Why is the US afraid of a media outlet that speaks for Arabs?

[dArKeR]

By Daoud Kuttab

No one is indifferent to al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arab satellite television station. You can practically see the blood of US officials boil when they discuss it. To be sure, in the context of the dream of all Arabs being united and independent of foreign control, al-Jazeera is undeniably partial to Arab aspirations. But that does not make its news reporting untruthful. In fact, al-Jazeera, which US Secretary of State Colin Powell calls "horrible" and "slanted," is a pivotal vehicle for reform and change, which genuinely democratic Arab activists and the international community alike have been calling for.

So incensed has the US been, however, that it created its own Arabic language mouthpiece in the form of satellite station al-Hurra. Yet al-Hurra is forbidden from broadcasting within the

US, because it is state controlled. Arabs don't trust it, either. It demonstrated its lapdog status by never broadcasting images of prisoners being abused inside Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison. In this respect, at least, al-Hurra fits perfectly within the tame tradition of Arab state broadcasters.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/edit/archives/2004/08/11/2003198324

[Union Thug]

1. Israel?

[JSJ]

2. our gov is petrified of al-Jazeera for the same reasons it fears...

...all independent reporters; it can -through the honest reporting of facts- derail the Bush administration's criminally-oriented profit schemes and whatnot.