Former U.S. Marine Join Joins Al-Jazeera

GotZoom

Senior Member
Apr 20, 2005
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Cordova, TN
I'm sorry - I don't see any good way to spin this.

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Some are calling former Marine captain Josh Rushing a modern-day Tokyo
Rose for taking a job reporting for a new English-language channel of the Al-Jazeera network.

The Qatar-based network has been described by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld as "perfectly willing to lie to the world.”

Fox News Channel’s Bill O’Reilly called it a "propaganda network ... bent on encouraging violence and sympathetic to terrorists.”

And Iraq’s new government temporarily shut down the network's offices in Baghdad, saying Al-Jazeera incites insurgents by airing statements from Osama bin Laden and his deputies.

But Rushing, 33, sees nothing wrong with going to work for the network. "I’ve given my entire adult life to the health and well-being of this nation,” he told USA Today. "I wouldn’t do anything to threaten that.

"What the Marines trained me to do was to represent the best of what America stands for to a foreign audience," he said. "That’s exactly what I’m going to do.”

In late July, NewsMax revealed Al-Jazeera’s plans to start the English-language channel – with broadcast centers in Washington, London, Malaysia and Qatar – early next year.

Al-Jazeera responded to our report by sending a letter denying the claim that the new channel, Al-Jazeera International, will be "pro-terrorist,” and claiming it will have "no domestic agenda and no political bias.”

But some have concerns about the suspected anti-American bias of the new channel – and Rushing’s involvement with it.

"I don’t see how in good conscience he can work for Al-Jazeera,” Cliff Kincaid, editor of the conservative Accuracy in Media report, told USA Today. "It incites Arabs and Muslims to kill Americans.”

Hugh Miles, author of "Al-Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel that Is Challenging the West,” said: "Al-Jazeera has been judged already and found guilty already in the eyes of most Americans and particularly the (Bush) administration.

"Many people will see Josh Rushing as collaborating with an enemy propaganda outfit.”

While still with the Marines in 2003, Rushing was sent to a media operations center in Qatar set up by the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) for the war in Iraq.

He was made liaison to Al-Jazeera and established a relationship with some of the network’s journalists.

But he created a stir when he appeared in a movie by an Egyptian filmmaker, "Control Room,” about Al-Jazeera’s coverage of the war; and he was seen by some as sympathetic to the Arab-language network.

Soon after the movie was released last year, he was ordered by the Marines not to talk to the media about the film.

Al-Jazeera approached him earlier this year about joining the English-language channel. What his job will be remains undecided, but it will probably involve both in-studio work and field reporting.

Jim Wilkinson, senior advisor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was director of strategic communications for CENTCOM when Rushing was in Qatar.

He said taking the job with Al-Jazeera was a "gutsy move on Josh’s part,” but acknowledged that "both sides will come under some criticism.”

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/9/29/131726.shtml
 
I think its a bit harsh to judge some guy we don't even know just because he has taken this job. If he actually represents americans then I would think its a good thing for those people to see that. There is a huge divide in the Arab world right now about 'The West', not all are anti-american so its not unreasonable to try to have a different viewpoint. Afterall, Foxnews has lots of liberals on all the time.
 

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