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/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
June
12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
June
11, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Reagan in Truth and Fiction
Ron
Jacobs
Ray Charles' Legacy of Spirit
Chris
Floyd
Funeral Games
Steven
Sherman
How Reagan Destroyed the Democrats and Paved the Way for Clinton
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Remembering Reagan
Norman
Solomon
Media's Mourning in America
Paul
Alexander
The Kerry Fantasies of Chalmers Johnson
CounterPunch
Wire
The Terror Hour: Miami TV Station Invites Commandoes to Talk
About Planned Attacks on Cuba
June
10, 2004
Noam
Chomsky
The Apotheosis of Reagan : Divinity
Through Marketing
Gary
Leupp
Bush, the Religious Scholar
Patrick
Cockburn
The Iraqi Street Has Spoken: New
Govt. Made Up of CIA Pawns
Saul
Landau
Force-Feeding Lies About Free Trade
Scott
Evans
Settling for the System: How Punkvoter.com Became Just Another
Tool of the Democrats
Jacob
Levich
John Kerry's World of Hurt: Senator Supports Beam Weapons
Zeynep
Toufe
Reagan, Neo-Cons and the "Intelligence Failures"
Nico
Pitney
Reform at Wal-Mart?
Dave
Zirin
Son of a Reagan: What a Sporty 6-Year Old Saw at the Revolution
Jack
McCarthy
Where Were You When Reagan Croaked?
Gary
Corseri
Nouns That Should be Acronyms
David
Price
Reagan and the Black Budget
Website
of the Day
Inequality by the Numbers
June
9, 2004
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Israel's Common Use of Torture
Must be Exposed
Mike
Whitney
Alan Dershowitz, Still Defending
Torture
John
Chuckman
Why the CIA will Always be a Costly Flop
Jim
Tarbell / Roger Burbach
Bush's Democratic Charade in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Put Reagan on the $3 Bill
Miguel
D'Escoto
Reagan was the Butcher of My People
Becky
Burgwin
The Betrayal of Smarty Jones: Flogging a Natural Born Hero
Patrick
Cockburn
The Rich Have Been Warned to Leave
Baghdad
June
8, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Nature of Ronald Reagan: Will
the Earth Accept His Corpse?
Dave
Lindorff
The March on Rumsfeld's House: Is
the US Anti-War Movement Running Out of Steam?
Phillip
Cryan
Torture, Bombings & the Press in
Colombia
Mark
Zepezauer
Getting Reagan Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Reagan, Radicals and Repetitive Reactions
John
L. Hess
Reagan and Bush in Normandy
Alex
Dawoody
Reagan and Saddam: the Unholy Alliance
Christopher
Fons
Reagan in a Word: Mean
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Some Tenets are More Important Than Others
Ahmed
Bouzid
Nothing New Under the Israeli Sun
Michael
Leon
Bush the Narcissist
June
7, 2004
Jason
Leopold
New Enron Docs Show Lay and Skilling
Knew of California Trading Schemes
Patrick
Cockburn
The Baghdad Bombings: the Pattern
of Attacks is Changing
Dennis
Hans
From Afghanistan to El Salvador: Reagan's
Dark Global Legacy
Tracy
McLellan
Nader at the National Press Club:
a Glimpse at a Different Kind of Politics
Bill
Blum
The Myth of the Gipper: Reagan Didn't
End the Cold War
Ben
Tripp
What I Owe Reagan: the Brylcreemed
Bullshitter
Susan
Davis
Reagan, In a Nutshell
Phil
Gasper
Reagan: Goodbye and Good Riddance
Website
of the Day
A Child's ABCs of Terrorism
June
5 / 6, 2004
C.
Douglas Lummis
Toward a Universal Declaration of
Human Wrongs
Saul
Landau
Five Cubans in Prison, Victims of Bush's Obsession
Dave
Lindorff
John Walker Lindh, Revisited
Brian
Cloughley
Apologies, Please, From Those Who Got It Wrong
Rich
Gibson
The Grenada 17: the Last Prisoners of the Cold War are Black
Elaine
Cassel
A Sorry FBI
Cathrin
Schütz
On the Ruins of Yugoslavia
Ben
Tripp
Call Me, Mr. Cassandra
Kurt
Nimmo
The Madness of King George
Ron
Jacobs
They Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Unless We Make It So)
Laura
Flanders
The Lynne Cheney Show?
Lenni
Brenner
Renaissance Noir: Caravaggio at the Met
Abigail
Jones
Whatever Happened to Lori Berenson, President Toledo's Trophy
Prisoner?
Mark
Latham
Nothing Bush Said Has Changed Our Hopes
Gerry
Adams
I Was Photographed While Tortured, Too
Toni
Solo
Venezuela 2004, Nicaragua's Contra War Reprised
Derek
Seidman
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old
M.
Junaid Alam
Torture is Just the Symptom
Matt
Siegfried
An American Way of War
Dave
Zirin
The Politics of Charles Barkley
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Krieger, St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
Overnight Sensations
June
4, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Masked and Anonymous: Inside America's
Animal House
Cornwell
/ Penketh
Exit Tenet: the Fall of a Fall Guy
Wayne
Madsen
Apprehension & Frustation: Neo-Cons on the Brink
Greg
Moses
Agitating for Workers' Rights in Iraq
Yitzak
Laor
Before Rafah
Ghali
Hassan
Ambassador to Death Squads: Who is Negroponte?
Jane
Stillwater
God, the Rapture and Vera Casey
CounterPunch
Wire
D-Day Reconsidered: Was It Really Worth the Carnage?
John
Borowski
Woo-Wooism v. Meteorites: Why the Dems Are No Match for Bush
Mike
Griffin
Caterpillar's Assault on the UAW
Alexander Cockburn
Has Bush Gone Over the Edge?
Website
of the Day
Aquae Urbis Romae:
Water and Empire
June
3, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Iran's Nuclear Dilemma
Dr.
Susan Block
America in tha Hood
Michael
Donnelly
The Bully and the Brahmin
John
Chuckman
Insanity in America: US Ranks Number
One in the Deranged
Christopher
Brauchli
The Return of Cardinal Law: Rome
on $12,000 a Month
Samia
Nassar Melki
Caravaggio in Iraq
Mike
Whitney
Subverting Justice: Pre-Trial Ruminations in the Padilla Case
Diane
Rejman
Memorial Day Isn't Just About the Dead
Scott
Morris
"WMDs" in Cuba
Paul
de Rooij
Palestinian Misery in Perspective
June
2, 2004
Brian
Cloughley
The Liars are Winning
Ray
McGovern
How Far Would They Go? Beware "Credible
Intelligence"
Josh
Frank
The Anybody But Bush Offensive
Mike
Whitney
The Afghanistan Failure: Bush's Warlord Patriots
Jackie
Corr
Iraq and Ireland: Three Tales from Butte, Montana
Robert
Jensen
The US Lost the Iraq War...and It's a Good Thing, Too
Alexander
Cockburn
"Bye, Bye Boonville!"
June
1, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Instant Karma: Bush's Sins Catch Up
with Him
William
A. Cook
Manufacturers of Fear and Loathing in
Rafah
Dave
Lindorff
Will the Times Clean House?
Kevin
Zeese
Inside the Kerry / Nader Meeting: Did
the Kerry Campaign Lie About What Was Discussed?
Jacob
Levich
Coming Soon: Return of the Draft,
a Bipartisan Production
Kathy
Kelly
Voices in the Wilderness v. the US
Government
Website
of the Day
Remind Us
May
29 / 31, 2004
Lee
Ballinger / Dave Marsh
The Origins of Memorial Day
Janine
Pommy Vega
Memo for Memorial Day
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
May
28, 2004
Rafael
Rodriguez Cruz
Curtain of Silence on the Cuban 5
Greg
Moses
Bush's Misleading Speech on Abu Ghraib
Dave
Lindorff
Dissing Independent Contractors:
Those Who Do the Dirty Work
Norman
Solomon
Leaping for Lies at the Times
Rep.
Bill Delahunt
Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba
Paul
McGeough
Chalabi Baba and the 40 Thieves
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India and Nehru: 40 Years After
Alexander
Cockburn
NYTs: "Maybe We Did Screw Up...a
Little"
May
27, 2004
Amy
Goodman / David Goodman
Fatal Errors: the Lies of Our Times
Douglas
Valentine
Ragging the Dogs of War at the
NYTs
John
L. Hess
The Times Confesses...Kind Of
Stew
Albert
Dellinger, the Wrestling Pacifist
Dave
Dellinger
a 1993 Interview
Christopher
Brauchli
Tax Breaks for Scions...to Hell with Poor Kids
Rampton
/ Stauber
Banana Republicans: Pumping Irony
May
26, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Goodbye, David Dellinger: He Was a
Friend of Ours
Robert
Fisk
The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech
Zeynep
Toufe
New Draft UN Resolution Permits Perpetual Occupation
Conn
Hallinan
Bush and Sharon: the Oil Connection
Tom
Stephens
2 + 2 is On My Mind: More Morons
and War Crimes
Derek
Medley
Protesting Gov. Bigot
CounterPunch
Wire
FBI Abducts Artist; Seizes Art
Andrew
Cockburn
The Trail to Tehran
May
25, 2004
Joe
Bageant
The Covert Kingdom: On Earth as It
is in Texas
Col.
Dan Smith
A Question of Human Dignity
Gary
Handschumacher
Visiting Lori Berenson: Time to Bring Her Home
Toni
Solo
A Developing War in the Andes
Marc
Estrin
September Song: Disturbing Questions
About 9/11
Stephen
Banko, III
A Vietnam Vet on "Supporting the
Troops"
Website
of the Day
The Wizard of Whimsy
May
24, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Dan Senor is Safe!
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Tricks & TortureGate: the
Missing Taguba Pages
Sam
Hamod
Gen. Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong
Place, Wrong Time"
Mike
Whitney
The Wedding was a Bomb
Stan
Goff
Open Season on MAMs
Image
of the Day
A Photo from Abu Ghraib We Didn't See on the Front Page of the
NYTs
May
22 / 23, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Jeffrey
St. Clair
When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview
with Sue Niederer
Brian
Cloughley
America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq
Saul
Landau
Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good
for People
Brandy
Baker
Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry
Randall
Robinson
Bushwhacked in the Caribbean
Uri
Avnery
The Rape of Rafah
Ben
Tripp
Assume the Worst
Bruce
Anderson
News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business
Josh
Ruebner
Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers
Peter
Wolson, Ph. D.
Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib
Chloe
Cockburn
In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy
Linda
Burnham
Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value
Adrien
Rain Burke
War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse
David
Krieger
Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy
Ron
Jacobs
Turnaround
Poets'
Basement
Ford, Albert & LaMorticella
May 21, 2004
Ray
Close
The Canards of the Apologists
Christopher
Brauchli
"The Object of Torture is Torture"
Amira
Hass
Darkness at Noon
Jack
McCarthy
Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from
the US Army?
Bill
Kauffman
Nader v. Bush
Omar
Barghouti
No More Tears for America
Ghali
Hassan
Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza
Christopher
Reed
How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to
Torture
Website
of the Day
Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much
May
20, 2004
Andrew
Cockburn
The Truth About Chalabi
Kathy
Kelly
A Visit from the FBI
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Brown and Bored of Education in India
Tom
Stephens & John Philo
The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co.
Sam
Bahour / Michael Dahan
Genocide by Public Policy
Robert
Ovetz
Ending the Race for the Last Turtle
Billy
Wilson
The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year
Website
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Rafah Today
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
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Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
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Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
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Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
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Wendell
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Small Destructions Add Up
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WMD: Who Said What When
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Francis Boyle
Impeach
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Weekend
Edition
June 12 / 13, 2004
Engineering
Consent
Al
Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
By
ANTHONY LOEWENSTEIN
"I hope al-Jazeera is
going to be around to... report to the Arab public, and I think
at that point the Arab public will realize that we came in peace,
we came as liberators [to Iraq], not conquerors."
Colin Powell, US National Public
Radio, March 2003
The rise of Osama bin Laden as the world's
most wanted man can be directly linked to the ever-increasing
reach of Qatar based TV station, al-Jazeera. The al-Qaeda leader
has frequently used the Arabic channel to release audio and video
messages to supporters and "infidels" alike. During
a period when virtually every Middle Eastern country is ruled
by unelected and dictatorial figureheads, al-Jazeera has brought
a dose of truth to the steady diet of government approved propaganda
frequently fed to the Arab world. There is mounting evidence
that the vast majority of the Arab world simply doesn't believe
President Bush when he talks about bringing democracy and freedom
to their region.
For the first time in many
Arab's lives, their satellite dishes are bringing a diverse range
of opinions and images unimaginable only a decade ago. Launched
in 1996 by a group of disillusioned BBC journalists after Saudi
investors pulled out of an Arabic arm of the BBC, it receives
funding from the Qatari crown prince, Emir al-Thani and reaches
over 35 million homes daily. It's the most successful news service
in the region.
US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt
reflected the view of many in the Bush administration when he
said in March that, "my solution is to change the channel
to a legitimate, authoritative, honest news station. The stations
that are showing Americans intentionally killing women and children
are not legitimate news sources."
One can only imagine what kind
of "honest news station" he had in mind. Extreme pressure
has been placed on the channel to show more positive images of
the US occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, but the station refuses,
saying they receive footage of startling brutality and it's their
duty to show it, blood, guts and all.
This infuriates Washington
and London but it's not something worrying Mahir Abdullah, senior
correspondent for al-Jazeera. Speaking exclusively to Webdiary,
Abdullah dismisses claims of anti-American bias:
"American politicians
were full of praise for al-Jazeera when it was highlighting the
shortcomings of some Arab regimes", he says. They used to
say we are furthering the cause of democracy when we were critical
of Arab policies and politics. We still do the same today. Nothing
changed as far as we can see. The only difference is that now
the American media was overwhelmed by patriotism after the 11th
of September."
It's a view echoed by Arthur
Neslen, former London correspondent for al-Jazeera.net. "Many
al-Jazeera journalists have American passports, I'm sure,"
he tells me, "People unable or unwilling to distinguish
between concepts of a 'country' and a 'country's foreign policy'
should not be setting the terms of the debate."
Neslen sees the channel reporting
multiple viewpoints, journalism virtually unimaginable in the
Western media, "a willingness to take risks in showing controversial
images of the horrors of war, reporting from 'behind enemy lines',
critical coverage of Saddam Hussein and George Bush alike and
an avoidance of the 'news pool'."
A sign of the increasing interest
being generated by al-Jazeera is the release of the film Control
Room. Telling the story of how the channel decided and made the
news during the Iraq war, the film has already broken box-office
records in the US. With senior Bush officials accusing the station
of anti-Americanism, an increasing amount of Americans clearly
want to make up their own minds. The Christian Science Monitor
highlighted the main thrust of the film: nobody has a monopoly
on truth.
***
Abdullah presents a weekly
live show that discusses modern Islamic thought. He joined al-Jazeera
in 1998 after working at the London-based Middle East Broadcasting
Corporation (MBC). He has also been a news editor. He arrived
in Iraq one week after the Iraq war had started to present a
political analysis program. "We already had one from Washington
looking at the war from there, one in London seeing things from
the UK and many from Doha [al-Jazeera's headquarters] - all trying
to reflect Arab public opinion. It was only natural to try and
see a Baghdad perspective on things."
He soon realised that their
resources in the Iraq capital were insufficient and the program
didn't begin until after the war. Abdullah's role, therefore,
became even more dangerous: reporting the conflict and coordinating
the team of al-Jazeera reporters on the ground.
A common complaint leveled
against al-Jazeera has been its alleged blindly pro-Arab perspectives
during the Iraq war. It's a charge roundly rejected by Abdullah:
"War is about pressure.
Before the fall of Baghdad, the Iraqis exerted a lot of pressure.
I think our bureau was the most visited office in Iraq by the
former Iraqi Information Minister, Al-Sahhaf. I assure you that
none of his visits were pleasant despite the fact that he personally
was a somewhat pleasant man. Many of our reporters were ordered
to stop working at one point or another. Three were given ultimatums
to leave the country. Threats were made against some others.
As for the Americans, we were not worried about them in Baghdad
at first."
The targeting of journalists
and media organisations now appears to be standard practice by
elements of the American military. Too many reporters have been
injured or killed during the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts for
these incidents to be dismissed as mere accidents. Serious questions
remain, and US military reports into the bombing or shooting
of unarmed journalists leave the disturbing impression that the
"war on terror" means more than we've been told so
far.
"Management had already
given them the co-ordinates of our offices [in Baghdad],"
Abdullah said. "Despite all the negative references to al-Jazeera
in the American official's press conference, we thought we were
safe in dealing with a democracy that respects freedom of the
press. Then came the 8th of April [2003] when early in the morning
our offices were hit by a couple of air-born bombs. Our colleague,
Tariq Ayyoub, died instantly and our assistant cameraman was
injured by shrapnel going into his neck.
"This was the third "accident"
that happened to al-Jazeera. The first was in Kabul during the
war in Afghanistan when four rockets accidentally hit our offices
there. A few days before the hit on the Baghdad offices, another
rocket accidentally hit the hotel at which our Basra team was
staying. What was interesting about the accident in Basra is
that it came when Tony Blair and his officials were telling the
British public that the people of Basra were dancing in the streets
celebrating their liberation. To this day, we havn't receive
any apology for any of these accidents."
Faisal Bodi is a senior editor
for <al-Jazeera.net>. Writing in The Guardian in March
2003, he highlighted the agenda from which the channel operated
when covering the Iraq war:
"Of all the major global
networks, al-Jazeera has been alone in proceeding from the premise
that this war should be viewed as an illegal enterprise. It has
broadcast the horror of the bombing campaign, the screaming infants
and the corpses. Its team of on-the-ground, unembedded correspondents
has provided a corrective to the official line that the campaign
is, barring occasional resistance, going to plan."
Bodi painted a powerful picture
of Western media double standards and less than rigorous reporting
of both sides of the war:
"The British media has
condemned al-Jazeera's decision to screen a 30-second video clip
of two dead British soldiers. This is pure hypocrisy. From the
outset of the war, the British media has not balked at showing
images of Iraqi soldiers either dead or captured and humiliated."
His argument has only become more prescient in the last year,
especially since the release of the Abu Ghraib torture photos."
Bodi contributed a chapter
to Tell me Lies: Propaganda and Media Distortion in the Attack
on Iraq (Pluto Press, 2004). Revealing the ways in which al-Jazeera
operated in Iraq and the violently hostile US response, he offers
a chilling explanation of the possible reasons behind the bombing
of the channel's offices in Baghdad:
"al-Jazeera, according
to Paul Wolfowitz, was practising 'very biased reporting that
has the effect of inciting violence against our troops.' It is
not a big leap from here to the suggestion that American soldiers
are only acting in pre-emptive self-defense, when in the words
of al-Jazeera's indignant reply they routinely subject al-Jazeera's
offices and staff in Iraq 'to strafing by gunfire, death threats,
confiscation of news material, and multiple detentions and arrests,
all carried out by US soldiers who have never actually watched
al-Jazeera but only heard about it'."
John William Racine III, a
hacker based in California, shut down al-Jazeera.net during the
Iraq war. As reported by Arthur Neslen in The Guardian in April
2004, "with a maximum of 25 years available, the US attorney's
office agreed a sentence of 1,000 hours community service".
Racine was clearly doing the bidding of the Bush administration.
After the recent slaughter in Fallujah by American troops, US
Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, articulated the feelings
of many in the American government:
"I can definitely say
that what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.
We know what our forces do. They don't go around killing hundreds
of civilians. That's just outrageous nonsense! It's disgraceful
what that station is doing."
Secretary of State, Colin Powell,
the war-like "dove" of the administration even met
in early May with the Qatari's Foreign Minister, Sheikh Bin Jassin
Bin Jabr al-Thani, requesting his government control the Qatar-based
channel. It's unimaginable that any other country's government
would complain about an American TV station's coverage of their
situation, though many would have legitimate claims.
Abdullah argues that al-Jazeera
is playing an essential role in bringing openness and democracy
to the Middle East, taking the role that America claims it brings
with the Iraq enterprise:
"I think it [al-Jazeera]
has already helped in furthering the cause of democracy in the
region. Just think of numerous Arab governments that express
displeasure at the channel. Think of the ambassadors who have
been withdrawn from Doha in protest at our reporting of opposition
groups. Think of the other Arab stations that are trying to imitate
the level of freedom we have.
"I think al-Jazeera has
raised the level of political discourse in the Arab world. It's
a great injustice to al-Jazeera as to the cause of freedom to
see it only in terms of what an interested party (the US) perceives
as a biased coverage of the war."
Neslen documents the constant
intimidation he has received while a journalist with al-Jazeera:
"I myself have been detained
for an hour by British special branch officers at Waterloo station.
The questioning focused on my employer. The officers also wanted
information about other al-Jazeera journalists in Paris and London,
and asked if I would speak to someone in their office on a regular
basis about my work contacts. I declined both requests."
Western governments are clearly
scared of eyewitness accounts emerging from the increasingly
exposed tactics of the US military. al-Jazeera is documenting
these atrocities and exposing unpleasant realities to the Arab
world and beyond.
Perhaps Norman Solomon, executive
director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, puts it best:
"Officials in Washington
keep saying they want to encourage democratization in the Middle
East, but the Bush administration's moves to throttle al-Jazeera
certainly indicate otherwise."
The US's standing in the Arab
world is at an all-time low, and many see the attacks against
al-Jazeera merely symptomatic of a deeper unease with multiple
viewpoints of America's misguided adventures in the Middle East.
Reese Erlich, a foreign correspondent who has covered the region
for two decades, says that the US has lost both the moral and
ethical battle in the most volatile area in the world:
"The US is losing the
war in Iraq and is increasingly isolated politically in the Arab
world, so what's the response? Blame the media. The US media
wouldn't accept such an argument from Bush the candidate, so
why accept it from Bush the commander in chief?"
Abdullah is confident in stating
that the Arabic channel is more responsible that its Western
counterparts because it is willing to show the dirty and violent
images of war:
"Any showing of the bad
side of war was seen as harming the war efforts. Luckily the
American media is now waking up to reality. They are uncovering
the lies themselves [remember WMDs?]. They are showing the photos
of abuse of the Iraqi prisoners at the hands of American soldiers.
They are talking about 'civil war' between the Defense and State
Departments over the handling of the Iraqi situation. Is the
American media becoming anti-American too? Donald Rumsfeld wanted
a 'clean war' and we were showing some of the dirty aspects of
it - does that make us anti-American? We are not in the business
of being anti or pro anybody. We are in the business of reporting
the news. That's not always a good thing for politicians."
While acknowledging some weaknesses
of al-Jazeera ("funding and relatively inexperienced journalists
in some instances"), Neslen insists that Western governments
and propagandists fundamentally misunderstand the multifaceted
perspectives of the channel:
"The targeting of al-Jazeera
is all the more remarkable given that it is the only Arab TV
network to routinely offer Israeli, US and British officials
a platform to argue their case. The Israeli cabinet minister,
Gideon Ezra, famously told the Jerusalem Post, 'I wish all Arab
media were like al-Jazeera.'"
During the US military's bombardment
of Fallujah during April, al-Jazeera was reportedly the only
media organization recording the devastation. Reporter Ahmed
Mansour documented the offensive that claimed the lives of up
to 700 Iraqi lives and injured more than 1000. The channel aired
footage of civilian casualties in the town and provided the world
with rare access into "shock and awe" American military
tactics. Too much of this story remains untold.
al-Jazeera still faces many
challenges, especially the need to confront some of the major
issues facing the region itself. The last decade has seen an
alarming rise in anti-Semitism in the Middle East with incitement
against Jews and Israel. A number of prominent Arabic newspapers
have published these views with regularity. Edward Said wrote
in Le Monde in 1998 that it was the responsibility of the Arab
world to speak out against injustices against the Jews, otherwise
the world would never understand the pain suffered by Arabs:
"Why do we expect the
world to believe our suffering as Arabs if (a) we cannot recognise
the sufferings of others, even of our oppressors and (b) we cannot
deal with the facts that trouble simplistic ideas or the sort
propagated by...intellectuals who refuse to see the relationship
between the Holocaust and Israel?"
Mahir Abdullah believes that
al-Jazeera may well be the connection between the West and the
East (al-Jazeera is launching an English language channel later
this year). He argues that this ever-widening gulf in understanding
must diminish before we can ever hope for a more balanced and
harmonious world order: "I think the West, and I've lived
in the West for most of my adult life, suffers from an intrinsic,
if not instinctive, lack of understanding of the East. Is there
any chance of changing that? I guess there is no harm in trying."
Antony Loewenstein writes the Engineering Consent column
on the workings of the media for the Sydney Morning Herald. He
can be reached at: aloewenstein@f2network.com.au
Weekend Edition
Features for June 5 / 6, 2004
C.
Douglas Lummis
Toward a Universal Declaration of
Human Wrongs
Saul
Landau
Five Cubans in Prison, Victims of Bush's Obsession
Dave
Lindorff
John Walker Lindh, Revisited
Brian
Cloughley
Apologies, Please, From Those Who Got It Wrong
Rich
Gibson
The Grenada 17: the Last Prisoners of the Cold War are Black
Elaine
Cassel
A Sorry FBI
Cathrin
Schütz
On the Ruins of Yugoslavia
Ben
Tripp
Call Me, Mr. Cassandra
Kurt
Nimmo
The Madness of King George
Ron
Jacobs
They Ain't Goin' Nowhere (Unless We Make It So)
Laura
Flanders
The Lynne Cheney Show?
Lenni
Brenner
Renaissance Noir: Caravaggio at the Met
Abigail
Jones
Whatever Happened to Lori Berenson, President Toledo's Trophy
Prisoner?
Mark
Latham
Nothing Bush Said Has Changed Our Hopes
Gerry
Adams
I Was Photographed While Tortured, Too
Toni
Solo
Venezuela 2004, Nicaragua's Contra War Reprised
Derek
Seidman
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old
M.
Junaid Alam
Torture is Just the Symptom
Matt
Siegfried
An American Way of War
Dave
Zirin
The Politics of Charles Barkley
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Krieger, St. Clair
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