U.S. and Arab Media

If all aardvarks are this smart, humanity is in serious trouble:

"Which brings me to the fatal flaw in Kristof's analysis, and the real hypocrisy which cripples American Middle East policy. Arab public opinion does in fact criticize Arab rulers relentlessly for its failures - the absence of democracy, failure of economic policies, foreign policy, everythinge else. Arab governments generally respond defensively, lashing out at al Jazeera and al Arabiya and its peers as 'terrorists,' as fomenting divisions, as irresponsible, as enemies. If the Bush administration were serious about promoting real political diversity, challenging the monopoly on power of repressive and undemocratic regimes, it would be taking the side of al Jazeera and al Arabiya. The US should be defending not only their freedom of speech, but also tacitly endorsing their substantive criticisms of Arab regimes. Instead, the Bush administration lashes out at the Arab media using exactly the same language used by the Arab leaders, declaring al Jazeera the enemy, and starting its own official state run television station (al Hurra), exactly as do Arab leaders. That hypocrisy, siding with the repressive regimes against their critics, siding with repression and state media over independent and critical media, hurts American policy in the Middle East enormously."