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UNITED NATIONS — Just as I was beginning to feel that the major media has for the most part been factual, decent, patriotic, and respectful in the aftermath of the September 11 carnage, now Cable News Network comes along with plans to interview Osama Bin Laden! Mind you putting the anchor of the Al Qaeda Terror Network on CNN, has that crazy wild card appeal to news execs striving for ratings. Others see this planned interview as "poor news judgment."
Naturally there's news in interviewing Bin Laden — but the real point is a ratings scoop which will use this vile thug as a enticement for commercial gain. While CNN execs will with a studied straight face intone "that we shall only use the material if it's newsworthy," that's a moot point. While the hard news value of such a story is dubious at best, the propaganda value for the Al Qaeda terrorist organization would rank significantly. Bin Laden may make a careful and cunning case which can sow discord between America and her allies.
Dictators and mass murders can often pose as not only men of the people but caring souls — I'm certain Osama likes cute animals and when he was a kid in Saudi Arabia, may have saved a small kitten from the heights of a fig tree.
Naturally CNN in its insatiable quest for ratings is willing to play "guignol" to the Al Qaeda network's rantings.
Bin Laden, scion of a wealthy Saudi family (which has since disowned him) may come off suprisingly smoothly — but the interview will not be face to face with a setting a mint tea and baklava. Rather the questions must first be "submitted" (generally a put off to any journalist) ahead of time I suppose as to insure Bin laden that the apparently gullible CNN reporters may not be cover for US helicopter gunships over the ridge.
I recall once interviewing a key Khmer Rouge figure in the aftermath of Cambodia's carnage in the 1970's. When I asked point blank why the Pol Pot communists saw fit to murder or starve well over a million fellow Cambodians, the official was contrite and reassuring that this was all "a misunderstanding and a mistake." He furthermore insisted that the horrors which befell Cambodia were actually perpetrated by the Vietnamese.
I'm not so certain Bin Laden would be so devious but rather proud that his death-wish hijackers were able to inflict such hideous damage on innocent civilians. He would probably then begin a ritualistic lecture about the Crusades, Israel, Western Culture, etc. to reaffirm his own scruples that mass murder was justified.
Naturally the TV sages of Atlanta will say, "Well this is news and we need to know." Right, but I wonder if during the Battle of Britain the BBC would have sought an interview with Herr Hitler as to "insure a wider understing of why London is being bombed? Or any American network in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor seeking the opinions of Tokyo Rose as to balance any misunderstandings!
One CNN question — "Do you have Nuclear weapons and do you plan to use them?" Even if he has a small nuclear device, likely purchased from the Russian Mafia, putting this information on the air would not only create panic and produce a wider climate of fear and would cascade global stock markets. I presume Osama would answer in the affirmative and then drop the hint that this "whole misunderstanding can be avoided IF..."
Any question — concerning Anthrax again would likely generate a twinkle in his eye and a response which would again be equivocal as to sow dissent and discord. And the source of the anthrax?
The former Soviet Union was a major producer of chemical and biological weapons, much of the grisly expertise was transferred to Iraq and is still produced by former Soviet scientists working for Saddam. The fact that Iraq remains a repository of weapons of mass destruction, that there have been no UN weapons inspections for years, and that Saddam holds personal hatred against the Bush family, puts Iraq in the forefront of the suspects list. Iraq is richly deserving of desvastaing air strikes.
Putting Bin-laden on CNN is not even agenda driven advocacy journalism but cheap commercial posturing using the lure of political pornography as a tease for network ratings. Breaking news — Uganda's former dictator Idi Amin is set to leave his Saudi Arabian exile to return home — go for it CNN!
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
