Publicity

[Shazbot]

I don't know, this is just my opinion. It seems that the Arabic news network, Al-Jazeera (sp?) is kind of giving the terrorists a leg up in the whole conflict. The terrorists capture a guy, threaten to behead him, and then do it...and all the while, it's being broadcast on international news for all people to see. While it's nice to see and know what is going on, I think the problem here is that is exactly what the terrorists want.

I am reminded of the article Kathianne posted a little while back about the sentencing of that moron that tried to set off the shoe bombs on the airplane. After they got him off the plane and into custody, he was looking around for TV cameras, only to find none. He wanted the world to see what he did and get scared.

These guys in Iraq are trying to scare off anything and everything connected to America and the West in general. Unfortunately, when all their dirty acts get broadcast to the world, the people tend to do just that - get scared. I was just talking to my Dad, who works for Bechtel Corporation (a construction company and big player in the reconstruction of Iraq), and he told me that if his company offered him to go over there for even 10x his current salary, he would decline.

Just look at the difference between a news headline reporting that a Marine gets shot and killed, and a similar headline reporting that terrorists were planning on beheading a Marine. Which causes more stir and unrest? I don't want to kill the idea of freedom of the press, but for crying out loud, there are some things the general populous are just better off not knowing.

-Douglas

 

[Hobbit]

I tend to agree.

Oh, and on the "shoe-icide" bomber, he didn't scare me one bit. I just had to laugh. C4 will not explode without a proper detonator. It burns well, but lighting it on fire won't set it off. In fact, my Uncle used to use C4 to cook ramen when he was stationed in Korea.

 

[Yurt]

Originally posted by Hobbit
I tend to agree.

Oh, and on the "shoe-icide" bomber, he didn't scare me one bit. I just had to laugh. C4 will not explode without a proper detonator. It burns well, but lighting it on fire won't set it off. In fact, my Uncle used to use C4 to cook ramen when he was stationed in Korea.

now that is funny!

 

[NATO AIR]

well al-jezeera and its even more extremist bretheren hype up the arab audience and inflame their opinions even more. they rarely show the dead coalition soldiers or israeli civilians... they always show the deaths of terrorists, freedom fighters and innocent arab civilians, often to dramatic or somber music and with special imaging that manipulates the emotions even further...

the negative media here ain't got nothing on the guys in the mideast...

 

[NewGuy]

When the war first started, wasn't AlJazeera taken over by troops? SOME news agency there was....We took over, set up our own machines and news and then "turned it over" a couple weeks later.

If this was the one, I question wether anything coming out of there was fact.

 

[NightTrain]

Al Jazeera panders to radical muslims, no question about it. They have access to other news outfits, but they won't report anything else that doesn't fit into their Anti-American agenda.

Recall the Iraq war, when we were racing to Baghdad? We were just outside of Saddam International Airport and Al Jazeera was running story after story about how the Iraqis were fighting like hell and actually spun it to sound like Iraq was winning the war. 'Baghdad Bob' was getting much airtime, and it was GOSPEL!

Then when Baghdad fell a few hours later, there was stunned disbelief all over the ME. "How could this have happened? They were doing so well!" was the general jist of statements by Syrians, Saudis, Iranians, etc.

What gets me is that after Al Jazeera proved itself untrustworthy to all of their audience around the world, the audience still didn't get it. Rather than thinking logically about how this stunning turn of events all came about (Gee, Achmed, do you think Al Jazeera was full of camel shit?), they started focusing on civilian casualties that Al Jazeera was feeding them 24/7. When you can see on LIVE television tanks rolling into Baghdad on another news network, why the hell would you keep broadcasting completely contradictory 'news' that is unquestionably false?

I'm sure quite a few woke up and smelled the coffee, but I certainly never heard or read any news stories questioning why Al Jazeera was intentionally lying to the masses over there.

There's somethin' fishy going on there. It's a propaganda machine, and there's ties to Bad Guys.

It's the only thing that makes sense.