Saad Al-Ghamdi, ghamdi@alwatan.com.sa

The media have developed into such a powerful weapon these days that its influence not only shape peoples’ lives but also events. At times, it can even overshadow an event itself. This is appreciated by many who seek to use the media but is missed by others who are unaware of their power.

When crime becomes rampant and people begin complaining about it, the media start working and stories begin circulating. Reports carried by the print media have some truth but in many cases, they also include a great deal of imagination, misrepresentation and distortion. With television, the situation may be different since viewers are presented with pictures and then left to explain and judge for themselves. It is here that the modern media derive considerable influence.

When Israeli intransigence went too far during the intifada and its crimes against the Palestinian people spared no house, street or city in the West Bank and Gaza, few Western or other television stations sought to present a relatively fair picture; in most cases, the coverage was never free of some distortion. This did not satisfy the Zionists who declared war on stations with a long history in covering the conflict, notably the BBC and CNN as well as such Arabic stations as Al-Jazeera. Israel attacked these stations for no reason other than that they sought to expose by various means the brutality of Israel’s practices in the occupied lands and lay bare the hypocrisy surrounding this deviant entity.

Then came the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. The United States sought to neutralize its own media as well as the international one. It then began applying the policy of putting others in a cage where any one who dares to be outside risks being labeled an outlaw and thus deserves to be disciplined and possibly punished. The American media abided by the rule while the international media preferred to remain silent, fearing the consequences.

Al-Jazeera did play a prominent role in Afghanistan but the punishment it later received was severe. The station had its offices in Kabul bombed and its journalists in Madrid, Qatar and London targeted under the pretext that they are supporting terrorism. In Iraq, Al-Jazeera did extremely well while Al-Arabiya, which was relatively new on the scene, also put on a good show. The punishment for both stations was devastating. Al-Jazeera’s offices in Baghdad were demolished and the station bureau chief, Tarqi Nasser, killed. A number of journalists, commentators and photographers were similarly treated. Al-Arabiya’s offices were closed down.

These are typical mafia tactics. The mafia is known to resort to no other punishment than murdering its foes because it thinks of no other way of dealing with what it sees as enemies.

Like Ariel Sharon who cannot tolerate the media, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has on several occasions declared his dissatisfaction with the two evil channels, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, both of which he alleged were untruthful.

When Al-Jazeera’s Ahmad Mansour was reporting from the fighting in Fallujah from the roof of a building, an American officer was telling viewers that they, the Americans, had unilaterally stopped fighting. Mansour told the officer they could still hear the sound of gunfire and that there were dead and wounded all over the city. The officer replied that it was the insurgents who were doing the firing. At that moment, the camera turned to the sky, showing American helicopters and fighter planes bombing residential areas, mosques and hospitals. The officer turned to the reporter and told him: “You from Al-Jazeera are always telling lies.”

Punishment was swift; the site from where Al-Jazeera was reporting was bombed. Again, mafia tactics because the mafia cannot tolerate the truth. What is very strange is to see the media in the country of freedom, democracy and human rights maintaining silence about all this. There is no justification for the behavior of the American media other than to say that it has joined in the aggression. If this is how the American media react to events in Iraq, it is no wonder the United Stares launched a television station targeting Arab viewers, giving it the name of Al-Hurra (free).

What kind of freedom can such a channel represent and disseminate? Only that which is in agreement with its American masters. What is even stranger is to have some of our own people taking pride in coverage by the American media of events in Iraq and objecting to any attempt to tell the truth and expose the aggression and occupation. These individuals deny the existence of resistance fighters in Fallujah, describing the Iraqi fighters as terrorists and their heroic acts as acts of terrorism. They are parroting what Rumsfeld and others are saying.

Worse still, some have gone to the extent of demanding that relief assistance be prevented from reaching the people of Fallujah because, the besieged citizens do not deserve to be assisted. Having lost any human feeling, religious or national sentiments and become completely absorbed in the body of the occupier, these individuals now are nothing but cloned versions of the occupier.

Had they carefully considered how the media of democratic America is reporting events in our country, they would realize that the American media are using a different scale for weighing things. For this media, crime has two faces — what is happening here are explosions but what is taking place there is terrorism.

— Saad Al-Ghamdi is a Saudi academic and writer.