Thursday, October 20, 2016

Has Reuters been purchased by the Saudi regime? Their report on Iranian supplies to Huthis

Brian Whitaker has rightly expressed skepticism about this Reuters story about Iranian arming of Huthis. But the funny part is that the method of documentation reminds me of the methods of Nicholas Blanford (the hagiographer of Rafiq Hariri) when he writes about Hizbullah and cites unnamed member of the party who basically tell him: yes, we are terrorists. Yes, we deserve to be bombed.  Yes, Israel should take us out.  Yes, everything that Israel says about it is true--and they exclusively tell him all that using name like "Abu Potato".  Similarly, this report from Reuters cites an Iranian diplomat: so the Iranian diplomat exclusively told Reuters that "yes, we are terrible and we are violating international norms by smuggling weapons into Yemen.  But then again: we remember when Saudi regime complained about a Reuters correspondent, and then Reuters management simply relocated that correspondent because he was too knowledgeable and asked too many questions.