Alllways looook on the briiiight side of life!

The Iraqi leadership is. That's why they're leaving the city, like rats fleeing a sinking ship.

Baghdad Bob's cousins work at Al Jazeera!

Man, these guys have a serious self-esteem problem. The humiliation and repeated failure, no wonder they're in such a hurry to commit suicide.

I do hope they see the light once Iraq is free and her people speak out. And, of course, I hope we're not wrong...

This article shows an amazing ignorance of how an occupation actually occurs.

There were isolated incidents of sniping in WWII long after the surrender of both the Germans and Japanese.

I won't hold it against them tho. I can understand their clinging to a hero, even one as evil and corrupt as Hussein.

You gotta be kidding....they must be watching a different war or listening to their buddy ol' spinmaster there in the info ministery who spouts off BS everyday.

Al-Jazeera has stooped to recycling week-old NYT stories.

...in a related story people are beginning to question the news reports coming from Al Jezeera saying I think they have their head up their a**.

Yesterday the M1 destroyed by US troops because of a mechanical problem was shown on french tv (www.TF1.fr) as an example of how strong the iraki resistance was, etc etc.
They dont even check the facts, which they could have seen if they watched FoxNews (Greg Kelly is Fox News right ? I dont have US channels, so I rely on command-post to know what's going on).

Well, aljazeera is not the only channel to seriously disinform. French TV do it too.

In three years Al Jezeera will be announcing the devious Iraqi plan to suck the Americans in, let them destroy the entire Iraqi military, set up a new government, feed the country, evacuate most of the troops, and leave a stable democracy in place. It will only be then that the master stroke will fall, selling oil to the Americans! Let the yankee infadels choke on the fumes for the glory of Allah!

This is evidently the Bizarro World that Robert Fiske comes from....

Did you notice who the expert was? A former Congressman...Democrat.

Herve - The French Government are not opponents to war. They are simply on the other side.

The irony is that Al Jazeera is perhaps the most realistic press outlet in the Moslem world.

We can bitch about the US press, I love too, but can you imagine if we were being fed this stuff?

I lived in France for two years. Back then (late 80's) I would open the paper (not the hammer and sickle ones but the mainstream le monde and liberation) and read serious articles on how the US had not landed a man on the moon, how AIDS had been created by the CIA as a biological weapon against Africans, etc. If you scan the press from Indonesia, Turkey, the Arab world, etc you still see such articles.

I am really just feeling abject pity for the average Moslem citizen now.

AL-Jazeera is just trying to get un-banned by Baghdad Bob, again.

The French media is mildly biased (unfortunately), but not nearly so as Al Jezeera, no way. French newreaders do generally stick to the facts and don't seem biased, it's the field reporters who spin things in bizarre fashion now and then. For example, they've shown lots of pictures of horribly burned children in hospital wards. True enough, and heartbreaking, but presented in a way that could be interpreted as slanted.

Why are these links posted here? It's a waste of time to argue with the ignorant. In Iraq we will start the more productive task of enabling the ignorant to learn and grow.

French Media does sometimes run cheaply produced, rather looney stuff between all the dubbed American sitcoms and movies... but so do the American networks.

General, Our media has a slant, too. Fox news has an obvious conservative bias, and pretty much everything else is liberal.

They generally can't get away with the crap Al Jazeera does, however, and they are called out on it. Very few folks in this country worship one form of media as fact.

Alan Powell - I do feel sorry for the Arab world. I joke about the self-esteem problem, but it's real. These folks need something to be proud of. I'm going to be all over this administration to make sure they are proud of Iraq - so that we can be proud, too. We need to rebuild in the same determined manner in which we break stuff.

Al Jezeera reports what the Arab street wants to hear - lies.

"Did you notice who the expert was? A former Congressman.
Posted by politicaobscura at April 7, 2003 11:08 AM "

No offense politicaobscura, but this is the fifth factual mistake in five postings I have seen on your part.

Please check your facts.

I guess people will continue to think we are losing this war until we erect a freakin’ Mall of America in downtown Baghdad!!!

"BBC dateline April 1, 2045 - Harare, Zimbabwe -

Saddam Hussein III, the son of the third cousin of a man tentatively linked to Saddam Hussein I claimed today that the most recent election of Omar George Bush Sulimon - the first Iraqi president born after the Iraqi War in 2004 - was a "Craven lying lie by Zionist western American cowboy lackeys who are still being slaughtered by the thousands by brave Iraqi resistance fighters."

Saddam claimed the Iraqi war of resistance is still ongoing and the recent films from Baghdad are actually false films made on the same sound stage used to fake the American landings on the Moon.

The head of BBC Iraqi Bureau, Robert Fisk jr is examining the claim and feels there might be some validity to the claim, "After all" Fisk said "Just because they say this is really Baghdad, how do I know that?? This might be a fake city built somewhere in Australia, Geography was never my best subject in school"

Meanwhile, in the newly named "Grand Republic of Arabia" formerly known as Saudi Arabia, religious leaders warmly welcomed the establishment of the first "Arabian Baptist Church.

In other News, the New York Times reported "End of Islam Fundamental Radicalism - Women and minorities hardest hit"

sigh, it could happen........

As someone who has spent time in the Middle East, I can tell you that personally, arabs can be incredibly friendly, generous and kind. There are self-esteem problems, related in part to the totalitarian regimes, and there have been injustices committed against the long-suffering Palestinians (whose cause is definitely undermined by an association with terroristic acts, many of which are committed by the equivalents of conmen and opportunists).

If Al Jaz continues on like this, they will lose credibility within the Arab Street. Pretty soon they will be thought of as just another propoganda outlet.

I guess people will continue to think we are losing this war until we erect a freakin’ Mall of America in downtown Baghdad!!!

What a great idea!!!!!

I was wondering what we could do with all those square miles of presidential palaces in downtown baghdad which hopefully have no further use.

LANGLEY, VA--The CIA announced Monday that it suspects Saddam Hussein's latest televised address was pre-recorded, pointing to its suspiciously dated reference to Nelly's "Hot In Herre," a rap hit from the summer of 2002

Phil B, Can you say "Welcome to Disney Land." I think the children of Iraq would love that idea!

Al Jazeera posted this article on their English-language website at least two or three days ago. It was still wrong... but let's at least put this in the proper perspective here. If it were written today, I'd agree with all the comments here. But it wasn't. Their current lead story reads "Baghdad defiant in face of US advance into capital." Far-fetched, but at least they've dropped the idea that it's going badly for the coalition.

We've been at war with Iraq not once but twice, or really for 12 years.

I'm willing to make some sacrifices to make sure we do these folks right.

So much for my tax cuts.

The "greatest generation" defeated Hitler and still managed to rebuild Germany. We should use our grandparents as an example, and do the same.

And then, 60 years from now, maybe Iraq can be a bunch of weasels, too.

Sorry, I got cynical.

Take it with a graib of salt and it isn't so bad: basically warns that there will still be minor troubles by self-styled anti-revolutionaries for some time after the war, which is true enough.

And as I keep pointing out, al-Jazeera reports everything they can get their hands on, their version of not being biased.

"I blame Al-Jazeera, because it repeats what the Americans are saying before it verifies the news."
http://www.command-post.org/archives/004370.html Iraqi Information Minister 7Apr2003 conference

If you look carefully, this Aljazeera report is not just some speculation, wishful thinking, propaganda, or fact-spinning. The author quotes at length, the opinions of three people, one American (Former congressional official, Joseph Cirincione), and two Egytpian (commander Mohammed Bilal and retired General Mustapha Maher). He then puts his perspective, (With only one or two Iraqi cities firmly held by US-led forces in the third week of their invasion), which is understandably Arab-centred (or, pro-Iraq, if you will) and not in line with American hawks. As long as you keep this in mind, it gives a different opinion.

Criminal investigators tend to believe that having one witness to a crime is usually better than having 15 witnesses to a crime. The differing ways in which two people might see "the facts" is compounded when there are many people, to the point that "reasonable doubt" can be created by the inconsistencies, even if minor, between the witness accounts. And that's true even when bias is not a real factor. Add bias to the mix, and it's a whole 'nother critter.

There are no plans to built a Mall of America in Baghdad, but Targets are springing up in Baghdad on a daily basis.

Oy Vey!

phred, you wrote --

"The "greatest generation" defeated Hitler and still managed to rebuild Germany. We should use our grandparents as an example, and do the same."

Amen, brother. I got extremely tired of the b*tching about the COST of the war. Plenty of people around remember rationing, oleomargarine, etc. THAT was sacrifice.

Sometimes things cost money. Education. Health care. Roads. War.

The naysayers need to get over that cr*p.

Look, Al-Jizz knows their audience and is catering to it. Much like Fox, ABC and NPR do with their respective audiences. The fact is, we are talking about a part of the world where literacy runs quite low, poverty and discontent quite high, and the need for some sort of local source of pride, however twisted, is lept upon with both feet.

The Arab world hasn't accomplished ANYTHING in the last century without outside help. Were it not for oil, they would be even more destitute than their corrupt leaders have them today. Without the Russians, Western nations or the Chinese and South Koreans arming them and the U.S. exerting intense pressure on Israel, most of those countries would have had their asses handed to them and be living under some sort of Israeli satelite rule. And, deep down, they all know this and hate it, and hate us as a result.

They will never admit we won, even as they are taking our food and money and will never thank us for any of it. We need to forget the "liberation" spin that's been served up with this war and get back to the business at hand: killing terrorists and those that support/harbor/sympathize with them. That this work has coincided with ridding the world of this bunch of sadistic a-holes is just gravy.

Hey, give al-Jazeera credit! They showed a lot more restraint with this criticism than our media did!

Does Kennedy own that station,?.... Kerry?.....DNC???

Al-Jazeera seems to have a better factual record than command post and fox, if you count the scores of smoking gun chemical weapons discovery stories that are wrong. Bias? Agenda? or just sloppy reporting?

anon,
Don't forget the massive number of stories on Fox about Scud launches and finds, all false. Some Scud stories here as well. No corrections either.