Russia to ABC: Drop Dead

[Spiffarino]

Russia to ABC: Drop Dead


Sunday, August 7, 2005; Page B06

THE RUSSIAN government has pitched what can only be described as a diplomatic temper tantrum in response to an interview with a notorious Chechen warlord broadcast last month on ABC-TV's "Nightline." ABC News's Moscow bureau has been, in effect, blacklisted, and the Russian foreign ministry announced that accreditations for the network's 11-member staff there will not be renewed as they expire, meaning staffers will be officially barred from working as journalists in the country.

The dyspeptic reaction is in keeping with the Putin government's increasing intolerance for dissent, especially where Russia's brutal, decade-long war in Chechnya is concerned. When this government is faced with any critical message, its instinctive reaction is to bully and intimidate the messenger. It was especially telling that the Kremlin's first impulse after the program aired was to summon the top U.S. diplomat in Moscow to lodge an official protest, as if the Bush administration exercised control over broadcast decisions by U.S. media. Sorry, guys, that's not the way it works here.


No doubt, the subject of the "Nightline" interview, Shamil Basayev, meets any definition of a terrorist. He was the putative mastermind or on-the-scene commander of Chechen rebel raids on a Russian school last year (320 dead, about half of them children); a Moscow theater in 2002 (129 dead); and a Russian maternity hospital in 1995 (120 dead). He has also taken responsibility for downing two Russian civilian airliners last year (90 dead) and suicide bombings in 2003 in Russia's capital (58 dead). Mr. Basayev -- cold-blooded, amoral, intoxicated with his self-image as the avenger of an oppressed people -- is awash in innocent blood. He has a $10 million bounty on his head. He is also a legitimate subject for journalistic inquiry. As "Nightline" host Ted Koppel rightly pointed out on the air: "Freedom of speech is never an issue when a popular person expresses an acceptable point of view. It is of real value only because it guarantees us access to the unpopular espousing the unacceptable."

more...

George looked into Pootie-Poot's eyes and saw his soul...and it was apparently as barren and evil as his own.

[bahrbearian]

1. ABC clean your own house first !

[wli]

2. sounds like what needs to be done about the MSM propagandists here

[depakid]

3. Actually, that's pretty much what the Bush administration does

it ostracizes reporters who don't toe the line....

[wli]

4. it's not dissolving the .com's

That's a different affair altogether.

I'm basically advocating prosecution of the entire organizations similar to putting Goebbels (by proxy) on trial at Nuremberg.