Oh geeze......how stupid does stupid get? What department in the US Government operates this bootleg station. Another operation setup to curry favor from political contributers and put thier wives and childern in cushy government jobs. This needs to be stopped now. It is stupid waste of American tax dollars, period.

Just another blunder in the Bush administration. TV station was in the hands of political sons and daughters who were pure adolesents with no idea how to operate a TV station let alone provide diplomacy. It needs to stop now.

I am not sure that America could made bigger fools of on a regular basis if we tried. I wonder which campaign contributor was assigned this mission with no qualifications what so ever to actually run it. Somebody stop the never ending spiral our country seems to be falling into.

Maybe this network should hire the gay soldiers that speak arabic who were discharged because of their sexual preference. Yeah, we have some real geniuses in the white house... God help us all....

While George Bush is certainly at fault for be overzeolous and rushing in to a horrible situation the fault should not all fall upon his shoulders. This islamic terrorism should have been curtailed 30 or 40 years ago. No one is really to blame for a people's choice to follow such violent teachings but security and intelligence should have kept an eye out for such changes in another country or countries changes in idealism, religion and political upheaval. We all choose to blame 9/11 on Bush or Clinton when in reality this was a slowly growing disease in the world society that no one expected. Now what do we do to rid ourselves of this infection?

Shut down Al Hurra now! It's a waste of taxpayer funds. U.S. credibility has already been lost in most of the Middle East and American propaganda will make no difference.

Sorry, Angel, but get your facts straight. Islamic terrorism in the 1960s?? Where, exactly? Let's try to understand where Salafi Jihadism developed, where in fact Osama bin Ladin got his start. Right, that would be Afghanistan. Now let's try to figure out why, without reaching for the stupid juice.

Oh, and let's look at the role of Karen Hughes in this boondogle. Yes, this has all the earmarks of Bush Company cronyism and incompetence and mismanagement by sycophants, Republican ideologues and campaign donors.

It's not like changing our bad name in the Middle East is important, or anything.

Sounds like we are terribly anxious to spend money. Shut down Al Hurra. At least fire some people for this blunder.
If you don't know what's being broadcast, simply pull the plug.I would much rather spend the $63 mil/yr on anti terrorist intelligence.

Note: Once again senior management is allowed to slip by without paying for mismanagement and gross negligence.

Well, the good news is that nobody was probably watching Al Hurra anyway...

lilybelle, your viewpoint is WAY too shortsighted. Why don't YOU do a bit of research on Islamist movements, beginning with the Musilim Brotherhood in Egypt (in 1928). Read about Sayyid Qutb, and his movement, which influenced those to come long after him, including AZ and UBL.

These issues are much, much wider in scope than you think...and have in fact been around for much longer than you think.

Angel actually has a valid point and a much clearer understanding of this situation, and it's naive kids like you who should, for the sake of a better world understanding, learn a bit more about what it is you're talking about...

Anyway, back to the issue - the station's management needs to be changed (how can you run an Arab-centric station without understanding Arabic?!)

And why is it so wrong to run programming such as Al Hurra's? Why NOT expose this population to BBC and PBS programming? They can change the channel. Most Arabs would rather watch Al Jazeera or CNN, anyway...

Unless I'm mistaken, they've discharged about 38 Arabic linguists from the military for being gay, depriving our soldiers of translators they could save their lives. This station could've used a few Arabic speakers, whether they were gay or not! Now tell me who is the real threat to America...homosexuals, or the bigots and idiots running the Pentagon and the White House?

This could be excused if, after management learned of the first incident, they had shut down broadcasting until they had people and processes in place to police their own content.

But their apparent response was to do nothing. Or at most to post a few more want ads for professional interpreters.

Sounds like Al Hurra's been FEMA'd.

Why does the programming have to go directly out on the air in Iraq, without being vetted first by Arab speakers in the US? There are these things called satellites ... which can relay programs ...

Gosh, no -- management has been active! They've fired "some" of the terrorists -- and firing someone who has screwed up is pretty much above-and-beyond in Bushworld.

Another example of the Bush administration inserting idiots into positions of importance. I now believe Bush and his friends are quite literally, DUMB.

PEOPLE: We have a bunch of NUTBRAINS in the White House and Washington DC. Vote all of them out! You'll be better off for it!

What? Another example of the incompetence of the administration in its attempt to win hearts and minds in the Middle East?

Whodathunkit?

I suppose George Bush, out of the loyalty that kept Don Rumsfeld on board long after his pull date and allows Alberto to slowly twist in the wind, will give the guilty parties "a heckuva job" vote of confidence.

Look, guys. It is administration policy that government is the problem, and therefore they have to prove their case. In addition, governing is not a priority, but feeding at the public trough is. Then add on top of that an Arabic speaker with ties to the Middle East (i.e., all of them) is automatically eliminated from consideration as a government hire. With all of this, what do you expect, for God's sakes?! If those are the ground rules, then the above mentioned fiasco is absolutely certain to happen.