The War on Al Jazeera

[Guest guest]

S

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 23:03:46 -0600

The War on Al Jazeera

 

 

 

 

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051219/scahill

 

 

The War on Al Jazeera

 

by JEREMY SCAHILL

 

[from the December 19, 2005 issue]

 

If the classified memo detailing President Bush's alleged proposal to

bomb the headquarters of Al Jazeera is provided to The Nation, we will

publish the relevant sections. Why is it so vital that this

information be made available to the American people? Because if a

President who claims to be using the US military to liberate countries

in order to spread freedom then conspires to destroy media that fail

to echo his sentiments, he does not merely disgrace his office and

soil the reputation of his country. He attacks a fundamental

principle, freedom of the press--particularly a dissenting and

disagreeable press--upon which that country was founded. --The Editors

 

Nothing puts the lie to the Bush Administration's absurd claim that it

invaded Iraq to spread democracy throughout the Middle East more

decisively than its ceaseless attacks on Al Jazeera, the institution

that has done more than any other to break the stranglehold over

information previously held by authoritarian forces, whether monarchs,

military strongmen, occupiers or ayatollahs. The United States bombed

its offices in Afghanistan in 2001, shelled the Basra hotel where Al

Jazeera journalists were the only guests in April 2003, killed Iraq

correspondent Tareq Ayoub a few days later in Baghdad and imprisoned

several Al Jazeera reporters (including at Guantánamo), some of whom

say they were tortured. In addition to the military attacks, the

US-backed Iraqi government banned the network from reporting in Iraq.

 

Then in late November came a startling development: Britain's Daily

Mirror reported that during an April 2004 White House meeting with

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, George W. Bush floated the idea of

bombing Al Jazeera's international headquarters in Qatar. This

allegation was based on leaked " Top Secret " minutes of the Bush-Blair

summit. British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has activated the

Official Secrets Act, threatening any publication that publishes any

portion of the memo (he has already brought charges against a former

Cabinet staffer and a former parliamentary aide). So while we don't

yet know the contents of the memo, we do know that at the time of

Bush's meeting with Blair, the Administration was in the throes of a

very public, high-level temper tantrum directed against Al Jazeera.

The meeting took place on April 16, at the peak of the first US siege

of Falluja, and Al Jazeera was one of the few news outlets

broadcasting from inside the city. Its exclusive footage was being

broadcast by every network from CNN to the BBC.

 

The Falluja offensive, one of the bloodiest assaults of the US

occupation, was a turning point. In two weeks that April, thirty

marines were killed as local guerrillas resisted US attempts to

capture the city. Some 600 Iraqis died, many of them women and

children. Al Jazeera broadcast from inside the besieged city, beaming

images to the world. On live TV the network gave graphic documentary

evidence disproving US denials that it was killing civilians. It was a

public relations disaster, and the United States responded by

attacking the messenger.

 

Just a few days before Bush allegedly proposed bombing the network, Al

Jazeera's correspondent in Falluja, Ahmed Mansour, reported live on

the air, " Last night we were targeted by some tanks, twice...but we

escaped. The US wants us out of Falluja, but we will stay. " On April 9

Washington demanded that Al Jazeera leave the city as a condition for

a cease-fire. The network refused. Mansour wrote that the next day

" American fighter jets fired around our new location, and they bombed

the house where we had spent the night before, causing the death of

the house owner Mr. Hussein Samir. Due to the serious threats we had

to stop broadcasting for few days because every time we tried to

broadcast the fighter jets spotted us we became under their fire. "

 

On April 11 senior military spokesperson Mark Kimmitt declared, " The

stations that are showing Americans intentionally killing women and

children are not legitimate news sources. That is propaganda, and that

is lies. " On April 15 Donald Rumsfeld echoed those remarks in

distinctly undiplomatic terms, calling Al Jazeera's reporting

" vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.... It's disgraceful what that

station is doing. " It was the very next day, according to the Daily

Mirror, that Bush told Blair of his plan. " He made clear he wanted to

bomb al-Jazeera in Qatar and elsewhere, " a source told the Mirror.

" There's no doubt what Bush wanted to do--and no doubt Blair didn't

want him to do it. "

 

Al Jazeera's real transgression during the " war on terror " is a simple

one: being there. While critical of the Bush Administration and US

policy, it is not anti-American--it is independent. In fact, it has

angered almost every Arab government at one point or another and has

been kicked out of or sanctioned by many Arab countries. It holds the

rare distinction of being shut down by both Saddam and the new

US-backed government. It was the first Arab station to broadcast

interviews with Israeli officials. It is hardly the Al Qaeda

mouthpiece the Administration has wanted us to believe it is. The real

threat Al Jazeera poses is in its unembedded journalism--precisely

what is needed now to uncover the truth about the Bush-Blair meeting.

 

Conservative British MP Boris Johnson, who is by trade a journalist

and is editor of The Spectator magazine, has offered to publish the

memo if it is leaked to him. It should be published, and if any

journal is prosecuted for doing so, it should be backed up by media

organizations everywhere. The war against Al Jazeera and other

unembedded journalists has been conducted with far too little outcry

from the powerful media organizations of the world. It shouldn't take

another bombing for this to be a story.