Thank you for the introduction. I will do my best to stay active on this blog. The topics are pretty important and broad in scope and the discussions do not get too personal (a problem I have encountered on talk radio and other websites locally). It seems that politically active, non-Christian, Arab women push the wrong buttons with a few people, including people on the “liberal, left, center left, progressive, peace camp end of the spectrum).

I appreciate the effort and the courtesy put into this website. The opinions of the participants are also interesting and challenging.

Hopefully we can learn from each other and be able to participate in the process of positive change.

It is such a wilderness out here in San Luis Obispo.

Please feel free to ask anything any time. I will do the same.

Best wishes.

Please don’t be a stranger, Marilyn.

Aljazeera’s beginnings were before the Qatari involvement. It was a collaborative effort between the BBC and a Saudi “pay T.V.” company from 1994 to 1996. The BBC Arab employees were trained in Great Britain. Differences in scope and manner of reporting led the BBC to back out of the deal (the Saudis did not appreciate the airing of their executions to Arab nationals). It was then that the Qatari financier stepped in and rehired all the ex-BBC reporters into what we now know as Al-Jazeera in the Gulf. He wanted to keep their spirit of reporting alive.

There are more independent political and social movements in Qatar when compared with Saudi Arabia. The censorship is not as strict. The Middle East has changed a lot in the last 30 years but, listening to our news, one would not know that.

Arab citizens in general tend to question their governments to a greater extent than we question out government here. There are, however, more adverse consequences for those who do. The point is, people still try to question their realities and they are good at critiquing both their own governments and the West.

I was in Lebanon in 2005. Al-Jazeera was the most watched 24-hour source of news in the Middle East. It has talk shows that cover topics from family issues to the death penalty to environmental concerns. CNN International also broadcasts in Lebanon. It is interesting watching how CNN coverage differs when geared towards the Arab public. It is far less inflammatory towards Arabs and has more news from around the world (no Jon Benet stuff).

All Lebanese watched the 2003 invasion of Iraq on Al-Jazeera. Without question, that station earned their trust when compared to the other privately and government-owned stations in the country. The style of reporting is obviously different.

My friends’ first question to me was “what is wrong with Bush? Why is he waging war? Does he not care about his men being killed in Iraq?” Apparently, there were many American casualties shown on that station at the beginning of the invasion. I cannot verify what people told me, but they said that “American bodies littered the tarmac of Baghdad International Airport.” Al-Jazeera is not averse to showing graphic images because their philosophy is: the public has a right to know everything from all sides.

There is another station transmitting in the Arab world, “Al-’Arabiyya.” That one is privately owned by a Saudi prince and he established it in response to Al-Jazeera aorund 2000.

The Arab reporters in the movie do raise some pertinent issues about journalism and war reporting and, if you remember, the chairman of the station (his name eludes me now) made the comment that “history is written by the victors, and the victors will write this war (Iraq War.)” That sums it up for the main theme of the movie. That same chairman also said that if he were offered a position with a US news agency (FOX, if I remember correctly), he would leave al-Jazeera and take the job (for his children’s sake). Many reporters do want to be on the side of the victors.

I think this link will shed some light on the history of the station.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/shows/aljazeera/briefing.html

Marilyn Farhat.

“Everything in the world” is not a CIA plot. Many media projects, however, are CIA plots. The CIA is our country’s propaganda arm. The CIA exists to conduct covert opertations. A covert operation is not an operation no one knows about. It is an operation, as defined in National Security Action memoranda, in which the sponsoring role of the American government is concealed.

Opposition groups are often not what they seem. A good example appeared several weeks ago when it was revealed that the 2 top leaders of California’s main anti-war war group (I don’t recall whether it was ANSWER or NION) were police officers on assignment.

We will forever be misled and deceived until we become familiar with the strategy of the false flag and are able to discern where it is at work.

it wouldn’t be the first time cia had burned their own local agents (I mean the shooting of aj journos, bombing of their offices). but what would be the benefit?

I am skeptical about ascribing everything in the world to a cia plot… I mean, this blog comes out of the US, and the internet grew out of DARPAnet, so does that mean that Feral Scholar is a Company front? states as well as ideologies contain internal tensions, contradictions, and dissenting actors…

It was, however, disinformative, as it aimed at portraying Al Jazeera as an embattled, little-guy truth teller, taking flak from both sides.

The film does not point out that, in its attacks on Al Jazeera, the government of Iran does not accuse Al Jazeera of being biased or pro-American. It accuses Al Jazeera of being an American intelligence front.

And, of course, it is. Al Jazeera has never made a dime, and in fact loses millions of dollars a year. Where does it get the money to operate? From the government of a city-state, Qatar, which founded AL Jazeera. Qatar, as an ‘independant” nation, was itself originally created by British intelligence. Qatar is home not only to Al Jazeera, but also to the largest American foreign military base in the world. Qatar’s security forces are trained and equiped by British and American intelligence. The government that created Al Jazeera is itself a creation of the British and American governments. And, as the movie Control Room points out, AlJazeera’s management comes straight from the BBC, the media arm of the British goverment.

None of the above facts are secret. Al Jazeera’s status as a creation of Western intelligence is so obvious, and yet so hard to see for so many people.

We must come to understand and recognize the psychological operations technique referred to by those in the biz as getting a hostile territory “all taped up.” You ‘tape up” a territory by creating fake opposition groups, which, although they appear radical and inflammatory, are ultimately contolled by you, the occupying power.

As for Chertoff I heard on the Mike Malloy show that Chertoff is supposed to literally mean “of the devil” in Russian or something close to it. Can anyone confirm that?