Peter Arnett: "Iraqis ... See Me as a Fellow Warrior."

[Tingkai]

NBC are a bunch of cowards with no journalistic integrity.

Arnett's comments have been said dozens of times by reporters around the world. The Iraqi resistance is stronger than expected. Re-inforcements are being sent in. The initial war plan of charging straight for Baghdad failed and had to be changed because the US/UK forces need to protect their supply lines. His reports, and other reports, of civilian casaulties affect public opinion around the world. That is a fact.

The sad thing is seeing Arnett apologize when he has done nothing wrong. Yes, he did an interview with the Iraqi state-controlled television station, but would anyone complain about him being interviewed by the state-owned BBC or CBC?

[Dr Strangelove]

Perhaps Arnett and Rivera will retire together to a little cable news talk show somewhere?

[Drake Tungsten]

Yes, he did an interview with the Iraqi state-controlled television station, but would anyone complain about him being interviewed by the state-owned BBC or CBC?

Are you just trolling or are you really too stupid to see the difference?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Drake Tungsten

Quote:

Yes, he did an interview with the Iraqi state-controlled television station, but would anyone complain about him being interviewed by the state-owned BBC or CBC?

Are you just trolling or are you really too stupid to see the difference?

Are you just trolling or are you too stupid to read the interview?

Look at what he said. There was nothing out of the ordinary. He did not breach any journalistic ethics.

There was no reason to fire him.

[Ted Striker]

Arnett = turncoat dork

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Tingkai
Look at what he said. There was nothing out of the ordinary. He did not breach any journalistic ethics.

Granting the interview was a gross error in judgement and he should have known what the likely consequences of such an action.

There was no reason to fire him.

Arnett purposefully made himself into a hot potato and his employers didn't feel like sticking thier neck out on his behalf.

[Shi Huangdi]

News coming in: Arnett hired by the Daily Mirror, some British newspaper.

[gsmoove23]

ooo, I gotta say he's a dork on this one. His statements about the US I see no problem with. The fact that in the same interview he completely toadies up to the Iraqi regime shows a huge irresponsible bias. He should have realized that this would have been inevitable in a state sponsored interview and simply refused. Seems like he might have over compensated in trying to gain Iraqi "respect".

Still, I don't blaim the guy too much, he's been a coorespondent since Vietnam. Can anyone say "burnout"?

[Drake Tungsten]

Are you just trolling or are you too stupid to read the interview?

I was talking about your comparison of Iraqi TV to the BBC...

[Berzerker]

Bill O'Reilly said Arnett was providing aid and comfort - a way of accusing someone of treason without having to back up the accusation - because Arnett's comments will provide hope for the Iraqis and they will fighter harder. Huh? Since when do a people under attack need motivation from a reporter's assessment about the efficacy of battle plans? If Bill O'Reilly went there and told them they were losing badly and stood no chance, would they just throw down their weapons and give up?
And yet Fox and Bill are defending Rivera at the same time? Oh the irony...

[HershOstropoler]

Arnett has now achieved full clown status.

Btw:

"HOME OF THE FREE: ARNETT JOINS MIRROR

THE reporter sacked by American TV for telling the truth about the war is joining the Daily Mirror."

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews...l&siteid=50143

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Granting the interview was a gross error in judgement and he should have known what the likely consequences of such an action.

Why? Simply because he gave an interview to Iraqi TV?

If he had made the same comments on the BBC, no one would have noticed. So why is it okay to be interviewed by the national television of one combatant nation, but not the other?

[CerberusIV]

The Daily Mirror hiring Arnett is not too surprising. They are anti-war and will lap up the kind of comments he gave in that interview.

What is worth noting is that the Mirror is anti-war to have a go at Tony Blair and the Labour party and to take a different line to their main rival newspapers, not from any serious commitment to being anti-war. I suppose it is called "demonstrating a balanced media approach".

Just some Arnett history I came across:

http://www.brookesnews.com/030104arnett.html

Why did Peter Arnett give aid and comfort to Saddam's sadistic regime?





Gerard Jackson
Melbourne: Australia
BrookesNews.Com
Tuesday 1 April 2003

Last night Peter Arnett appeared on Iraqi television to give aid and comfort to Saddam's sadistic regime. No mystery surrounds Arnett's willingness to betray whatever journalistic principles he may have once possessed by openly collaborating with the Arab equivalent of Adolf Hitler. Even a very brief summary of his journalistic career will reveal that what drives this Quisling is a deep hatred of America.

It will probably surprise many of you to learn that Arnett is actually New Zealand-born. Now for some reason an inordinate number of New Zealand and Australian reporters carry around a lot of anti-American baggage and a deep rooted hostility towards the American military. Arnett is no exception, despite taking out American citizenship.

In 1962 Arnett landed as a war correspondent in Saigon where his reports quickly made clear that his sympathies lay with the totalitarian North. To Arnett American forces could do no right. To him the North's war against the South was fully justified, just as Burchett, an Australian traitor, argued that North Korea's assault on South Korea was justified. (I find the similarity with the repulsive Burchett striking.)

It was in Vietnam that Arnett revealed his penchant for bending the news to serve anti-American forces. On one occasion he even reported that American troops had experimented with "poisonous chemicals" on Vietnamese children. (Shades of Burchett's bio-warfare lies and the disgraceful Operation Tailwind hoax).

Arnett also invented the infamous "we had to destroy the village to save it" and then falsely attributed it to a US officer. The village was actually the town of Ben Tre that the Vietcong had destroyed but which Arnett painted as having been flattened by US forces. This is the kind of pro-communist reporting that landed him the Pulitzer Prize in 1966, thus degrading what had once been worthy award.

He later regretted that his coverage of the war had been insufficiently tough. I take this to mean that he felt he should have been harder on US troops whom he portrayed as murderous thugs. One particular incident reveals much about the man and his and his lack of common decency. He described how, while in Saigon, he watched a Buddhist monk set fire to himself. Arnett has freely admitted he could have saved the man by kicking away the can of petrol but he chose not to because he thought the suicide would make a good story. Well, he got his story and his photographs, all of which were used as anti-American propaganda. So much for his humanity.

The Gulf War demonstrated that Arnett's anti-Americanism had not softened. He covered Desert Storm for CNN (or was it Saddam Hussein?) from Baghdad where Saddam gave him unprecedented assistance to make his reports, all of which turned out to be pro-Saddam in one way or another.

There was the case to the chemical warfare facility that was bombed and among the ruins of which Arnett stood and stated had really been a baby milk factory. His proof was a sign in English saying baby food. That it was conclusively proved that building had been housing an Iraqi intelligence unit did not faze Arnett at all.

Another example of Arnett's journalistic ethics was CNN's Operation Tailwind 'special' that libelled US soldiers and was later exposed as a hoax. It did have the beneficial effect, however, of exposing Arnett as a liar. In order to support the program's outrageous lie that US special forces had used poison gas against Laotian villagers, Arnett alleged that Admiral Moorer had confirmed the use of nerve gas in Vietnam. This is a complete fiction.

What Admiral Moorer actually said is that "I would be willing to use any weapon and any tactic to save the lives of American soldiers." Moorer later made it absolutely clear that he never confirmed the use of nerve gas to CNN and that to his knowledge it had never been used in Vietnam. (The cowardly Arnett now claims that he had nothing to do with the script).

Yet Arnett used this hoax to question America's right to condemn Saddam for producing chemical weapons. After Saddam's defeat Arnett regularly visited Iraq and was given extensive access to officials that was denied to other reporters. Any wonder other reporters call him 'Baghdad Pete.'

While on one visit to Baghdad a gruesome incident took place that strongly reminded me of Arnett's attitude to the burning of the Vietnamese monk. Iraqi authorities allocated Arnett a driver. One day Saddam's secret police arrested the driver on suspicion of being an American agent and then tortured him for days. CNN did nothing to help him, even after, when near death, the secret police threw what remained of him onto the street.

When I think of this incident I think of Arnett taking pictures of a man slowly burning to death, even though he could have saved him. To make it worse, anti-Saddam sources named Arnett as the informer who turned the driver in. Whatever the truth of the matter, I think it is clear what kind of creature Arnett is.

Now that he has openly collaborated with a regime that is at war with his own country, what should be done with this slimy Quisling?

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by Tingkai
If he had made the same comments on the BBC, no one would have noticed.

Probably. I fail to see how that mitigates his stupidity in this instance. Hell, it would have been smarter to have said the same things on Al Jazeera.

So why is it okay to be interviewed by the national television of one combatant nation, but not the other?

It would have looked less like he was giving a propaganda coup to the Iraqi regime and he likely would have been able to keep his job.

God, this isn't even the first time Arnett has reaped a whirlwind of his own making. He should have known better.

[MarkG]

And some Americans manage to make the subject totally ridiculous one more time.....


Petition drive calls for U.S. to revoke Peter Arnett's passport
http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=15617

[Daz]

CICSMaster:

Knowing of his anti-americanism, isn't it kinda strange the US TV stations (specially CNN) kept him for so long?

I mean, if you know someone is a traitor, and he proves that repeatedly, why stick with him?

...suspicious...

Not, if you know what the aim of the US TV stations are/is.

They are all about shock. The greater the shock, the more people watch.

[ahenobarb]

Originally posted by Shi Huangdi
News coming in: Arnett hired by the Daily Mirror, some British newspaper.

I haven't seen anyone defect from the U.S. to the British that fast since Benedict Arnold. Hmmm.... Benedict Arnett?

[The Mad Viking]

In a free country, you have a free media.

You do not get fired for what you say.

In particular, you should not get fired for reporting the truth.

But then, that would only apply to a free country.

[Jac de Molay]

They can fire him for any reason they want.

This only confirms my belief that the American war coverage is such biased cheerleading that anyone with a dissenting (anti-war) view is given short shrift.

Arnett's a wacko, but there's people much saner who dont receive any time or consideration on snoozestations these days.

[The Mad Viking]

Actually, one of the keystones of a free society is, paradoxically, not being able to fire reporters and editorialists for any reason they want.

Without an open press that can report WITHOUT FEAR OF REPRISAL you do not have a free country.

[Jac de Molay]

Without an open press that can report WITHOUT FEAR OF REPRISAL you do not have a free country.

Freedom of the press is not about saying what you want without fear of reprisal from the place you work for.

It's about freedom to report and editorialize without reprisal from the government. That's the First Amendment protection that people and press are afforded.

There was a 'dixie chicks' thread about sort of the same thing. Like I said, it just proves how pro-war biased our media is, but they reserve the right to fire him for any reason whatsoever.

[Gatekeeper]

TMV, et al.:

Y'know, for a country that supposedly doesn't have a free press, I sure as hell find it pretty easy to find a rainbow of opinions within the journalism world regarding the war in Iraq — from supporters to non-supporters to those who think the war supporters/non-supporters camps are *both* idiots and so on.

I don't know about you, but the press certainly isn't shackled as much as some folks think it is. A lot of the complaints can be strained down to one single assertion: The press ain't covering the war the way *I* think it should, so therefore it must be:

1. Controlled by evil corporations.
2. Controlled by evil liberals.

I mean, c'mon! Make up your minds, folks. Are we folks in the press brainwashed demonic corporate automatons or pot-smoking free-loving hippie liberals?

More often than not, "none of the above" would apply.

Gatekeeper

[gunkulator]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Actually, one of the keystones of a free society is, paradoxically, not being able to fire reporters and editorialists for any reason they want.

Without an open press that can report WITHOUT FEAR OF REPRISAL you do not have a free country.

Would this apply if Arnett starting spouting, say, white supremacy propoganda? If a newspaper is FORCED to print opinions it does not want to, THAT would be a violation of free speach.

[spiritof1202]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Actually, one of the keystones of a free society is, paradoxically, not being able to fire reporters and editorialists for any reason they want.

Without an open press that can report WITHOUT FEAR OF REPRISAL you do not have a free country.

Freedom of speech extends only to the individual.

He's free to speak, as an individual, but the media is a commercial construct and able to make its own commercial decisions. If they believe that Peter Arnett will effect their ratings then its in their right to fire him, and hire someone else that they feel will not adversely effect their ratings.

Peter Arnett is free to get another job with another news organization, and has apparently already done so.

[The Mad Viking]

Suffice to say, and I almost never will do this, but

YOU ARE ALL HORRIBLY WRONG! (Not to mention terribly misguided.)

(Gatekeeper- I don't disagree with what you are saying, but I don't think it really applies- I'm not suggesting the press is "shackled". "Whipped" is the term that comes to mind. )

OTHERS: Freedom of speech clearly does not extend only to the individual. Just like TENURE in universities, the individual must be protected FROM HIS EMPLOYER because it is clear that COVERT INFLUENCE can be applied there.

I'm not suggesting, obviously, that NBC shouldn't be entitled to fire Arnett. They just require NON-POLITICAL REASONS to do so. Or they would in a FREE COUNTRY.

Sorry about the shouting.

[MarkG]

more fun stuff

Try Arnett for treason, senator says
http://enquirer.com/editions/2003/04...bunning02.html

Correspondent Peter Arnett should be "tried as a traitor" for remarks he made in an interview with Iraqi state television, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., said Tuesday.

"I think he should be brought back and tried as a traitor to the United States of America, for his aiding and abetting the Iraqi government during a war," Bunning said in a conference call with reporters. Later in a speech on the Senate floor, Bunning said: "Mr. Arnett can apologize all he likes for being a `useful idiot' for Saddam and his barbaric regime. But that's not enough for me, and it's certainly not enough for our soldiers and many Americans."

"I think Mr. Arnett should be met at the border and arrested should he come back to America," said Bunning.

[MarkG]

the passport petition is here

http://www.afa.net/petitions/arnett.asp

[yavoon]

arnette's freedom of speech is not being encroached upon in the slightest. so can all you ignorant ppl please stop it w/ those insinuations.