TV Talk Show Host's Rainbow Warrior Comments Rile Environmental Group

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Greenpeace complained Thursday to the Federal Communications Commission about MSNBC talk show host Tucker Carlson's praise for a fatal attack 20 years ago on the environmental group's flagship.

WASHINGTON — Greenpeace complained Thursday to the Federal Communications Commission about MSNBC talk show host Tucker Carlson's praise for a fatal attack 20 years ago on the environmental group's flagship.


"Terrorists do not need any further encouragement to commit their horrific acts," John Passacantando, Greenpeace USA's executive director, wrote to the FCC. "This violent act against the Rainbow Warrior did not just destroy property. It took the life of Fernando Pereira, the ship's photographer, who drowned below deck, leaving behind two young children."


Greenpeace asked the commission to investigate and "take appropriate steps so that Mr. Carlson and MSNBC do not continue to violate appropriate broadcast standards."


It's not clear what, if anything, the FCC could do. FCC indecency standards apply only to broadcast television, not cable and satellite networks such as MSNBC. Those standards also are intended to apply mainly to obscenities and profane speech.


In his June 22 and July 15 shows of "The Situation with Tucker Carlson," the bow-tied conservative praised French agents' July 10, 1985 attack on Greenpeace's "Rainbow Warrior," in New Zealand's Auckland Harbor, according to transcripts on MSNBC's Web site.


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Carlson said he was "objectively pro-France. You know, France blew up the Rainbow Warrior, that Greenpeace ship in Auckland Harbor in the '80s. ... It won me over." At another point, Carlson called the mining of the ship "a bold and good thing to do."


MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines said Carlson's opinions are not those of the cable channel. Carlson could not be reached to comment directly.


French secret service frogmen planted two mines that tore apart the ship's hull as it was preparing to sail to France's South Pacific nuclear test site at Mururoa Atoll and campaign for a nuclear-free Pacific Ocean.


Two French agents were arrested by New Zealand authorities in the bombing and convicted of manslaughter. They were released after less than two years in prison.


Source: Associated Press