Page 241 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

Catapult the Media 23 1

ished by massive bombing that destroyed much of the city. Kevin added, "The
message the siege of Falluja sends is brutally simple: resist us and we will de-
stroy
McGeough considers the U.S. "war of attrition" against Iraq to be similar to
the campaign conducted by Israel against the occupied Palestinian territories. As
attacks against the U.S. continue, its forces pursue policies of collective punish-
ment, McGeough argues, including the indefinite mass detainment of Iraqis
without charge, the surrounding of some cities with barbed wire, the razing of
the homes of suspected "insurgents," as well as the bombing of large urban ar-
eas. McGeough predicts that "the longer this continues, the greater the risk for
Washington that more ordinary Iraqis will shift from fearing the insurgents to
sympathizing or participating with them."71 As the final section of this chapter
discusses, the coverage of the A1 Jazeera network, while balancing contrasting
viewpoints of the Iraq war, has also been profoundly critical of American objec-
tives in the "War on Terror" and the neoliberalization of Iraq. This is well re-
flected in the network's presentation of anti-occupation views and bluntly
worded anti-war propaganda.

A1 Jazeera's Challenge to "The War on Terror"

April 12, 2003 was a bad day for journalists in Iraq. Only three weeks into the
U.S. Iraq invasion, American troops had already reached Baghdad to find only
limited resistance in their occupation of the city. That Iraqi resistance was
lighter than expected did not translate into a safer environment for journalists,
however, as three reporters were killed on this day alone, one from Abu Dhabi
TV, another from the Spanish channel Telecino, and the last from the A1 Jazeera
network. All three journalists had one thing in common; they were not traveling
with, or protected by, the U.S. military.
In the Iraq war, many journalists have decided to risk their lives by assert-
ing their independence from the U.S., reporting from positions well removed
from embedded reporters and their military escorts. Tarek Ayyoub of A1 Jazeera
was one of the reporters who were unable to escape U.S. bombs falling on
Baghdad. Stationed at A1 Jazeera's Baghdad office, Ayyoub and other A1
Jazeera staff provided in depth reporting from the conflict zonereporting that
was far more critical of the U.S. than the vast majority of the coverage seen in
the Western media, particularly from American major media outlets. Unfortu-
nately, Ayyoub paid the ultimate price for providing critical information, after
he was killed by a U.S. plane that launched a missile strike against Baghdad's A1
Jazeera office. The office was destroyed despite the fact that the station had
alerted the Pentagon numerous times to their presence at that location.
The Pentagon explained that the attack was in retaliation to fire that had
allegedly originated from the area around the A1 Jazeera office. The Pentagon
also explained the motivation for the U.S. tank attack on the fourteenth and fif-
teenth floors of the Palestine Hotel (which killed Reuters cameraman Taras
Protsyuk) by claiming it was in response to sniper fire and other attacks from the