 Eric
Mueller comments: HERE's a news flash
that came out just a few hours
ago. There have been a number of reports
that the US occupation authorities
discriminate against al-Jazeera and
al-'Arabiyah, not letting them
cover news events that the major US
companies are invited to film, etc. When
they complained, the Arab TV companies
were told that the US policy is based on
the fact that those two stations are
"biased", which is to say that they call
the Iraqi Resistance "resistance" rather
than "gunmen," and refer to the US forces
"cracking down on resistance fighters"
rather than "ensuring security in
Iraq."
Their reporters have
also been harassed and even jailed by the
US forces and at the time of the invasion
last year al-Jazeera's bureau was
shelled by a US tank, killing one
correspondent and wounding others.
This is therefore the
latest in an on-going story of how the US
occupation is fostering a "free
press." Arabist Eric Mueller
is this website's expert on Middle Eastern
affairs.
 To
which comment, David Irving adds his
own:
THESE concepts like
freedom and democracy are
all to be understood relative to US
interests.
• Democracy is when
the United States Government rigs up an
Iraqi National Committee of Quislings,
stages elections in which the most popular
party, the Baath party, is barred from
participating, and hands over power (in
July 2004), but leaves 100,000 USA troops
in Iraq to oversee
things. . .
• It is not
democracy but "cowardice" and "appeasement
of terror" when a new Spanish government,
elected specifically on an anti-war
platform, manages to disentangle itself
from the mess that President George W Bush
has got the Middle East into, and
announces it will call home its guest
forces from his little party. |
Islammemo
Thursday, 18 March 2004, 11:10pm, Mecca
time. A CAMERMAN for the independent
al-'Arabiyah Satellite TV company has been
killed and a correspondent injured by US gunfire on
Thursday night
[Thursday,
March 18, 2004] in
Baghdad. An al-'Arabiyah woman correspondent
reported that after the nighttime blasts that shook
three hotels in the city on Thursday night, an
al-'Arabiyah TV crew headed for the scene of
the attack. But US occupation troops hastened
immediately to block off the area. The US troops surrounded the al-'Arabiyah
TV car and then fired on the vehicle, killing the
cameraman, Ali 'Abd al-'Aziz, and wounding
the correspondent Ali al-Khatib.
Al-'Arabiyah's woman correspondent said that
there were other persons who were also wounded in
the incident.
Secondly, we reproduce
al-Jazeera's report on the same
incident. 
al-Jazeera
March 19, 2004, 4:00 a.m. GMT
Al-Jazeera TV reports
that Ali 'Abd al-'Aziz, an Iraqi cameraman
working for al-'Arabiyah was killed and the
station's correspondent was seriously wounded when
US occupation forces fired on their car near a
checkpoint in the center of Baghdad on Thursday
night. Employees of al-'Arabiyah told al-Jazeera
that the Iraqi cameraman and reporter were driving
their vehicle in the center of Baghdad when another
car broke through an American checkpoint. The US
forces opened fire indiscriminately on both cars,
killing the al-'Arabiyah cameraman and
seriously wounding the correspondent. The wounded
man was taken to hospital in serious condition and
several operations have been performed on him. The
US attack came as the crew were covering the
explosion at the al-Hayat Tower Hotel.
Eric Mueller adds:
DESPITE their reputation with
the US forces, neither al-Jazeera nor
al-'Arabiyah buck against painting them in a
relatively good light.
The fact is however that
an Arab audience simply could not swallow what
western media dish out, and even though
al-'Arabiyah and al-Jazeera try to
abide by the US rules there is a limit to how far
they can go given their own audiences.
One example of their
self-censorship is a story which appeared a couple
days ago in al-Jazeera reporting that all
over Iraq now there are appearing computer disks on
which are films
of Iraqi Resistance attacks on US targets.
One would expect
al-Jazeera then to broadast some, yet it has
confined itself to reporting the existence of the
disks.
Some months ago I was told
privately that they have been instructed by the US
authorities under no circumstances to broadcast
certain films which they have from the Resistance.
I suspect this is more of the same.
Al-Jazeera pushes the envelope by telling
people that such films exist, but still balks at
showing them. 
Pat
of New York has spotted an odd thing about
French news bulletins from Iraq: Is Washington
rationing what dumb US viewers get to
see?-
Videotape
found near Madrid mosque claims al-Qaeda tied to
lethal blasts: angry Spaniards claim Government,
facing election, is playing down Iraq link
 -
David Irving:
Radical's
Diary on the bombing of passenger trains in
Madrid
-
Al-Qaeda
communiqué, 18, 2004
|
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