Al Jazeera is a terrorist entity, working a systematic disinformation assault that threatens the lives of American citizens and our soldiers in Iraq. They present a fraudulent and incidiary account of events in Iraq that serves only to manufacture a prolonged resistance and butchery by thuggish elements connected to Saddam. It has cost American lives, it has cost Iraqi lives.
Al Jazeera reporters, camera crews and operatives need to be warned that they are tresspassers and enemy combatants, and they will be targeted as terrorists and killed if found operating in that country.
They didn't just "happen" upon the scene of our POWs and KIAs in Nasiryah, they didn't just "happen" to have a handy uplink and just "happen" to broadcast a lengthy report showing desecration of our dead (executed?) and interviews with our POWs. They didn't just happen on that Market "bombing" with all the dead civilians available for immediate distribution throughout the Arab World.
They are enemies and causing imminent threat. They foment rage and terrorist sentiments in Arab populations aimed at Americans through a presentation steeped in fraud, lies and deceit. They play the bin Laden tapes. They are waging War, in real ways, and their operations should be destroyed as we would an al-Qaida cell in Pakistan, Indonesia or Sudan. Their propaganda is designed to elicit hatred and strengthen schemes of death and destruction against our people.
Peter Arnett should be seized by Rangers, returned to the U.S. and tried for treason. Unembedded and unsecured foreign nationals with video cameras and uplinks broadcasting the movements of Special Ops and Kurdish freedom fighters in that caravan outside Mosul last Saturday should be shot on sight - that's espionage, and who knows where these feeds are going. Iranian Islamists with artillery coordinates? Turkish military thugs who just might send an F-15 up for a pleasure flight and let's hope no bombs fall off or heavy artillery shells go off by themselves to Eastern parts unknown possibly hitting a group of Kurdish leaders.
Enough is enough. This isn't an open house for anyone with a scribble pad, video camera and satellite link to wander carte blanche. Robert Fisk is an American-hating Islamist.
It's the only great weakness in this entire affair, but it is insidious. The Iraq regime is over. Journalist Visitor and Working Visas need to be revoked and they should be given 48 hours to leave Iraq ... noncompliance is considered a threat against Americans and Iraqi transition efforts, and they will be legitimate targets for lethal elimination.
It doesn't matter how many thugs we root out of Baghdad basements if Al Jazeera is actively working to incite three new thugs from the outside Arab world to sneak into Iraq to take their place.