Arab news broadcaster Al-Jazeera has once again been the target of US aggression.
An American missile strike hit the station’s Baghdad office today killing a member of the staff and injuring another. This follows a missile attack Wednesday, 2003.04.02, on a hotel in Basra used by Al-Jazeera employees. Al-Jazeera has come under intense criticism from the Pentagon and the White House for offering a no-holds-barred alternative to the heavily edited “official” reporting broadcasted by western media. In November 2001 US forces destroyed Al-Jazeera’s Kabul office during attacks on Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
2003.04.14
Arab news broadcaster Al-Jazeera has once again been the target of US aggression.
An American missile strike hit the station’s Baghdad office today killing a member of the staff and injuring another. This follows a missile attack last Wednesday (02.04/03) on a hotel in Basra used by Al-Jazeera employees.¹
Al-Jazeera has come under intense criticism from the Pentagon and the White House for offering a no-holds-barred alternative to the heavily edited “official” reporting broadcasted by Western media.
Al-Jazeera was one of the broadcasters accused by Washington of breaching the Geneva Convention for showing footage of American prisoners-of-war [ http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1917].
The White House is alarmed by Al-Jazeera’s increasing popularity and credibility outside of its traditional Arab marketplace. Al-Jazeera has seen European subscriptions to its cable-only news service double since the beginning of the war.²
Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera’s English language website has been the focus of intense attacks by pro-war hackers, and on Saturday, 2003.04.05, web hosting firm, Akamai Technologies, cancelled its contract with Al-Jazeera’s English language site, a move that Al-Jazeera claims was politically motivated [http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1918].³
In November 2001 US forces destroyed Al-Jazeera’s Kabul office during attacks on Taliban forces in Afghanistan [http://www.theexperiment.org/articles.php?news_id=1562].
David Ledden lives in East London and writes on globalisation, American Imperialism and cultural subversion. He also maintains the website: http://www.lowereastnothing.com.
¹Al-Jazeera’s Basra hotel bombed, The Guardian online, http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,928144,00.html
²Europeans flock to al-Jazeera, The Guardian online, http://media.guardian.co.uk/broadcast/story/0,7493,921693,00.html
³Web firm cuts al-Jazeera ties, BBC Online, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/2919465.stm
Author: David Ledden
News Service: theExperiment
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