webmaster
© Copyright DEHAI-Eritrea OnLine, 1993-2011
All rights reserved
From: wolda002@umn.edu
Date: Mon Mar 07 2011 - 23:11:25 EST
Al Jazeera Promotes Libya's "Crown Prince" Who Calls for Military
Intervention in Libya<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi250211.html>
by Yoshie Furuhashi
Al Jazeera received a lot of kudos for its exciting coverage of the
intifadas in Tunisia and Egypt. Many of us in the West in particular found
it to be a useful source of information, since the Western media's coverage
of them, largely shaped by imperialist preferences as always, was
quantitatively lesser and qualitatively worse than Al Jazeera's.
Al Jazeera's coverage of the Arab Revolt began to deteriorate, however, when
revolutionary sparks started to fly in the direction of the Gulf states,
which would eventually ignite an unprecedented (and very politically
promising1<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi250211p.html#_edn1>)
uprising in Bahrain, made up of 100,000-strong demonstrations in a nation
whose population is only about 800,000. Having paid close attention to Al
Jazeera's role in the Arab Revolt, As'ad
AbuKhalil<http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2011/02/gcc-supports-bahrain-aljazeera-forgets.html>criticized
its about-face in his blog
*Angry Arab News Service*:
GCC met and issues a statement in support of Bahrain. The people of Bahrain
are on their own now: there is no Aljazeera to support their cause and
expose the regime, and the US and EU will do their best to rationalize and
support government repression. Shame on Aljazeera Arabic for abandoning the
people of Bahrain, and for even invoking a sectarian element in their
coverage, implying that only Shi'ites are protesting. (17 February 2011)
At about the same time, an uprising erupted in Libya. The Gaddafi regime's
violent repression of it, plus the continuing spectacle of seemingly endless
defections of high-ranking officials and military men from the regime, has
proved a godsend to everyone whose biggest concern is what may become of the
headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet -- and more importantly its neighbor
Saudi Arabia, whose own Shia population not only share the same grievances
as their Bahraini counterparts but are also concentrated in one of its
oil-producing regions. Forget Bahrain, let's focus on Libya!
Or so went the directive, one suspects, from Al Jazeera's owner Sheikh Hamad
bin Thamer Al Thani.
Now, there's nothing wrong with talking about Libya if the purpose is to
convey accurate information about it. But there is everything wrong with
making propaganda about it in such a way as to put its people at risk. And
I'm afraid that's exactly what Al Jazeera has begun to do. Both in Arabic
and English, it has been featuring leading members of the National Front for
the Salvation of
Libya<http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi240211.html>,
an outfit funded by the CIA and Saudi Arabia during the Cold War, as
credible sources of news and views, much as the Western media have been
doing.2 <http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi250211p.html#_edn2>
That is bad enough. Yesterday, Al Jazeera hit a new low: it gave the
self-styled "Crown Prince" of Libya -- Muhammad as-Senussi -- a platform
from which to call on "the international community to help remove Gaddafi
from power and stop the ongoing
'massacre'."<http://english.aljazeera.net/video/africa/2011/02/201122416028655869.html>
By the "international community," of course he doesn't mean those of us who
might organize protests at Libyan embassies or that kind of thing. He means
the great and not-so-great powers that may be persuaded to deploy their
armed forces in Libya.
*"Crown Prince":* What I try to do to stop the massacre -- I try to put
pressure and call the international community to stop this killing. Gaddafi
-- he must leave. And that's what I try to do every day.
*Barnaby Phillips, Al Jazeera:* So, what should the international community
do and what *can* the international community do?
*"Crown Prince":* The international community -- they know the way to stop
the massacre.
*Barnaby Phillips:* But are you in favor of military intervention from the
international community?
*"Crown Prince":* I think, anything [that] stops killing, I will support it.
And the Al Jazeera interviewer lets the "Crown Prince" leave it at that,
without challenging him on this point at all. (Needless to say, he doesn't
ask a question that upsets the narrative frame for foreign military
intervention: since *sections of armed forces* have already joined the
revolt, isn't what's going on in Libya *now* less the regime mowing down
unarmed protesters than a civil war between two armed camps, each
controlling large territories with valuable resources?)
Seriously, what is the point of rising up to take back the country from its
current ruler -- and in fact having already successfully taken over large
parts <http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2055251,00.html> of it
-- if foreign powers get to enter the country at the urging of its would-be
king, to take it all away from you again? Is Al Jazeera for revolution . .
. or *counter-revolution*?
Now, no one on the Left should lose sleep over the fate of a man who has
pitched too many tents in too many contradictory
camps<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAYzdQSEOWU>.
But we have every reason to be concerned about what the empire, aided by
mass media, might attempt in Libya, from getting its assets to take
advantage of an uprising for which, being safely in exile, they made no
personal sacrifices themselves, to wresting control of Libya's oil-producing
regions, or perhaps even the whole country, from the hands of not only its
soon-to-be-former regime but also its people.
------------------------------
Yoshie Furuhashi is Editor of *MRZine*.
------------------------------
URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2011/furuhashi250211.html
----[This List to be used for Eritrea Related News Only]----