Bush administration spent $500 million to found anti-American Arab TV station
Yes, you read that headline correctly. For the past 5+ years, the Bush administration has been pouring millions of dollars into an arabic language TV station that is inexplicably airing anti-American and anti-semitic content, despite repeated complaints from the State Department and Congress. Can these people get anything right? Sheesh. TPM's Andrew Tilghman has a great breakdown.
ProPublica, in a joint investigation with 60 Minutes, finds that the al-Hurra network -- "the Free One" in Arabic -- has completely failed in its initial mission to counter the influence of the Qatar-based al-Jazeera news network in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
For starters, there are problems with the staff, which often does not have any Arabic language skills or a background in broadcast journalism: read more...
DUH
I guess this will be their Last al-Hurra.
Well, when they hired people to start this up, the criteria should have been 'competency and a familiarity with Arab culture and language', not GOPism.
$500 million? Why, the pop culture hacks in Hollywood and the MSM have been spewing American "values" for decades. No need for a dedicated TV station regardless of the message.
how is al-hurra anti-american? that seems like a whole sale buy-in of the need to spread american propaganda.
from what i understood the complaints about al-hurra is that they were too honest in their coverage of events in the ME.
now, issues of the holocaust (and denial thereof) are, possibly, another matter altogether.
Thanks for that.
The History of Al Jazeera is interesting
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Jazeera
And PBS spends two weeks every few months boring people to death with reruns so they'll send in money.
The Bush administration wants the anti-American rhetoric to be used to draft more al Qaeda in Iraq terr'ists. He needs more enemies to keep the war going. Plus, he can make a few bucks if the ratings are good. All in all, a great deal for Bush.
I think that we could present evidence of Cheney and Bush eating little babies and it would be OK for Pelosi and the so called
democratic "leadership".
And that doesn't even include the $$$$ pumped into FOX for their anti American broadcasts.
If the station is truly airing anti-American programming and propaganda, it would make entire sense. I mean, in order to continue the violence, the neocons must have a group of people to point towards as "enemies" which, in turn, force us to remain in the region (multilple bases to keep and sustain) and keep reiterating the danger to our homeland. I think it makes perfect sense....in a sick and perverse neocon sort of way. Which is THE WAY they prefer.
Samson- @ 5:
If they are telling anything close to the truth of what goes on there, then it's going to be anti-american by nature due to the carnage that is being inflicted on the locals by america.
* Anti-Semitic
Who wants to bet Bush & co. claim "people on this station say these things because station presents all sides of a debate....in fact you might say they're fair and balanced".
another example of why bush, cheney and their entire
administration are the real
ENEMY COMBATANTS AND TERRORISTS.
and all of congress, the one party system
we have ARE PART OF IT FOR COMPLACENCY.
What's new, they have been doing fake news right here.
Samson- @ 5:
This is what I was thinking. It sounds like al-Hurra may be the one and only success story of the bush administration. It also makes the point incompetent management is not always a bad thing.
I watched a segment broadcast several months ago on al-Hurra and even I could tell that most of the commentators on it were not accustomed to speaking Arabic even though I do not speak Arabic myself. They spoke as if they were having trouble finding the right words to use and paused a lot in mid sentence. It reminded me of a child learning how to read.
The brilliance of the plan is to create enemies in order to kill them, thereby justifying our terrorism. Ouroboros TV at its best.
Well define anti-American. Is it the bushie definition (ie reality based) or inciting violence against Westerners etc? If the latter, wouldn't surprise me if it was intentional on the part of the bushies. Need to keep the war going you know.
I DEMAND a fricking refund....
I DEMAND my part back of what was spent on
1. Iraq War
2. Bear Stearns guarantee
3. This fricking deal
4. Don Siegelman prosecution
and while we are at it
5. Supreme Court Salaries for 2000 to 2008
6. Clinton Impeachment/50 mill Ken Starr 'investigation'
of a blow job.
Thanks. Thank you very much.
Bizzaro world. Everything just the opposite of what it should be.
> Can these people get anything right?
Why is this described as a bungling when the funding could be INTENTIONAL to facilitate the
phony wars BushCo wants?
So, is anything going to be done about this? This seems to be the straw that breaks the camels back, but nothing is ever done....... Our President needs to be arrested and tried for war crimes etc. What is the difference between him and the Holocaust perpetrators? Someone tell me........Propaganda, fear mongering, taking away freedoms, perpetual war, attacking other countries, death squads (Nogroponte) I mean come on, if the president of the United States can create such devastation across the earth, and nothing is done about it, that just means that the good old US of A is the same as every other country. What sets us apart now? America can be seen by the world as just another dictatorship. What is the difference? Congress Do Something NOW!
lol.
This is what happens when you fire translators.
21st Century propaganda leaflets, without having to cut down trees for paper or fly planes that might get shot down dropping them.
Well, the trouble with reporting the facts is that the facts are anti-American, to the extent that the facts refuse to correspond to the propaganda relentlessly spewed by the U.S. Government and its MSM lapdogs. Americans accustomed to a steady diet of heavily processed Lo-Fact or No-Fact information are bound to get sick when confronted by facts.
Ron @ 22:
Today is opposite day, week, month, year, presidential term ...... or two .......
hey........that's how you keep it stirred up.. so you can continue Operation Iraqi Occupation.......it's all part of the plan.......middle east occupation
OH MY GAWD...!
I didn't even read all the article to learn they were broadcasting
ANTI America propoganda and we were paying for it when I posted
this...
Now I REALLY demand a DOUBLE MY MONEY BACK
for this stuff
When does the nightmare end. Will someone wake me
up?
dr dave @ 21:
Most Americans hate pro American propaganda. Why in hell would a Arab Nation want to watch that bullshit?
marko @ 9:
?
"For starters, there are problems with the staff, which often does not have a background in broadcast journalism."
What's the problem?
This describes the American media and it works wonderful.
This what we get for letting a chimp guard the bananas.
(sorry all you simians, didn't mean to slander you.)
Can these people get anything right? Sheesh. :SilentPatriot
Do you think that BushCo is laughing at us? They must be. Have they succeeded in anything?
So let me get this straight, Al Hurra broadcasts anti-American and anti-Semitic propaganda, according to the article, yet Israel has granted them permits to work and broadcast out of Jerusalem?
How do I know that, you ask? I've just watched their live stream on their website and their microphone flag that reads "Al-Hurra" in Arabic was clearly visible while they were interviewing Israeli Knesset members.
Interesting eh?
http://www.alhurra.com/streaming.htm
I must be losing my mind because now this stuff is getting so bad it's making me laugh.
White House can't handle the truth. White House failed to destroy Al Jazeera and failed to create a propaganda alternative in Al Hurrah.
BUSH PLOT TO BOMB HIS ARAB ALLY
PRESIDENT Bush planned to bomb Arab TV station al-Jazeera in friendly Qatar, a "Top Secret" No 10 memo reveals.But he was talked out of it at a White House summit by Tony Blair, who said it would provoke a worldwide backlash.
A source said: "There's no doubt what Bush wanted, and no doubt Blair didn't want him to do it." Al-Jazeera is accused by the US of fuelling the Iraqi insurgency....The No 10 memo now raises fresh doubts over US claims that previous attacks against al-Jazeera staff were military errors.
In 2001 the station's Kabul office was knocked out by two "smart" bombs. In 2003, al-Jazeera reporter Tareq Ayyoub was killed in a US missile strike on the station's Baghdad centre.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16397937&method=full&siteid=947...
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20051212/scahill
I guess Al-Hurra is kinda the Middle East FOX News Channel.
Both are against the kind of USA we would want.
I shake my head at the stupidity of it all... I said it on another thread.. We let these people walk away from all the shit they have pulled?? We're done..... Whether or not America retains its sovreign integrity or not, we're finished as far as having an ability to have a positive influence on the larger world. Noones going to listen to us anymore...... Noones going to give a shit what America has to say.....
I don't know which is worse... The fact that we put these kinds of gutless greedy assholes in charge to begin with, or the fact that now that we know about some of Bush's bullshit, we continue to put up with it... Christ, some countries would already be rioting in the streets and in a state of civil war over just a portion of the shit we are aware of and pretend can't be addressed for one lameass reason or another....
I ain't advocating open rebellion, but I am saying that our current top government leadership has abdicated its responsibilities under the constitution. Their level of gutlessness is being observed. They might be able to ignore all of us, their constituants, but what's their story going to be when the rest of the world thumbs their nose at an American intiative to help on (name that global issue).... For that matter what's their story going to be when the Chinese wants to collect on that big fat I.O.U. they are holding thanks to Bush's little hardon to wage bullshit wars...
That's where all this cowardice in public office ends.... The world ignoring our leaders ideas on important topics, the nation regarded as a laughing stock... And the economics of out debts forcing huge massive distortions to our nations well being and large asset selloffs to pay this Bush debt down. We may yet see the Chinese insist we give it Alaska or Hawaii or something equally unthinkable to pay off some of these trillions we now owe.... And we'll have to do it too in order to avoid something even worse... Bush's legacy will just keep on begetting consequences long after we're all pushing up daisies..... Is THAT what we want to leave our children????? Everyone and their fucking brother knows whats needed..................JD
commander in thief @ 38:
Unfortunately, the American public has bought into the BushCo propaganda that Al-Jazeera is a terrorist network, even though, their broadcasts in both journalistic quality and integrity are on par with the BBC.
There's also an element of racism in all this, anything that is perceived as "western" is immediately good in the minds of the drones, anything that's "foreign" or "Middle Eastern" is immediately bad.
Al-Jazeera was also vilified by many dictators in the Middle East because the network was critical of their oppressive, undemocratic policies. But, then again, Bush will bomb anything that promotes democracy.
Hum....That would fuel the Irak war and would ensure the need for american presence there...Is my logic flawed?
"...For the past 5+ years, the Bush administration has been pouring millions of dollars into an arabic language TV station that is inexplicably airing anti-American and anti-semetic content..."
Just wondering... Semites are all people of middle eastern origin. So when you say "anti Semitic" do you mean they are anti-Arab, anti-Jew, or anti-Israeli?
3 entirely different things, all Arabs are Semites, most Jews are not, and truly, anti Semitism has little or nothing to do with Israel (Most Jewish Israelis are did not originate in the ME, but in Europe and the former Soviet Union) unless you are speaking of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians, who are Arabs, and therefore, by definition, Semitic.
Ironic thing, how a word gets hijacked by a group, then misused all over the place...
BTW, I want my money back. And it has nothing to do with the content of their current broadcasts. It has everything to do with the US Gov't having NO BUSINESS embarking on an enterprise like this...
The most reliable coverage on the middle-east (after Al-Jeezera or course) are The Onion and DigitalFuntown.com. Period.
Par for the course. More F*&k U**s to come before Gov. Bush smirks out of here in Jan.
Well, you know... truth will out.
I think it would be hillarious if it weren't happening against the backdrop of an ongoing crime against humanity and the plundering of the Nation's treasure.
Create the Chaos. Offer the Solution.
$500 million would go along ways towards providing healthcare for Americans. I think the sickest part of all of this is just the huge amounts of money we are wasting.
My mother used to say, "If you'd thought about that, you wouldn't have said/done it." That sums up Al-Hurra. If the network does thorough, credible, informative journalism, there's going to be a ton of anti-American content because--DUH!--American policy in the Middle East is unpopular. On the other hand, if Al-Hurra is just Fox News with kuffiyehs, no one in its target market will watch it or lend any credence to it. So, the Bush administration landed square in the middle of a no-win situation and wasted half-a-billion dollars of our money doing it.
Thanks, guys. Really.
Don Farnsworth @ 44:
http://skyreporter.com/
Orangutan. @ 47:
Pierre @ 42:
karl @ 29:
K. Trout @ 23:
all hail the hypno toad @ 20:
mackiddo5 @ 19:
Rick Mack @ 11:
MarinatedInSmog @ 8:
Ding ding ding.............all of the above commentors are winners.......
I don't think she can stand any more Captain.
Beam me up Scotty.
It's good fer bidness........
commentor # 53........ding ding ding.........you are also a winner.....you all may collect your prizes.....
So if it's true that this organization, Al-Hurra Network, has been airing anti-American content while being funded with Our money at the behest of Bush$Co...wouldn't that be TREASON?
Oh man, EVERYTHING this Christian terrorist regime does is unamerican.
Not only that, they play a lot of Dixie Chicks...
Wasn't al-Hurra a concoction of whozits from the Bush administration office of propaganda? What's her name...she went back to Texas to be with her family for a while, then returned to DC, then left again under another cloud.
Al-Hurra is a joke in Iraq.
sher @ 52:
Beam me up Scotty. No intelligent life found here!!!!!!!!!
This goes WAY beyond a discussion of whether or not "these people" can get anything right.
*
♠Bangkok Bob♥ @ 39:
Is it just me --- or doesn't the screen shot just scream Faux News?
marko @ 9:
Pelosi would throw them a cocktail party and serve babies up as hors d'oeuvres.
*
Well the rubber stamp never left the Congressional floor did it? Now they just pass it back and forth across the aisle for all to use.
*
seconding this
dr dave @ 30:
Somebody should ask the Arab station to translate to English so we know whats going on over there! Seem fair if the American tax dollar paid for it. Anyone know the website?
Silent Patriot -
are you naive???
if you want to create more terrorists - one way is to fund them yourself. Which we have done - still do - and will for the foreseeable future.
After all, the US trained the alleged 19 pilots who hijacked the 4 planes on 9-11.
god, for the billionth time...
THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT INCOMPETENT.
You are either incapable or unwilling to consider the real alternative - that they are pathologically evil and this is their MO.
From the article linked above...
"Alhurra's president, Brian Conniff, does not speak Arabic and is unable to understand anything broadcast on the radio and television networks his is paid to manage."
Jesus...Fucking...Christ.
$500 MILLION!?
Let's hear it for George W. Bush!
Thanks, fuckface. Perhaps that half-billion could've been used for...I don't know...HOUSING FOR THE POOR!!?
IF YOU STICK YOUR HEAD FAR ENOUGH UP YOUR ASS..... does it come back out like a regular head....
-------and if so.... can you get an administrative position on the staff of the GOP leadership of this country
-------and if so.... how long before the people notice that everything you say smells like shit
If you're trying to foment permanent war you gotta have a propaganda effort.
Well, we weren't using the money for better schools, health care, improving the lives of wounded soldiers or anything so.....go right ahead. Whatever you need to keep us safe and secure in our land of freedom Mr. W, you go ahead and take it. There's more where that came from. Just ask the people manning the printing presses at the Treasury Department that, at the behest of the Federal Reserve Bank, will just print more money.
A new adjective must be invented for the people that run this nation. A combination of organized criminal scumbag thief murdering lying ass insider trading commodity manipulating manical freak.
More from our insane leader:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080625/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_iraq
"Bush, Talabani discuss complex security agreement"
W: "Go ahead there Mr. Talabalananani.....your a gunna need dem der troops in Iraq more than wezze be needin em here at home. Day be protectin Amukican's freedoms over der soinz we don't half to be killin da turrorists in our country of Amurika. Dem troops don't half lives anyway, so you goze ahead and takes em off our hands Mr. Talabalaniajad for asin long asin youze be a needin em."
This is clearly aother black operation. Whenever the level of bile and bitterness among arab speaking people begins to level off, a few more rockets land somewhere. An anti-American TV station is needed pumps up the outrage level? No problem! This is not a cse of incompetence, the effect is intended. Got to keep things rolling along, if the arab speaking people can't put up an anti-American media site, then, we will just have to do it for them! Whatever it takes to keep the chaos at a manageable level.
Ralph Bentley @ 71:
who says "the level of bile and bitterness among arab speaking people" has leveled off?
my records seem to indicate that we are more hated, more spoken against, and less trusted (if that quantum data is possibly measurable) in the ME
Anti-American TV = dead soldiers = republicans in power = huge profits for Halliburton and Exxon.
You might find it interesting to know that COMCAST INTERNET SERVICE IS BLOCKING THIS SITE:
http://www.propublica.org/feature/alhurra-middle-east-hearts-and-minds-622
Classic way to create the "Problem, Reaction, Solution" scenario that the Neo Cons talk about. I think one of their founders coined the term. Strauss, or something, and I think Kissinger adopted the strategy in places like Chile back in the day. These philosophies don't die off, they just get ignored, and therefore remain effective. Peace.
Hey, Folks. It's called freedom. It ain't always perfect. Do you suggest censoring them? I mean, I agree that there ought to be some sort of journalistic standard, but I think we are better for letting them determine that standard and not us.
I saw the 60 minutes special, but when only 20% of any pop watches, how do they get away with there selling wars. Oh yeah they floride our water and spray barium on us 7 days a week to make us believe the entire pop is behide everything they are selling.
I saw the story on 60 Minutes about this, and I was disgusted with Scott Pelley [sic] . His tone and the direction of his questions was such that he may as well have just screamed "So why are we not censoring these crazy Arabs? How dare they?!?!" It was pathetic.
eddie d @ 76:
Duuuuude, the station was founded, started and funded by Congress. Did you read the article? It was aimed at being a propaganda network and it has succeeded in being one. Naive people still think it was intended to be a pro-Western station, but has somehow lost it's way. It wasn't and it hasn't. Wake the fuck up!
eddie d @ 78:
It's not about lofty ideas like freedom of speech. If you want freedom of speech in the Middle East look to Al-Jazeera. Why do you think the U.S., Arab dictatorships and Israel shun it? Because it speaks truth to power. That's why it's popular among the masses while Al Hurra is nothing but a propaganda network, appearing to be anti-Western on purpose so as to serve two purposes:
1) Whenever BushCo and Israel want to make their case against Arabs they just point to the vile on Al Hurra and say, "see, this is what they think of us".
2) Shoring up support among radical groups and encouraging radical views that have no basis in reality because they don't rely on simply reporting on U.S. actions in the Middle East (i.e. has nothing to do with freedom of journalism).
For starters, there are problems with the staff, which often does not have any Arabic language skills or a background in broadcast journalism.
How do you run a network in the Middle East without either skill set?
Is it any wonder why it sucks as much as FOX Business News?
american contractors built the thing and were paid. it just goes to show that they never cored about the outcome as long as they made money on it or they were able to funnel it to their friends.
I dunno, Ator, I agree with what you're saying, but still... The slant of the piece seemed to me to suggest that it was reprehensible for us to be funding a station (albeit generally a propaganda vehicle, which wouldn't be a first for us) that didn't always say nice things about the US and Israel. More or less, they were suggesting that we monitor and more greatly influence the content, which is something that I hope they would rail against if done here at home (and I'm not saying it doesn't already happen here to a degree - i.e. sponsors).
Anti-American huh? I doubt it. These days criticizing any crimes Israel commits or America commits is considered Anti American or Anti Semitic.
hello? agents provocatuer (sp) used to be so much cheaper. i don't see where the part about spending millions to create enemies so that billions can be sucked out of americans to buy weapons to "protect" them from those same enemies is so hard to understand.
What I would like to know is, how the hell can we expect to promote "democracy" when a staffer from this station got fired for reporting on a Holocaust denier conference in Iran? AIPAC has our country by the nuts...
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