Update on Al-Jazeera's Plan to "Cover the Border"

Al-Jazeera kills Arizona border reports

"I am a professional journalist. They think bin Laden himself is sending me out there," he said. "I find it a little bit racist."

Funny how the old chessnut, the accusation of "racism" seems to pop up whenever certain people don't get their way. Last time I looked, Islam is not a race and Muslims come in all shapes and colors.

The Arab television network Al-Jazeera pulled the plug Monday on a series of news reports about the Arizona-Mexico border amid criticism that the information could help terrorists slip into the United States.
 
Al-Jazeera planned to launch the series this week with coverage of a Phoenix rally by the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a volunteer civilian border-watch group that has attracted international media attention.
 
"I wanted to cover the story from the human point of view," said Nasreddine Hssaini, the Washington, D.C.-based Al-Jazeera reporter behind the series. "I wanted to go to Tombstone and Sasabe. I wanted to tell the story of democracy in action."
 
The network canceled the project, Hssaini said, after Minuteman organizer Chris Simcox refused to cooperate and then notified the Border Patrol and members of the state's congressional delegation about Al-Jazeera's plans.
 
"They decided it wasn't worth it," the reporter said.
 
Al-Jazeera has attracted millions of viewers throughout the Arab world with its coverage of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and its airing of tapes of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
 
But Al-Jazeera's growing popularity has brought greater scrutiny. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld accused the Qatar-based network of encouraging militants by airing hostage executions.
 
For Simcox, Al-Jazeera and al-Qaida are virtually one and the same. They wanted to come to Arizona "to do reconnaissance," he said. "I will not have a part in that. I will not work with the enemy."
 
U.S. Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., noting that Al-Jazeera has been known to broadcast messages from the al-Qaida leadership to terrorist cells around the globe, was outraged that the network planned to visit Arizona.
 
"It is insane policy to allow Al-Jazeera to film Arizona's unsecured border with Mexico and then broadcast it to the very people who perpetrated 9/11," Franks said. Hssaini, who described himself as a Moroccan-born citizen of Canada working legally in the United States, dismissed the suggestion that his motive for coming to Arizona concerned something other than journalism.

Al-Jazeera doesn't need to show the way. Hundreds of Middle Easterners are caught every year attempting to cross the southern and northern borders. The Border Patrol estimates that one out of four is caught. Nevertheless, such coverage would be insane.