Arab TV news, opinion, libel, and war

There’s an interesting confluence of ideas coming together in several news stories today. The first is in an opinion poll from Iraq that finds an increasing number of Iraqis viewing the U. S. as occupiers rather than liberators:

But while they acknowledge benefits from dumping Saddam a year ago, Iraqis no longer see the presence of the American-led military as a plus. Asked whether they view the U.S.-led coalition as “liberators” or “occupiers,” 71% of all respondents say “occupiers.” […]

“I’m not ungrateful that they took away Saddam Hussein,” says Salam Ahmed, 30, a Shiite businessman. “But the job is done. Thank you very much. See you later. Bye-bye.”

This is a disturbing trend. It’s hard to see how we can achieve our objectives in Iraq with a deteriorating level of cooperation from the Iraqi people.

The article goes on to say that much of this opinion derives from how the U. S. is portrayed in the Arab language media:

That negative opinion of the behavior of the troops rarely is based on direct contact. Iraq is a country the size of California with a population of 25 million. Many areas are sparsely patrolled. Only 7% in the poll say they based their opinions on personal experience.

Instead, Iraqis get their information from others. For about a third, it’s pan-Arabic television such as the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya satellite news channels. The networks frequently show scenes of U.S. forces shooting into Iraqi neighborhoods in hot spots such as Fallujah, an anti-American stronghold in the center of the country.

The other article I found interesting was in Arab News:

WASHINGTON, 28 April 2004 — US Secretary of State Colin Powell complained bitterly yesterday about coverage of the Middle East, Iraq and the war on terrorism provided to Arab audiences by the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera television network, as the United States and Qatar launched a new “strategic dialogue” aimed at improving relations.

Powell, speaking to reporters at the State Department alongside Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Hamad ibn Jassem Al-Thani, made no secret of the fact that relations between the two nations were being harmed by Al-Jazeera, which US officials have long accused of biased reporting.

Powell went on to complain about Al Jazeera’s and Al Arabiya’s practice of airing unedited tapes from terrorists and generally low standards of verification and authentication.

I think more is necessary especially in light of the fact that Al Jazeera is essentially an arm of the Qatari government receiving millions of dollars in subsidy from the Emir annually. Minimally a demarche.

What recourse do we have? There’s not much in the way of truly international libel law–it’s pretty much the law of individual jurisdictions. Since we are the civil authority in Iraq right now we could move to suppress the Arab language media. But it’s a little hard to reconcile our idealistic rhetoric with that kind of Realpolitik.

Some have suggested that the propaganda efforts of the Arab language media have already risen to the level of an act of war:

Al-Jazeera is doing the work of a thousand rocket propelled grenades. It is really an active enemy combatant.

Unfortunately for this line of thought, the international conventions on war have generally not viewed radio and TV stations as legitimate targets of war even when producing exclusively propaganda. There are cases when they are legitimate targets but producing propaganda is not one of them.

Part of the the solution is an enormous increase in native Iraqi journalism. That’s why initiatives like Spirit of America are important. Give true, reliable, locally obtained information the ability to crowd out the lies.

But another part is significantly higher visibility for the CPA. Bremer really needs to be addressing the Iraqi people regularly–daily. On radio, TV, and in person. And these addresses should be memorable, repetitious, and true. No bureaucrat-ese. Reach out to this culture.