Basket.

So, TODAY has unilaterally decided to halt extensive coverage of so-called terrorist activities, as this would only give the terrorists the attention they crave. They have also urged readers not to go and look at beheading videos or delete them when you get them in emails and such.

Well, this sounds suspiciously like George Bush's infamously strident declaration "then the terrorists would already have won". Of course, you are either with us or against us. The world is black and white, and the Americans are always the good guys. We must support them, and we must not let the bad guys in beards and turbans take over the world. Ok yes, been there, heard that, we don't need it to be parroted again.

Seriously, I do not believe America did not anticipate any of this shit happenning when they went into Iraq. Either they are incredibly stupid, or the urge to get rid of a Middle Eastern tinpot dictator of a state already contained and strangled by United Nations sanctions was simply too great. The American government launched this war, do not forget; they are the ones who have exposed their own citizens to this sort of cruel fate. Sure the terrorists are barbaric, sure this is unpleasant, to say the least, but it would not have happened had America decided not to launch an illegal war.

In any case, TODAY has no right to make such a unilateral decision. It should have asked for the opinions of readers first, rather than go ahead with it and ask readers to write in and comment about it (something I briefly considered but quickly dropped because they will probably ignore it anyway), and if it gets the majority vote, then go ahead with this. For it must be the readers, the consumers, who decide what they want to see in the newspapers; the role of the media, after all, is to inform.

This also flies in the face of journalistic standards. Any good newspaper, any good source, tells both sides of the story, no matter how unpleasant. The newspaper wants to report American successes in Iraq? It must cover American failures and miscalculations too. It has chosen to kiss American ass instead. Well, not surprising. Even our venerable Senior Minister is doing that after all.

It is very important that the media tell both sides of the story. It was after all media reports on the Tet Offensive and on the futility of the conflict that rescued America from a hopelessly bloody commitment in Vietnam thirty years ago. Now people in the US are calling for restrictions on the "yellow-bellied, pinko liberal media", because they claim it will lose them the war on terror and the war for democracy. There is deep irony in this, for a free press is one of the pillars of democratic society, and which other society proclaims its democratic values more stridently than America?

In any case, I fail to see how the attention the terrorists attract from their actions is going to help them. The vast majority of people will react negatively to beheadings, that is for sure. It isn't going to garner any positive support for them. So what is TODAY scared of? Answer is nothing, they just want to kiss American ass. As most of the media and the government here is trying to do.

We really do need alternative views in the local media. It is frustrating to always see our local papers cheer-lead for the "American-led" (that very phrase makes my blood boil, because anyone with half an eye and a somewhat functioning craniary apparatus can see that it is America and a desperately-trying-to-please-big-brother Britain that launched an illegal invasion are really trying and failing to make things work currently) effort (more like terroristic action) in Iraq.

I'll end off with "One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". The US to many people is a terrorist state.