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| Al-Jazeera site and pictures |
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| BroHanif |
| 03/23/03 at 08:41:01 |
| Salaams, What you will not see on CNN... warning images are horrific http://www.aljazeera.net/news/arabic/2003/3/3-22-26.htm |
| NS |
| Al-Jazeerah is that 'Moses' to Media Pharoah CNN. |
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| SuperHiMY |
| 03/24/03 at 08:13:28 |
| The battle for the Arab mind By Ehsan Ahrari http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EC22Ak04.html Don't let anyone mislead you about the political astuteness of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) officials. This command is responsible for carrying out the invasion of Iraq and many of its officials have made a point of learning about Arab culture and Arab and Muslim sensitivities. In this sense, they are way ahead of the American civilian leadership, which, on the contrary, regularly uses harsh language to express its incessant irritation at what it sees as a lack of enthusiastic support of Arab governments for the ongoing invasion of Iraq. The latest example of the shrewdness of the CENTCOM was reported in the March 20 New York Times, the night following the invasion of Iraq. The dispatch reports that press officials of that command accepted an invitation to join the editor of the Qatar-based television station al-Jazeera at his home for a barbecue. Accepting a personal invitation of that nature is the beginning of creating a personal bond, and a decisive step toward ameliorating feelings of alienation that have prevailed for the past two or more years on the US as well as the Arab sides. No one is suggesting that because of such social events al-Jazeera will change its own version of objectivity in its coverage of the US invasion of Iraq. Military officers understand that point much better than their civilian counterparts. This reality was underscored by the fact that in Washington, al-Jazeera was depicted as the "All Osama all the time" network, largely because it regularly played videotapes of the Saudi super terrorist during operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan, and allowed guest spots to talking heads in its shows who praised bin Ladin and derided the United States. In the pre-al-Jazeera days, BBC and CNN broadcasts claimed a monopoly on objectivity. Arab audiences intently followed their broadcasts, especially during political or military crises, given the highly-controlled nature of the mass media within their own countries. However, as the US side was never very conscious about the fact that media objectivity, more often than not, is in the eye of the beholder, it was unpleasantly surprised when it was faced with the Arab version of objectivity that al-Jazeera started to present in the midst of a military campaign in Afghanistan. It is not a much-discussed reality that media criticism of the US government has perceptively gone down since the September 11 terrorists attacks. CNN, which claims to be the most objective, also regularly toes the government line on almost all issues of international affairs. Faced with al-Jazeera's version of objectivity regarding bin Laden, and especially the nature of that network's coverage of the escalating violence in occupied territories in Israel, the US government lost its cool. Secretary of State Colin Powell is reported to have asked the Emir of Qatar to put pressure on al-Jazeera to lower the level of what he described as "anti-US propaganda" during the Afghan military campaign. Imagine any Middle Eastern official making such an outrageous request to President George W Bush about similarly controlling any American newspapers or television networks? Two observations may be offered regarding Powell's desire for controlling al-Jazeera. First, he, like other top US officials, figured that since al-Jazeera is located in a region of authoritarian rule, controlling it should be viewed as "standard operating procedure" by the government of Qatar. Second, and alternatively, Powell's desire to silence al-Jazeera's criticism of the US and the contemptuous attitude of the US government toward the Arab network underscored the kind of double standards the US civilian leadership has manifested toward things Middle Eastern. Now at the time of the US invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has palpably and perceptively modified its attitude toward al-Jazeera. It has recognized the fact that the Arab network reaches 45 million people in the Middle East and North Africa, while its Internet site attracts many more. So, the information war is on. US officials have decided that instead of scorning the network they should woo it and the Pentagon even offered al-Jazeera choice spots with American military units in its program of "embedding" journalists with soldiers. It was offered a total of four such positions for the coverage of military operations in Iraq. But it had to decline two slots that were based in Kuwait and Bahrain because of diplomatic problems involving the network and those emirates. The US government's decision to engage al-Jazeera is partly driven by the belief that a failure to do so would be to leave its journalists to the influence of the Saddam government, with which it has considerable contacts. The US military has also assured al-Jazeera executives that it "would not scramble satellites in order to prevent transmission". But there is more to the US's sophisticated media blitz. The US troops are reported to have been given orders on "two matters of decorum: no throwing of candy to Iraqi children and no displaying of flags - regimental, state or even the American flag", according to another dispatch of the New York Times. The official position is that the American flag "could give the citizens of Iraq the wrong idea" and may even be viewed as a provocation. The American troops are "not ... the army of conquest, intent on claming Iraqi land or treasure for the United States, but a liberation force". So far, it appears reasonably interesting. But there is still the matter of a US military general ruling Iraq after the war. An eminently superior option is for the US to hand over the political command of Iraq to the dual leadership of the Arab League and the United Nations in the shortest period of time after the demise of the Saddam regime. That leadership, in turn, should negotiate with the various power groups of Iraq to evolve a mechanism, a-la Afghanistan, for democratic elections of a leader of that country. The legitimacy of such a mechanism in the Arab and Muslim world would be beyond any reproach. Ehsan Ahrari, PhD, is an Alexandria, Virginia, US-based independent strategic analyst. WalayKumSalam, We don't subscribe to CNN. Therefore, in my house, there is no Chicken Noodle News. CNN is almost irrelevant when it comes to anything of substance being found in its broadcasts. Perhaps, like the United States itself, CNN is actually a reflection of the state of that country and its need for Islam as a rescuer to make America great again. Every Pharoah has his Moses (pbuh), the Qur'an reminds us. Perhaps Al-Jazeerah is that 'Moses' to Media Pharoah CNN. ~ HiMY! ~ ... Al-Jazeerah Junkie ... |
| 03/24/03 at 08:49:00 |
| SuperHiMY |
| Re: Al-Jazeera site and pictures |
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| A_Stranger |
| 03/25/03 at 15:25:30 |
| Al-Jazeera English site: [url]http://english.aljazeera.net/[/url] [size=1]May take yonks to load. Patience is a virtue.[/size] |
| 03/25/03 at 15:36:24 |
| A_Stranger |
| Re: Al-Jazeera site and pictures |
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| ahmeth |
| 03/26/03 at 06:36:32 |
| Site is down |
| Al Jazeera Is Brought Down By Hack Attackers |
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| SuperHiMY |
| 03/26/03 at 09:04:38 |
AsalamAlayKum, In the words of Homer J. Simpson, "The Internet !!?! Is that thing [i]still[/i] around?" ~ HiMY! ~ ----------------- Al Jazeera Is Brought Down By Hack Attackers Compiled by Selwyn Manning - Scoop Deputy Editor http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0303/S00249.htm Al-Jazeera the internet wing of the Arab Satellite news agency has suffered an organised ‘hack attack’ blasting it off the face of cyber-space. Throughout today [March 26 New Zealand time] the news agency has been offline. Aljazeera’s two Domain Name Servers (DNS), both its primary DNS and Secondary DNS, have been inaccessible throughout the day. ZDNet Australia reports this “is unlikely to result from too much ‘legitimate’ traffic going to the site. DNS processing does not use a lot of system resources, and does not use a lot of traffic. Furthermore, the two name servers are hosted on different IP ranges, which is unlikely to spring from a run-of-the-mill system outage,” ZDNet reports. See… ZDNet’s report here… http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/security/story/0,2000024985,20273183,00.htm It is suspected that the US Government is behind the attack. The Pentagon has refused to comment. Aljazeera, earlier this week, broadcast images of United States soldiers who were captured by Iraqi forces. It also published images of at least eight dead US soldiers. This drew a stinging attack from Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld who cited the broadcast as being against the Geneva Convention. Aljazeera attempted to launch a new English site today ( http://english.aljazeera.net ) but was taken out by ‘hackers’ within hours. Shortly after, its Arabic-language site ( http://www.aljazeera.net ) also evaporated into the cyber-ether. Neither primary host provider company Navlink, or US-based secondary DNS host company, DataPipe, would expand on what has brought the two Al Jazeera sites down. Al Jazeera's IT manager, Salah Al Seddiqui, has reportedly stated the network will move its servers from the United States to Europe where Internet Host companies are less likely to be forced by sensitive government agencies to remove host services to rogue news sites. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Al-Jazeera Web site suffers hits March 26, 2003 URL: http://www.zdnet.com.au/newstech/security/story/0,2000024985,20273183,00.htm The Web sites of Arab news agency Al-Jazeera have been taken offline, with a denial of service attack one possible cause. The Qatar-based agency, which operates an Arab-language site among its many media properaties, launched an English-language Web site on Monday, providing a starkly different view on the war with Iraq than that offered by many Western media outlets. According to a report on ABC online, the English site was hit almost immediately by what they have termed "hacker attacks" and technical glitches. The report quoted Al-Jazeera managing editor Joanne Tucker. "We've had a lot of obstacles thrown in our way," she told the ABC. "I thought the launch of this site would be quite smooth and wouldn't make make too many waves but the reaction has been amazing - it has been almost surreal." ZDNet Australia was unable to reach the company's two Domain Name Servers (DNS). Both machines were inaccessible, which is unlikely to result from too much "legitimate" traffic going to the site. DNS processing does not use a lot of system resources, and does not use a lot of traffic. Furthermore, the two name servers are hosted on different IP ranges, which is unlikely to spring from a run-of-the-mill system outage. The US-based companies that host the DNSs and the Web servers were unable to comment. Datapipe, who host the secondary name server, flatly refused to comment on the phone, insisting that all enquiries be directed to the legal department of the company. Global company Navlink, who host the Aljazeera.net primary DNS, were unable to comment at the time of writing. However their own Web site is offline also. The Aljazeera.net site, which is devoted to news on the conflict in Iraq, joins a chorus of voices emanating from the war zone, including individual Web logs as well as the many TV broadcasts, radio reports, newspaper dispatches and other media reports. US military leaders have criticised Iraq for showing videotapes of US prisoners and some have extended that criticism to Al Jazeera. "Needless to say, television networks that carry such pictures are, I would say, doing something that's unfortunate," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday in an interview on CNN's Late Edition. A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment on the site. Although some are likely to value a contrasting voice, the site is sure to be controversial, with features including "Coalition of the willing has become a joke" and "Has Israeli lobby influenced this war?" Among its dispatches on Monday was what it described as an eyewitness account of the assault on Baghdad. "Baghdad witnessed intense bombardment last night," begins the unbylined report, attributed simply to Al Jazeera. "Glass panes on windows and doors of the Al-Jazeera Satellite TV office were shattered as shock waves ripped through the city. We still can smell gunpowder and smoke here." The report goes on to give details on an attack on the Al Salam palace, which Al-Jazeera said is used for hosting heads of state. "We visited this palace along with the Iraqi Minister of Information and saw the damage," the report said. "It was completely empty and devoid of the alleged weapons of mass destruction." The site also features a section devoted to "global reaction", which focuses entirely on opposition to the war, including various protests as well as antiwar sentiments expressed during Sunday's Academy Awards. |
| 03/26/03 at 09:08:36 |
| SuperHiMY |
| Re: Al-Jazeera site and pictures |
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| jannah |
| 03/26/03 at 12:42:26 |
| [slm] Amazing these are the same people that claim to have free speech as one of their constitutional rights. This is beyond hypocrisy it's ugly. |
| Re: Al-Jazeera site and pictures |
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| Abu_Atheek |
| 03/26/03 at 13:24:28 |
| [wlm] [quote]Amazing these are the same people that claim to have free speech as one of their constitutional rights. This is beyond hypocrisy it's ugly.[/quote] Amazing, indeed! Rights become non-existent when might is right :( |
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