I'm probably being down-voted because of my tone. And I _sincerely_ apologize for that. But look, this has just appeared on the front page of HN: Egypt shuts d

I'm probably being down-voted because of my tone. And I _sincerely_ apologize for that. But look, this has just appeared on the front page of HN: Egypt shuts down Al Jazeera bureau (aljazeera.net) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157796 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2157796 I'm just asking that people think a bit more before knee-jerkingly rushing to judgement. From the article: The channel was founded in 1996 by Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, a small, oil-rich American ally on the Persian Gulf. Though sponsored by the Qatari government, in its early years the channel was considered by some western observers to be a beacon for democracy in the highly censored world of state-controlled Arabic media. In 1999, John Burns of the New York Times called Al Jazeera "hard-hitting" and "revolutionary." In his book "Al Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel that is Challenging the West," journalist Hugh Miles writes that Al Jazeera drew ire from across the Middle East for, among other things, allowing Israelis to appear on-air.