Page 249 - Mass Media, Mass Propoganda Examining American News in the War on Terror

Catapult the Media 239

Questioning Western Humanitarianism

A1 Jazeera has become a force to be reckoned with as it continues to grow in
popularity, in large part as a result of its foundational critiques of the U.S. incur-
sions into the Arab World. It is through this fierce opposition and independence
that A1 Jazeera has been viewed as antagonistic to the interests of the Bush ad-
ministration, and has become subject to the attempted discipline of not only the
U.S. government and the corporate media, but the Iraqi government and sur-
rounding Middle Eastern countries as well.
While much of the Western media tended to uncritically favor the war effort
in the first few years of the conflict, A1 Jazeera adamantly opposed the notion
that the war was motivated by humanitarian purposes. Hugh Miles explains:
"never once in the twenty-one days of conflict did Al-Jazeera acknowledge that
invading Iraq had anything to do with demo~ratization"'~~-a marked contrast
from American mainstream sources, which overwhelmingly reinforced the idea
that the U.S. was concerned with liberating Iraqis from Saddam Hussein (hence
the label used in the media: "Operation Iraqi Freedom"). Conversely, A1 Jazeera
allocated significant airtime to experts and activists who were hostile to the U.S.
invasion, to the dismay of American leaders.Io6
With only a short review of some of the channel's headlines, one begins to
see the gulf that separates A1 Jazeera's ideological frames from those of U.S.
news outfits such as ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox News. Common incendiary
headlines from A1 Jazeera's website (english.aljazeera.net) that were reported
throughout the war include, "Will U.S. fabricate WMD evidence?"; "U.S. More
Keen on Oil than Iraqi People"; "[Iraqi] Goveming Council Selected Not
Elected"; "U.S. 'Exaggerated' Foreign Fighters in Iraq"; "Arabs Voice Fears of
US Interim Government"; "Mosul Residents Tire of U.S. Presence"; "Many
Killed in Ramadi, Falluja Raids"; "U.S. Troops 'Preventing Aid' to Falluja";
"Scores Dead as Falluja Resists U.S. Onslaught7'; and "U.S. Soldiers Kill Protes-
tors in Falluja," to name merely a few.
A1 Jazeera's editorials have also presented serious challenges to the U.S. In
one example shortly after the beginning of the 2003 invasion, the channel
claimed that the "U.S. and British occupation of Iraq is regarded as the re-
emergence of the old colonialist practices of the western empires in some quar-
ters. The real ambitions underlying the brutal onslaught are still highly question-
able--and then there are the blatant lies over weapons of mass destruction origi-
nally used to justify the war."Io7 Furthering its case against the Bush
administration's WMD claims, A1 Jazeera argued: "There is growing evidence
that intelligence information was manipulated to support a political decision
already taken. A combination of U.S. direct control of Iraqi oil and a long-term
military presence in Iraq, in addition to the U.S. bases in surrounding countries,
would enable the U.S. to have more control over world oil supplies and poli-
cies."'08
A1 Jazeera's criticisms of the U.S. encompass not only the Bush administra-
tion's weapons of mass destruction claims and its strategic plans for Iraq and the
Middle East, but also the issue of Iraqi civilian casualties resulting from the