I agree, but the real point is that it was not as if the Networks didn't know there was donna be a war in an arabic speaking nation.....good business sense would have all of them with (some) arab speaking reporters trying to break stories...given that they have had six months run up time for this war....tsk, tsk, tsk,  Doug Henwood <dhenwood@panix.com> wrote: <BLOCKQUOTE style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">eric dorkin wrote: >But king of idiocy goes to peter jennings who (eaming with pride) >said that Richard Engel was a real asset to have reportiong from >Iraq because he spoke arabic and, after all, not many people speak >arabic...if you missed that gem, I shit you not. To be fair to Jennings, he probably meant that few American reporters speak Arabic, not that few people in the world speak it. Which is the scandal of most U.S. reporters abroad - they barely speak the language of the target country (even in Canada, probably!), and rely on secretaries and the U.S. embassy to do their work for them. Doug</BLOCKQUOTE> <hr size=1>Do you Yahoo!? <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/platinum/evt=8162/*http://platinum.yahoo.com/splash.html">Yahoo! Platinum</a> - Watch CBS' NCAA March Madness, <a href="http://rd.yahoo.com/platinum/evt=8162/*http://platinum.yahoo.com/splash.html">live on your desktop</a>!