What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

[Rajiv]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Look at the Daniel Pearl wiki

Al jazeera did not release the video neither aljazeera.net or aljazeera.com

The video made its way to the Pakistani and United States governments. A jihadist site leaked the video onto the Internet. In April 2002, Dan Rather reported on CBS TV that the video was used extensively as a recruiting tool by jihadis in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia

Also by your logic, every statement critical of the US government should not be published on itulip. I say this because al jazeera has been demonized by the US government because of a so called anti US stance

see the al jazeera wiki

While prior to September 11, 2001, the United States government had lauded Al Jazeera for its role as an independent media outlet in the Middle East, US officials have since claimed an anti-American bias to Al Jazeera's news coverage

[metalman]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Lukester,

aljazeeraa.com is not the aljazeera website. It is aljazeera.net/english I think you are referring to the first and not to the second!

See wiki on aljazeera



Also from the above wiki




wiki on aljazeera.com



See also

Jazeera Space Channel TV Station v. AJ Publishing aka Aljazeera Publishing

and

Aljazeera - Website Domain Name Dispute

just posed a new poll here: is al jazzeera a credible news source?

[Rajiv]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Have you even looked at the aljazeera website and or tv?

[Guest]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Rajiv -

I re-checked the sources, and you are indeed correct, the Al Jazeera.net is an entirely different editorial line. One can even see many traces of the old BBC high standards on this website's reporting, and it's altogether a different news standard than the Al Jazeera.com.

Therefore I must extend sincere apologies to Max Keiser for this mis-attribution.

Anyone who has spent some time on Al Jazeera.com will find this a truly horrific controlled mouthpiece for blatantly directed geopolitical concerns. The purported "news" shifts it's slant subtly this way and that monthly, to suit changing propaganda requirements of some political entity I have not clearly determined.

Sometimes this descends into some really garish "appeasement " portrayals of the Iranian Mullah (Shia) government intended to build political capital with both the Sunni and Shia Arab populist "street" where populist anti-Americanism yields rich political dividends and must be like a magic elixir to build circulation and subscription numbers for that news agency. The level of debasement of Journalism at Al Jazeera.com is truly awful.

Clearly Al Jazeera.net is miles away from that quagmire, and even deserves recognition as a very isolated example of modern (purportedly) politically agnostic independent Journalism in the Gulf. I should have derived a broad clue that I had missed finding the correct website by seeing E.J. was voting for Max here, as it's probably infrequent that E.J. gets the wool pulled over his eyes.

However there is an issue which remains, and is still on the table. Saudi Arabia is a country with a political split between the ruling family and small technocratic elite, and the larger mass of "street" opinion. That "street" opinion is virulently anti-American, and militantly anti-Western in general, and is stuffed to the brim with the pre-packaged manipulated views supportive of the quite unattractive Mullah regime in Iran which Al Jazeera.com propagates.

I can't adequately describe the lethal, toxic mix of views inherent in that seething populism. If you spend a little time reading through the hoarse, brawling, vicious racist diatribes to be found on the Al Jazeera.com forum threads, and the glee with which their editorial staff vigorously fan it up with their unending succession of shrill articles, you'll walk away with a vivid reminder that the entire Arab street is a cauldron of seething hatreds seeking, even begging, to be manipulated by an opportunist government or group of governments which must deflect that dangerous sentiment from themselves at all costs.

I admire the highly educated, moderate Saudi, Kuwaiti and UAE leaders and the competent technocratic part of this readership there. One reads them and they are intelligent, capable, and scrupulously moderate of views. I would be pleased to see the US forge closer ties with these groups.

But I think apologists for a reputable news outlet such as Al Jazeera.net (the ex BBC news source Max contributes to), in their eagerness to represent the Saudi's and the UAE as "allies" are still disingenuously glossing over the fact that in meshing news sources such as iTulip with Al Jazeera.net, they are harnessing iTulip's considerable firepower to feed a steady stream of iTulip's indictment of the American economic and political establishment to an extremely eager populist audience in the Gulf that extends well beyond the moderate educated classes referred to above.

In the end the Saudi Monarchy and the Emirates governments seem fragile, existing over a sub-layer of society there which is very much up for grabs in terms of a popular opinion - and it's a popular opinion that will eagerly lap up any and all news which can grow the populist conclusions that all Western governments are evil and that eventually they must be "purged in a wave of fire".

This kind of populist manipulated view is everywhere in the ME, and therefore I see a distinctly uneasy coexistence between Max Keiser's campaign against American financial and political corruption, and an otherwise completely reputable Al Jazeera.net which is feeding these (otherwise solid, ground breaking and well researched) articles not only to their most educated elites, but also to a very broad swathe of their communities who will be directly harnessing Max's research about America to an already volatile stew of otherwise poisonous and false opinions about the "irredeemable corruption" of America and the West. It's what you might call a "patsy's lay-up" for such agendas.

I guess Max has many conclusions in line with those of iTulip. Taken in a Western secularized news context and to a "non-street" western audience, I think his commentary looks good. The point however is to recognize that when you have not managed to obtain a wide US or Western coverage of your contra-establishment expose, due to the quite obnoxious squelching and / or hostile propaganda engaged in by reactive conservative news outlets such as FOX, it is then very easy to turn in frustration to enlist air time on news networks such as Al Jazeera.net, which is admittedly an irreproachable news service in the Arabian Gulf with some great ex-BBC traditions.

But if you are examining your predicament, as an alternative news commentator bucking a lot of hostile conservative counter-press here in the States, you would presumably understand that your devastating critiques of the US establishment are being distributed to a Gulf region news agency who's wider audience is an Arab street that will harness the very sophistication of your damning analyses to legitimize more strident views which are a far cry from your own presumably moderate and secular political orientation.

In this context, I would be leery of entering into such an association. A news association between Al Jazeera.net and iTulip is ripe with opportunities for iTulip's insights to be appropriated wholesale to legitimize popular viewpoints in the Gulf which many here might dislike on closer examination.

I also must object to any commentator's expose's of the American decline in which references are made too easily to the "sheep" whom one's articles presumably seek to enlighten and awaken from their sleep. I saw this same brand of easy conceit employed by some otherwise highly educated, very urbane and engaging European Socialists I knew very well growing up in the EU (these are not really Socialists in a traditional hoary Marxist sense, but rather the quite sophisticated European equivalent of Liberals here in the US) - these were very decent people, but they appeared to me to begin treading unwittingly into dangerous conceits when they began to habitually think of their wider audience as a mass of sheep to be educated.

This notion is very appealing, and even has some components of truth, but it risks losing it's own moorings. I tend to wind up on my guard as to political complacency in those critics of US economic decline who fall into this type of preaching tone.

The risk which needs to be examined in entering a partnership with any Gulf Arab news agency with a very high international profile, where highly charged expose's of the failing US economic / political establishment are powerully dissected, is that the well intentioned American contributors may unwittingly then see their intelligent and legitimate America-critical views harnessed to a broader populist street opinion of considerably more fanciful a tone, which many of us do not necessarily approve of.

My diffidence towards Max's news outlet alliance here is that as he's evidently highly sophisticated too, this implication could not have been lost on him either. The virulent and dangerous populist hatred of the US in this region is so marked, full of wildly overstated inaccuracies, and shows potential for such significant growth in the near future, that to avoid examining these implications risks being regarded as disingenuous.

[Rajiv]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Lukester,

Aljazeera.com gives you an inaccurate picture of the middle east street.

These people (aljazeera.com) in my view are not much different from the extreme right wing diatribes you get inside the US - I seperate the extreme right wing from the extreme left wing -- for the extreme right wing shows absolutely no signs of any degree of altruism -- the extreme left wing may be impractical, and perhaps a victim of demagoguery, but at least they have the redeeming aspect of trying to look at the world through an altruistic lens.

[Guest]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Rajiv -

My view of the populist content of the Arab "Street" is only marginally supplied by Al Jazeera.com.

I derive this view from many different sources, and took years to arrive at it. I must also note you may tend to overlook the significance of such issues, possibly because you regard the degeneration of Western Capitalism as the gravest danger.

I am not on the same page with you on that, although I don't minimize what concerns you either. I think there are some very large other dangers emerging that may make the demise of Western Capitalism seem like an orderly walk in the park.

In every other respect you already know that I think very highly of all your other commentary.

Respectfully ...

[c1ue]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Aljazeera.com gives you an inaccurate picture of the middle east street.

These people (aljazeera.com) in my view are not much different from the extreme right wing diatribes you get inside the US - I seperate the extreme right wing from the extreme left wing -- for the extreme right wing shows absolutely no signs of any degree of altruism -- the extreme left wing may be impractical, and perhaps a victim of demagoguery, but at least they have the redeeming aspect of trying to look at the world through an altruistic lens.

Rajiv,

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you are referring to, but I'm fairly certain neither the American ultra-right nor ultra-left have ever conducted suicide attacks on any target.

The most recent example would be the Oklahoma city federal building bomb, but that was very much a hands-off operation.

I don't have a particular opinion on Al Jazeera, but I do share Lukester's opinions regarding Saudia Arabian 'street' sentiment.

[Rajiv]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

You are forgetting the Oklahoma City Murrah Building bombing.

However, that was not my point. Neither Al Jazeera.com or Al Jazeera the TV station has had anything to do with suicide bombing. However, if you want to associate every muslim person with suicide bombers, you are free to do so -- but that puts you in a logically indefensible position.

I consider the armies maintained by various nations to be equivalent of suicide bombers. Both totally and absolutely indefensible morally. An eye for an eye, and tooth for a tooth behavior engendered by vast standing armies and suicide bombers in my opinion is suicidal behavior.

[c1ue]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Rajiv,

You're clearly not reading my entire post - Oklahoma city is specifically mentioned as a terrorist act but NOT a suicide bombing.

As for associating every muslim person with a suicide bomber - I think you are again mis-reading what was printed.

My point was that the American ultra-right and ultra-left don't have suicide bombers.

There have been snipers at abortion clinics, but killing someone else at a safe distance is entirely different than strapping on explosives and charging into crowded areas.

As for armies being equivalent to suicide bombers - ummm - I think you are channeling some emotion here into a subject completely different than what is being discussed.

In fact, it is actually your equivocating armies with suicide bombers which is making the generalization:

1) That armies are solely for offensive purposes - how does a suicide bomber charging into marketplaces defend anything? As opposed to say kamikazes in WW II

2) That soldiers are volunteering to be sacrificed for political purposes - soldiers expect a reasonable chance to survive while being paid for their profession while suicide bombers are 100% aimed at ending their present lives in exchange for a wonderful afterlife. Certainly soldiers die when policies are set by their governments, but then again soldiers die in peacetime accidents, in their beds, etc etc. Death while serving as a soldier is completely different than being suicided like a pawn in a chess game.

3) Armies are incompatible with morals. Not sure where you're getting this one - but in any case this means pretty much all nations in existence right now are immoral. Seems a pretty wide and inaccurate estimation.

[Rajiv]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

2) That soldiers are volunteering to be sacrificed for political purposes

The Key word you stated is "sacrifice" -- That is what makes soldiers and suicide bombers alike. As far as visions of paradise are concerned, that is no different than Christian propaganda that promises "an eternal life at the right hand of God."

Why is it OK to cause the death of 655,000 civilians (almost 3% of the population), but not OK for a suicide bomber to kill 2 dozen people in a marketplace - and I am not defending either act - (by the way, most of the bombings in Iraq are not suicide bombs, but remotely detonated IEDs)?

Also from an interview with Dahr Jamail

What the U.S. military did in that city, under orders from the White House, likens it to a modern Guernica. Most of the city was destroyed during the second attack-70% of it was destroyed. Restricted and illegal weapons like cluster bombs and white phosphorous were used by the military. Marine snipers were shooting anything that moved in the city. Horrible war crimes took place there. Yet, again, the corporate media portrayed it as a heroic action to free the people of the city from fighters, yet it was mostly the people from the city themselves fighting to defend their homes, and their city, from the military. Of all I saw in Iraq, Fallujah stands as the worst action the U.S. military took, aside from the initial invasion of the country.

KZ: Were women, children and the elderly being killed? Was it accidental? Intentional? The U.S. military talks about precision bombs, what kinds of weapons was the U.S. using?

DJ: From what I saw in April, at a small clinic inside Fallujah, it was mostly women, children and elderly being shot by marine snipers. Everyone I saw coming to the clinic, people from different parts of the city coming at different times, were all telling the same story. That snipers were shooting everything that moved since they were being kept out of the city by the resistance. It definately appeared to be intentional, and soldiers later verified this. Later, during the November siege, military leaders declared the entire city a "free fire zone," meaning they gave soldiers license to shoot anything they wanted.

As far as "precision" bombings-there is no such thing. Just the blast radius alone for many of the munitions means that by definition there will be damage to nearby locations, which usually means civilian homes. This has been true since the initial invasion.

[Guest]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Rajiv -

You are the guy who has built a reputation for diligently checking the facts.

You wrote:

<< Why is it OK to cause the death of 655,000 civilians (almost 3% of the population), but not OK for a suicide bomber to kill 2 dozen people in a marketplace >>

Why are you loosening your normally rigorous research standard with this assertion? You know very well the massive majority of deaths in Iraq have been caused by Sunni on Shia and Shia on Sunni death squads. We even discussed it on these forum pages before.

You also know as well as I that military atrocities are the isolated events, and not the wholesale events, while the Muslim on Muslim violence is wholesale, and in marked difference to military actions, is almost always directed against unarmed civilians! This is a major, major ethical detail you pointedly are silent on, and that is a very faulty analysis if you want to discuss ethics.

Rather than these anonymous bombers being inadvertently focused on civilians, they quite determinedly and intentionally focused on civilians because A) these are the "soft" targets, and B) they yield the most terror value for political ends.

If you start talking about "Geneva Convention" atrocities, but fail to mention that by far the greatest part of atrocities in Iraq are committed by "civilian" or what some of us dignify by the name of "resistance" groups, upon other civilians, you'll tarnish the reputation for strict factuality which you've built and which I am most often inclined to trust.

I've heard "650,000 deaths caused by America, and "1 million deaths caused by America" until I want to gag, because slanting such reportage does not strengthen the arguments of those critical of America's intervention.

Bandying such numbers for their morally shocking effect (which does the trick beautifully every time as it causes your debaters to instinctively retreat into some soul searching) while never uttering a whisper about the plain fact that for the US securing the peace and demobilising would be a major political victory, leaves me wondering what scrap of objectivity such arguments have.

Whenever I hear "US caused 650,000 deaths in Iraq" I consider the holder of this view to have abandoned objectivity. Please note, there are far more intelligent indictments of the US war than this one.

Seems you are flirting with the idea of adorning the extremely industrious market place bombers with "freedom fighter" moral status, or you come fairly close to that. You've lost me entirely on this viewpoint.

And further, regarding your comment about Fallujah, it is highly disingenuous to overlook the fact that the primary tactic of terrorists, or "freedom fighters" the world over is precisely the use of human shields. This has been elevated to primary strategy in Iraq, and is a powerful tool to render conventional military efforts to suppress them utterly helpless.

The breakdown of military restraint in Fallujah, far from being a clear example of the overall morally abandoned ferocity of US military, gives to the more inquiring eye, a glimpse of the highly complex struggles going on between restraint, and the helplessness of conventional military to respond to terror which employs human shields everywhere, and with systematic efficiency.

Make no mistake. Those who hold life cheapest are the employers of human shields. And those who employ human shields wholesale, methodically, and everywhere pose a very large question as to what their moral character and civility would be in peacetime, were they the victors and were they to enter into government of their nation - the implication of their method of government after this war is enough to make one cringe in horror as they consume civilian flesh today with as much abandon as though it were poultry.

Why is this is something which you feel entitled to overlook?

The US's attempt to establish sufficient peace in Iraq to allow an exhausted US military to leave has been outflanked and defeated precisely by the "human shields" strategy of the Sunni and Shia meat-mongers of civilian human flesh.

Your one sided commentary on these components would be routine in someone else. The problem is that you have a reputation as being highly accurate and precise in your research - how is it you are missing these observations?

US has not been directly responsible for more than a tenth of those deaths - why not use your prodigious powers of research to start counting the numbers of execution style killings and marketplace bombings, not to speak of massive ongoing and open clashes between Shia and Sunni in the past four years? Are these now purportedly "American caused deaths" contributing to your horror statistic?

If the US is directly responsible for 65,000 deaths, this would already be a massive failure and indictment of this war for America. Please don't cheapen the observation by bloating the claim out to something merely propagandistic.

[FRED]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Rajiv -

You are the guy who has built a reputation for diligently checking the facts.

You wrote:

<< Why is it OK to cause the death of 655,000 civilians (almost 3% of the population), but not OK for a suicide bomber to kill 2 dozen people in a marketplace >>

Why are you loosening your normally rigorous research standard with this assertion? You know very well the massive majority of deaths in Iraq have been caused by Sunni on Shia and Shia on Sunni death squads. We even discussed it on these forum pages before.

You also know as well as I that military atrocities are the isolated events, and not the wholesale events, while the Muslim on Muslim violence is wholesale, and in marked difference to military actions, is almost always directed against unarmed civilians! This is a major, major ethical detail you pointedly are silent on, and that is a very faulty analysis if you want to discuss ethics.

Rather than these anonymous bombers being inadvertently focused on civilians, they quite determinedly and intentionally focused on civilians because A) these are the "soft" targets, and B) they yield the most terror value for political ends.

If you start talking about "Geneva Convention" atrocities, but fail to mention that by far the greatest part of atrocities in Iraq are committed by "civilian" or what some of us dignify by the name of "resistance" groups, upon other civilians, you'll tarnish the reputation for strict factuality which you've built and which I am most often inclined to trust.

I've heard "650,000 deaths caused by America, and "1 million deaths caused by America" until I want to gag, because slanting such reportage does not strengthen the arguments of those critical of America's intervention.

Bandying such numbers for their morally shocking effect (which does the trick beautifully every time as it causes your debaters to instinctively retreat into some soul searching) while never uttering a whisper about the plain fact that for the US securing the peace and demobilising would be a major political victory, leaves me wondering what scrap of objectivity such arguments have.

Whenever I hear "US caused 650,000 deaths in Iraq" I consider the holder of this view to have abandoned objectivity. Please note, there are far more intelligent indictments of the US war than this one.

Seems you are flirting with the idea of adorning the extremely industrious market place bombers with "freedom fighter" moral status, or you come fairly close to that. You've lost me entirely on this viewpoint.

And further, regarding your comment about Fallujah, it is highly disingenuous to overlook the fact that the primary tactic of terrorists, or "freedom fighters" the world over is precisely the use of human shields. This has been elevated to primary strategy in Iraq, and is a powerful tool to render conventional military efforts to suppress them utterly helpless.

The breakdown of military restraint in Fallujah, far from being a clear example of the overall morally abandoned ferocity of US military, gives to the more inquiring eye, a glimpse of the highly complex struggles going on between restraint, and the helplessness of conventional military to respond to terror which employs human shields everywhere, and with systematic efficiency.

Make no mistake. Those who hold life cheapest are the employers of human shields. And those who employ human shields wholesale, methodically, and everywhere pose a very large question as to what their moral character and civility would be in peacetime, were they the victors and were they to enter into government of their nation - the implication of their method of government after this war is enough to make one cringe in horror as they consume civilian flesh today with as much abandon as though it were poultry.

Why is this is something which you feel entitled to overlook?

The US's attempt to establish sufficient peace in Iraq to allow an exhausted US military to leave has been outflanked and defeated precisely by the "human shields" strategy of the Sunni and Shia meat-mongers of civilian human flesh.

Your one sided commentary on these components would be routine in someone else. The problem is that you have a reputation as being highly accurate and precise in your research - how is it you are missing these observations?

US has not been directly responsible for more than a tenth of those deaths - why not use your prodigious powers of research to start counting the numbers of execution style killings and marketplace bombings, not to speak of massive ongoing and open clashes between Shia and Sunni in the past four years? Are these now purportedly "American caused deaths" contributing to your horror statistic?

If the US is directly responsible for 65,000 deaths, this would already be a massive failure and indictment of this war for America. Please don't cheapen the observation by bloating the claim out to something merely propagandistic.

How are you guys doing? Do I need to call a time-out? Anyone getting bent out of shape? This is getting pretty far off-topic for these forums.

iTulip's editorial policy is that no Al Jezeera produced videos will be posted to iTulip's landing page. That said, we are leaning more toward changing that policy more now than before and we will review this policy from time to time. Members are free to post whatever they want to the videos forum of the public forums, within content guidelines which exclude material deemed offensive by the community.

[Rajiv]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

Lukester,

The figure 650,000 was from the Lancet study.

Given that first we were going to invade Iraq because it had WMDs, then it was to eliminate Sadaam -- then continued occupation to bring democracy to Iraq -- and of course the Iraqis were going to greet the Americans with roses!

If the US had not invaded Iraq, those deaths would not have occured. Hence the US intervention is directly responsible for those deaths.

Since all reasons given for the invasion were demonstrable lies. There is and remains no justification for the US presence in Iraq. Read again the Lancet article and the Dahr Jamail articles linked above.

I am linking some more articles on the Lancet methodology.

The Science of Counting the Dead

How the Media Covered The Lancet’s Iraqi Casualty Study

Did Wall Street Journal Find Fatal Flaw in Lancet Iraq Study?

See also the article by Justin Raimundo linked in my post on Manufacturing Consent

[Guest]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

<< Do I need to call a time-out? Anyone getting bent out of shape? >>

Hmm.. I think I confirm Jim's thesis. There definitely seem to be multiple Fred's here. This is not a term of speech used by the Fred I have communicated with on a couple of other occasions. This one seems to employ more "colloquial" expressions.

My observation Fred?

The above exchange is indeed political, but nowhere is it openly uncivil. Does this distinction escape your editorial eye? The conversation is intelligent, contains no name-calling, and should fall entirely within the guidelines of 'intelligent debate' on these pages.

Please clarify to me, what iTulip guideline indicates conversations must cover only economics? Is politics, or any venture into the gruesome details of the war in Iraq a proscribed area? If so, that would seem excessively narrow a mandate, given that a US war is indeed under way there? I'm observing your possibly over-zealous employment of editorial guidelines here, as there seems no unseemly content whatsoever on this thread.

[FRED]

Re: What's so funny about Bill O'Reilly and FoxNews?

<< Do I need to call a time-out? Anyone getting bent out of shape? >>

Hmm.. I think I confirm Jim's thesis. There definitely seem to be multiple Fred's here. This is not a term of speech used by the Fred I have communicated with on a couple of other occasions. This one seems to employ more "colloquial" expressions.

My observation Fred?

The above exchange is indeed political, but nowhere is it openly uncivil. Does this distinction escape your editorial eye? The conversation is intelligent, contains no name-calling, and should fall entirely within the guidelines of 'intelligent debate' on these pages.

Please clarify to me, what iTulip guideline indicates conversations must cover only economics? Is politics, or any venture into the gruesome details of the war in Iraq a proscribed area? If so, that would seem excessively narrow a mandate, given that a US war is indeed under way there? I'm observing your possibly over-zealous employment of editorial guidelines here, as there seems no unseemly content whatsoever on this thread.

Just checking. That's my job. There's a fine line between laissez faire and neglect. Carry on, gents!