More about Aljazeera

Based on the story about Bush suggesting bombing Aljazeera, several bloggers have commented on their general view of the quality of Aljazeera's news.

Juan Cole talks about their Arabic broadcasts (Bush as Press Assassin? Baathist in a Mirror Informed Comment blog 11/23/05):

Aljazeera is a widely misunderstood Arabic television channel that is mainly characterized by a quaint 1950s-style pan-Arab nationalism. It is not a fundamentalist religious channel, though it does host one old-time Muslim Brother, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Its main peculiarity in local terms is that it will air all sides of a political issue and allow frank criticism of Middle Eastern politicians as well as of Western ones. It is the only place in the Arab media where one routinely hears Israeli spokesmen (speaking very good Arabic, typically) addressing their concerns and point of view to Arab audiences.

Most of Aljazeera's programming is presented by natty men in business suits or good-looking, chic Arab women in fashionable Western clothes. (I see the anchors every day and am stricken at the idea of them being blown to smithereens by an American "accidental" bombing!) A lot of the programming is Discovery Channel-style documentaries.

The news is often criticial of the United States, though the journalists like controversy and are perfectly capable of asking fundamentalists and nationalists from the region very hard questions. The channel is one of the few places where you can sometimes see frank debate among Sunni Arab, Shiite and Kurdish Iraqis (the Lord knows we don't see it on US news!) Some Aljazeera journalists may have been sympathetic to radical Muslim groups, but mainly on nationalist and anti-imperialist grounds. These people don't look like adherents of political Islam for the most part.

Steve Clemons shares some of his own experiences with the service (Frank Gaffney: Bomb the Bad Media. . .If the Shoe Fits, Bomb Al-Jazeera Washington Note blog 11/23/05):

Just about every government in the Middle East has been ticked off at the reporting by Al-Jazeera. This fact, more than anything else, indicatesthat Al-Jazeera is doing a lot right.

I have made no secret of my respect for Al-Jazeera and its ability to dominate the Middle East media market with its reporting. I have appeared on several Al-Jazeera shows and was recently interviewed in a major production underway on the subject of "rendition."

My general impression is that Aljazeera provides decent, professional news to the Arab world.  It's based in the small kingdom of Qatar, which like most Arab countries is not noted for their commitment to freedom of the press.  So they tend to refrain from reporting on events in Qatar that might arouse the wrath of the authorities there.  But otherwise, they seem to be the most important example of independent reporting among the Arab countries.

Clemons also writes:

To add one other interesting dimension to this debate about Al-Jazeera, one of my friends asked novelist Tom Clancy what he thought about the mid-term future of the arab network at the major September terrorism conference where Clancy spoke. Tom Clancy replied that he thought that in five years, Al-Jazeera would be just another mouthpiece of American interests.

Fascinating, counter-intuitive statement - in TWN's view - that I hope is wrong, but which many inside the Al-Jazeera network feel strikes close to home and the realm of likelihood. (my emphasis)

Clemons quotes neocon Frank Gaffney approving the idea of blasting the Aljazeera offices.  His justification for calling them a legitimate military target is:

I believe that Al-Jazeera is an instrument of enemy propaganda in a war we are obliged to fight and win, not just for Americans and not just for Iraqis but for freedom-loving people everywhere, and I think that, to the extent that Al-Jazeera is actively aiding our foes, it is certainly appropriate to talk about what you do to neutralize it to prevent it from doing that sort of harm to the cause and even to the lives of servicemen fighting this war.

This is an issue that is discussed in military strategy papers that deserves more scrutiny.  The officer corps developed a very flawed consensus that a major problem in the Vietnam War was hostile press coverage at home.  And they developed lessons from this which include the notion that information in the form of news is a key factor is war and one which must be actively managed as such by the military.

In practice, that has translated into trying to exercise even more extreme control over information.  And in some ways, that has actually compounded the military's credibility problems.  In a short, victorious conventional like the Gulf War of 1991, Pentagon spokespeople can get away with a lot of spin.  And when your side wins and wins quickly, most of the public doesn't find occasion to dwell on misleading statements by military spokespeople.

But in the Iraq War, we'll soon be coming up on three full years of victory declarations, predictions of turning points and tipping points, decisive improvements just over the horizon, embarassing reports first denied and then confirmed to be true, and so on.

Gaffney's idea of deliberately targeting an independent media outlet in a friendly country with whom the US is not at war takes this idea to another level, in which it merges into the lawlessness and total reliance on military force that the neoconservatives celebrate.  We're not talking about an organization that is obtaining specific tactical information on military force movements and communicating those to the enemy forces real-time in a way to endanger specific American units.  We're talking about regular news, even if it doesn't practice the kind of "fair and balanced" approach of spouting the Republican Party line constantly that the distinguished folks at FOX News take.

Notice also Gaffney wording of why it's appropriate to take military action against Al Jazeera in a friendly country: "to the extent that Al-Jazeera is actively aiding our foes, it is certainly appropriate to talk about what you do to neutralize it to prevent it from doing that sort of harm to the cause and even to the lives of servicemen fighting this war."  Isn't "actively aiding our foes" what Republicans say pretty much all the time now about Democrats who criticize the war?