Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
Throughout the world, people are witnessing scenes of horror from Iraq on Al-Jazeera, the Arab cable news station. However, Al-Jazeera barely penetrates the United States. The network's newly-launched English-language web site remains down and may not be available for several weeks due to hacker attacks.
Submitted by Sheldon Rampton on
If you think you remember that we were promised a quick, easy war, your memory is not faulty. Eric Alterman has gone to the trouble of assembling some of those recent quotes in which Bush administration officials and pundits predicted, not that war is hell, but that it would be heaven. "Support for Saddam ... will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder," predicted Richard Perle.
Submitted by Laura Miller on
"The current war has been called the best-covered war in history, and certainly the visuals and reports from 'embedded' reporters have been spectacular, bringing war into our living rooms like never before," Katie Delahaye Paine writes in her PR firm's publication The Measurement Standard. "[T]he embedded reporter tactic is sheer genius. ... The sagacity of the tactic is that it is based on the basic tenet of public relations: It's all about relationships.
Submitted by John Stauber on
Robert Fisk reports that "an Iraqi general, surrounded by hundreds of his armed troops, stands in central Basra and announces that Iraq's second city remains firmly in Iraqi hands. The unedited al-Jazeera videotape, filmed over the past 36 hours and newly arrived in Baghdad, is raw, painful, devastating. ... It is also proof that Basra, reportedly 'captured" and 'secured' by British troops last week, is indeed under the control of Saddam Hussein's forces. ...
Submitted by John Stauber on
"Hundreds of chanting demonstrators lined
Manhattan's Fifth Avenue on Thursday, and dozens lay down
in the street in a 'die-in' to protest the war. ... Anti-war groups also called for other civil disobedience in
the city to protest media and corporate 'profiteering from
the war.' ... Some protest signs were directed at the media. One
protester held a sign showing a picture of parrots and the
Submitted by John Stauber on
As pundits and the Pentagon try to quantify the number of acceptable US casualties, world-wide opposition to the attack on Iraq grows by the day. The New York Times notes that "the public mood in
many countries around the world seemed to become angrier
and more sarcastic than ever... . Another day of global protest
is being advertised on Web sites and posters for Sunday,
Submitted by John Stauber on
"Bush planners appear to have left television off the
initial [bombing] target list because they wanted to use it to
administer Iraq immediately after the war and to limit the
damage to civilian infrastructure. Reports from Iraq, however, suggest that the American
restraint was seen by many Iraqis as an indication of Mr.
Hussein's resilience, undermining the allied message that
his days were numbered. There are, in fact, two parallel battles underway. One is
the intense assault American forces are mounting to set
Submitted by John Stauber on
Journalist Joseph L. Galloway, the military affairs correspondent for Knight Ridder, criticized the Bush administration's war fighting plan today on NPR's Fresh Air program. Galloway, the co-author of We Were Soldiers Once, and Young, was recently a consultant to Colin Powell.
Submitted by John Stauber on
"The English-language and Arabic websites of Qatar-based broadcaster al-Jazeera were forced down this morning after a spate of suspected hacker attacks last night. Neither aljazeera.net, which gets the most hits of any Arabic website in the world, nor english.aljazeera.net, which launched on Monday, were available this morning after suspected attacks crashed both sites. [C]ommunications manager Jihad Ali Ballout told MediaGuardian.co.uk the company was doing everything possible to get the sites up and running.. ...
Submitted by John Stauber on
Paul Krugman notes that "by and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many people as
antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. ... Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns out, is
that they are being promoted by key players in the radio industry - with
close links to the Bush administration. ... Until now, complaints about Clear Channel have focused on its business
practices. Critics say it uses its power to squeeze recording companies and
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