Saudi media and the shoe

Raghidah Dirgham on MSNBC. You had to watch Al-Hayat's correspondent on Harball today. I could not believe it. First, she was introduced as correspondent of the "independent" newspaper Al-Hayat. Do they mean "independent" of any government or political party with the exception of Prince Khalid Bin Sultan? Or do we have now new standards now whereby House of Saud princes are now considered independent? Dirgham said that she was "embarassed" by the "dispicable" behavior of the journalist. She said it was "an act of cowarice" and that this speaks for Arab banukrupty. Now let us ponder that? Let us apply journalistic standards for the evaluation of media behavior. Which is more dispicable? The shoe throwing or the journalists who were embedded or not embedded who cheered a war that killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis (and Afghans)? What about those journalists who peddled fake stories of Iraqi WMDs? What about those Iraqi puppet journalists who put their names on stories written for them by a contractor for the Pentagon? She then told the host that the "Arab street" is split about the deed, and that many are outraged by the dastardly deed. She did not say it but I felt that she considered the shoe throwing an act of terrorism far worse than the non-stop bombing of Iraq and the torture in US jails and the shooting at civilians at US checkpoints in Iraq. And she added that Arab intellectuals are also split on the matter and many feel grateful for the American occupation of the country. She then said that she was recently in Bahrain attending the US security conference and saw many Arabs thanking Petreus for the help he provided in Iraq. I watched that segment and left learning about Saudi-owned media what I knew not before. And there is a long list of Iraqi journalists who were tortured, beatuen, killed, or injured by US occupiers. Did Dirgham speak out on their behalf? Did she call the murder of Al-Jazeera correspondent by US gunfire "dispicable"? I came to this country knowing that an Arab before he/she can speak in the US, they have to denounce and renounce any form of Palestinian political violence. The standards have tightened. Now, Arabs are expected to denounce shoe throwing. Dirgham stressed that what happend with the shoe should not "blind us" to the fact that "Iraqis are grateful for what the US has done in Iraq". She said that US troops have made things better for Iraqis.