I agree completely. From now on, I'm not
to view topics such as this. This forum has
been a great diversion from the BS of the
world, BS that I have no control over.
Terry
Printable View
Oh alright if I must hehe ";" I'll go back to talking about razors I can't afford lol
Josh, after reading your opening post, I wasn't too convinced that you had done your homework on this topic.
You wrote that you are "sickened" by the idea that "those people" (I assume you mean Al Jazeera?) have the balls to broadcast in English, "purely for recruitment and propaganda purposes."
Purely for recruitment and propaganda purposes? Jeez. This kind of ignorance is pretty startling, man.
You mentioned that you can understand wanting limited availability to the network for "intel purposes," but it's pretty clear that you meant that in a strictly militaristic sense, and that anyone watching Al Jazeera should be taking notes as though it were Terror 101. How about making it available to the public for general intelligence purposes? If a smart guy like yourself -- someone who works in the Pentagon, for Christ's sake -- doesn't know what Al Jazeera is, I can only imagine how ill-informed much of the American public is with respect to this stuff.
The fact is, Al Jazeera's broadcasting in English coincides with the tenth anniversary of the network's inception. This is a channel, Josh, that rivals the BBC in terms of viewership. It's the Middle-Eastern CNN, basically. Is it without bias? No, certainly not. But try to point me in the direction of a specific news group or medium that is -- you won't find one. It's the new kid on the block Journalism-wise and at press junkets around the world, VIPs will often walk right past BBC, CNN, CBC and Reuters to be interviewed by Al Jazeera.
In both America and the Middle-East, the government has quite the influence over the news media. Over there, though, Al Jazeera is really the only independent outlet. Prior to 9/11, they were congratulated by the US for being so progressive; after the fact, airing taped statements of Bin Laden's and other Al-Qaeda leaders changed the American opinion of them, all because they chose to show footage (without adding partisan comment, incidentally) of the other side of Bush's war on terror. Is it possible that a viewer might find this madman's rants attractive? Of course. But you don't have to. Nobody has to, in fact.
Ask yourself: how is giving the podium, in this instance to an undoubtedly derranged Osama bin Laden, any different than America tuning in to President Bush's addresses, which air on nearly every network in the states? Everyone stops and watches as the man is given uninterrupted air time to ramble about "evil doers," "staying the course" and "terror- terror- terror."
Educate yourself: check out http://english.aljazeera.net/News. This is the english translation of the Al Jazeera website. It may seem spooky, but it's news reporting from a different perspective. There are no recruitment sections, but there is an "Around the World" section, a "Sports" section, an opinion poll which appears to be democratic... but I guess there's no way to determine if it's legitimate.
I fail to see how a different perspective is a bad thing. Their reporting on the war in Iraq would be completely different. A learning experience, no matter how you slice it. With Saddam, instead of seeing press conference sound bites saying "We got 'im!" they provide a different angle.
Blade Wielder : Exactly. Just what I was about to say (though in not so many words :w )
Steven
But then doesn't the problem come when both sides fell this way?
It just takes small things from either side to start things going.
But what can I say, I'm British, we started trying to invade the middle east about a hundred years ago. You'd think we would have learnt are lesson my now :w
I've seen that video before, and it illustrates something I think is important, and that's that there is a discussion going on in Muslim countries that we never hear. If an American had said the things Sultan said, they'd be labeled as "racist", and would probably have a fatwah put on them. They would have been denounced the world over. I doubt you could ever have had that discussion on American TV anyway, because the two speakers would be constantly interrupted by each other, or the grandstanding host. A different perspective is nearly always a good thing.
On the other hand, it was easy to see how dismissive, and downright hostile the male speaker was to Sultan. The fact that she's secular, and a woman, automatically negated anything she had to say, in his eyes. This is the culture we're fighting against. I just hope she doesn't go the way of recent Russian dissidents.
I agree. That's what freedom of speech is all about. You may be really upset by what someone is saying, but you don't stop it unless there is some real incitement or similar danger.
Even if the AJ news is slanted, it's not good for us to hear our spin all the time. The public is intelligent enough to weigh all the facts and decide what to believe. This is just one way of getting more facts. The English site is one way to do it.
You would expect them to have a point of view that's middle eastern. They did constitute a breakthrough in middle east news reporting. You'll have to forgive us, we've been getting our own spin for so long that the gut reaction is just discount something like AJ. Hopefully, that will begin to change now.