split the difference – my best guess (and, of course, it’s only a guess) is that Bush did say it, and he did mean it – sort of. I don’t think he really meant it, but he might have at the very moment that he spoke – it could have been an unfortunate case of saying things best left unsaid in a moment of frustration.

I don’t put this one very high on my list of worries…