AlArabiyya, AlJazeera, Bush, and Potatoes: AlArabiyya TV may be declared the official TV station of US occupation, and its puppet government. When they interview Allawi, the event becomes like a family affairs, with hugs, kisses, giggles, and a festival of affection. AlArabiyya reporters may as well sit in Allawi's lap when they interview him. Today, this puppet prime minister/car bomber/embezzler-in-Yemen/former Saddam's henchman went out of his way in the interview (he has 5 interviews per hour on AlArabiyya) to defend Saddam's Ba`th Party, of which he served as a prominent thug and brutal enforcer. He said that the Ba`th activists were.."victims of Saddam." I kid you not. He said that only Fida'iyyi Saddam are the bad guys. Even the notorious torturers of Saddam's Mukhabarat are exonerated by this former Mukhabarat officer of Saddam. AlArabiyya TV airs commercials for the puppet government and occupation authoriy (the two are the same thing really) without saying that they are paid advertisements. Well, may be they are not paid. Maybe the Arab neo-conservative (and tool of the House of Saud) manager, `Abdur-Rahman Ar-Rashid, offers those spots for free. To make me more upset, AlArabiyya aired the wonderful documentary About Baghdad (produced by my dear friends Sinan and Bassam among others) and followed it by a discussion by the most vulgar Arab nationalists and fundamentalist opinions, without giving the producers/directors a chance to present their perspective. Now, AlJazeera (of which I have been critical as you know): American critics of AlJazeera (none of whom know Arabic although some of them--to be fair--may have had a falafil sandwich or two in their lifetime, which, in this administration and the previous one, qualifies as Middle East specialization provided it is accompanied by Zionist zeal--have no clue. These critics call it Bin Laden network without noting that AlJazeera has aired more than 500 hours of Bush since Sep. 11, versus some 12 hours of Bin Laden for the same period. And these people obviously do not know that Bin Laden fanatics hate AlJazeera. One pro-Bin Laden site yesterday was making an appeal to boycott AlJazeera (station and website), and called it an American network. In fact, some fanatical fundamentalist sites refer to AlJazeera as "Al-Khanzeera" (female pig). In other news, Bush held a special Iftar for Ramadan at the White House. Chief Muslim Cleric Muhammad Ashcroft presided. Last year, the US ambassador in Lebanon could not find Muslims to attend his Iftar, and could not find a Muslim city to host his Iftar, that he wound up holding it in a Christian town, with Lebanese Christians as his guests. But the good news is this: Bush's march of "freedom" continues.