Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, May 2003, pages 6-7

Special Report

 

Two Wars in Iraq: One for U.S. Audiences, The Other for the Arabic-Speaking World

 

By Delinda C. Hanley

There are two wars going on in Iraq. One is a gripping made-for-TV show starring brave U.S. and British troops putting their lives on the line to bring freedom to oppressed Iraqis. Little blood is spilled on camera. Soldiers pass food out to starving Iraqi civilians and prisoners. Homesick and on edge, these idealistic servicemen and women remain confident that they will soon win this just war and return to their families. “Collateral damage,” sandstorms, flies, fierce resistance and doubt have not yet worn down our gallant troops. This war, featuring their hometown heroes, is the one Americans watch on network and cable TV every night, and read about, complete with moving photos, with their morning coffee.

The other war is waged by Iraqis, desperate to protect their homes and their ancient land against U.S. and British invaders. Bombed buildings, smoke and chaos are the backdrops for this war. Its stars are wounded and screaming Iraqi women and children, captured or terrified Iraqi—and yes, U.S. and British—soldiers. Iraqis’ pain is immortalized by the Arab and European press, including The Independent’s Robert Fisk, who describes civilians “incinerated by missiles, torn to pieces before they could be liberated by the nation that destroyed their lives.” How many others, Fisk wondered, are “dying anonymously, indeed unrecorded, because there are no reporters to be witness to their suffering?”

Journalists with the Al-Jazeera satellite news network are trying to report both wars in Iraq. “Al-Jazeera is just trying to do its job, like every one else covering the war in Iraq,” Jihad Ali Ballout, a spokesman for the Qatar-based Arabic-language news network, told the Washington Report via cell phone from Doha April 1. Unlike U.S.-based news stations, Al-Jazeera shows its 35 million viewers across the Arab world intensely terrifying scenes of war.

Al-Jazeera’s uncensored images of the chaos and brutality of war are not shown on TVs across the world in order to promote any political agenda, according to Ballout. Nonetheless, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell told National Public Radio in late March, “They tend to portray our efforts in a negative light.”

Responding to charges that the station has inflamed Arab opinion against the U.S.-led war, Ballout countered, “We would be doing our viewers a disservice if we were to edit, doctor or dress up facts on the ground in Iraq. We won’t shield our audience from distressing pictures.

“Al-Jazeera has tried to fend off censorship ever since we began broadcasting in 1996,” Ballout said. “We don’t decide what our viewers should or should not see. I think the audience has the right to see all aspects of the battle. The conflict in the Middle East is important to their destiny.”

Al-Jazeera strictly documents and verifies its news sources, the 45-year-old former London-based journalist of Lebanese descent asserted. “The clips that accompany our reports must have news value and relevance,” Ballout explained. “We’re not insensitive to the fact that what we show may distress some people. We show real pictures from all sides of the conflict. As Arabs we are just as distressed by scenes of carnage and death as any other people. War is innately ugly.”

Ballout assured the Washington Report that Al-Jazeera is not anti-American or, for that matter, for or against the war—or even Saddam Hussain. “I think everyone is against war. I am for peace. It has become all too easy to slip into war. While nations need to wage certain battles,” Ballout acknowledged, “they should not commence until all possible diplomatic measures have been exhausted.”

Ballout said he recently has been called a few things he didn’t like by the ultra-nationalist U.S. media. But, he said, he and other Al-Jazeera journalists have a clear conscience. They are committed to telling the truth, something some U.S. journalists are now afraid to do. He said his American colleagues in the area often call him to say, “Good going. You are doing the stuff we are not allowed to do.”

NBC recently fired Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Peter Arnett for speaking his mind on Iraqi television. Arnett made the mistake of telling viewers that American war planners had underestimated Iraqi resistance to the war. “Not everyone may agree with what a reporter says,” Ballout said, “but he or she should be allowed to express a conviction without fear of losing a livelihood.”

In 9 to 12 months, viewers in the U.S., Canada and Europe will be able to tune in to Al-Jazeera in English. In the meantime, Al-Jazeera has been criticized and attacked for its truthful reporting and principled stand. Within days of putting up only the initial experimental page of its Web site, Ballout said, Al-Jazeera was hacked. “It’s that easy to gag the press,” he noted. “Today all it takes is a couple of clever guys with sophisticated computer equipment to attack freedom of the press. In the old days bombs in Kabul tried to silence us. Today, Al-Jazeera is trying its hardest to report on the war in Iraq for the Arabic-speaking world. Soon Americans will be able to exercise their own freedom of choice, and select the media network that tells everyone’s story.”

Delinda C. Hanley is news editor of the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.

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