We used to rely on the BBC as our main source of unbiased news in Africa. But with all the recent revelations of their extreme bias and irresponsibility, I’m questioning a lot of things that were, as it were, received wisdom.
Den Beste has a smackdown of an article whose purpose (as made obvious by internal evidence — I do have a graduate degree in linguistics and textual exegesis, after all) is to provide a convenient emotional image of the US as police state: the US government is prosecuting those human shields (feh!) who violated US law in travelling to the declared enemy of a legally declared war, and there rendering aid and comfort. A little old lady is in danger of losing her pension and her house and facing 12 years in jail and a $1,000,000 fine.
Only it turns out that in the real world, far from facing jail or anything else, she is being fined $10,000 (count those zeros, folks!). Not for exercising her freedom of speech — that she could have done on any street-corner without fear — but for providing aid and comfort to the enemy in time of war.