Lack of Al Jazeera Cable Reach in U.S. = 'Neo-McCarthyism'

A ridiculous op-ed in the New York Times today by Roger Cohen laments the fact most cable systems in the United States refuse to carry Al Jazeera English and equates it to "neo-McCarthyism," whatever the heck that's supposed to be.

Of course, leading the charge to have this propaganda channel cleared is none other than the anti-Semitic creep himself, Virginia Democrat Jim Moran.

Laced with sneering condescension towards the United States, Cohen argues that we're really just missing out of a fair and balanced portrayal of our own demise.

In the gym at the NATO base in Kabul, U.S. soldiers hit the treadmills every morning and gaze at TV screens broadcasting Al Jazeera’s English news channel. When Osama bin Laden makes news, as he did recently with a statement about Iraq, America’s finest work out beneath the solemn gaze of their most wanted enemy.

Solemn gaze?

In an indication of what the Bush administration thinks of Al Jazeera journalism (and habeas corpus), it has locked up one of the network’s cameramen, Sami al-Hajj, in Guantánamo Bay for more than five years without charging him.

In Cohen's world, it's apparently impossible for an enemy combatant to be in the employ of a media outfit.

Who's being naive here?

Cohen goes on to giddily portray America as a country on the decline and lets us know why we should willingly accept Al Jazeera to propagandize across the nation.

Enter Moran:

To this world Al Jazeera English offers a useful primer. The network can be tendentious — bin Laden’s face up there for several minutes — in stomach-turning ways. But, over all, its striving for balanced reporting from a distinct perspective seems genuine.

A year after its launch, it reaches 100 million households worldwide. Its focus is on “reporting from the political south to the political north,” as Nigel Parsons, its managing director, put it. The world it presents, more from the impact than the launch point of U.S. missiles, is one that must be understood.

Yet, the network has been sidelined in the United States. Representative Jim Moran, a Democrat from Virginia, told me: “There’s definitely an attitude here that these guys are the enemy. But in the Mideast, Asia and Europe they have a credibility the U.S. desperately needs.”

Isn't it wonderful to have our elected representatives promoting an enemy network, let alone working on its behalf?

Moran met recently with Al Jazeera English executives seeking to extend the service’s Lilliputian reach here. Right now, you can watch it in Toledo, Ohio, through Buckeye Cablesystem, which reaches 147,000 homes.

Or, if you’re in Burlington, Vt., a municipal cable service offers the network to about 1,000 homes. Washington Cable, in the capital, reaches half that. Better options are YouTube or GlobeCast satellite distribution.

These are slim pickings. Al Jazeera English is far more accessible in Israel. Allan Block, the chairman of Block Communications, which owns Buckeye, told me: “It’s a good channel. Sir David Frost and David Marash are not terrorists. The attempt to blackball it is neo-McCarthyism.”

Good grief.

Nobody is accusing David Frost of Dave Marash of being terrorists. Useful idiots desperate for work, perhaps, but not terrorists.

Most cable companies have bowed to the pressure while denying politics influenced their decisions. “It just comes down to channel capacity and other programming options,” Jenni Moyer, a Comcast spokeswoman, told me.

Nonsense, says Representative Moran, blaming “political winds plus a risk-averse corporate structure.”

These political winds hurt America. Counterinsurgency has been called armed social science. To win, you must understand the world you’re in.

Comparative courses in how Al Jazeera, CNN, the BBC and U.S. networks portray the Iraq war and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be taught in all U.S. high schools and colleges. Al Jazeera English should be widely available.

Sure, high school and college kids are getting their skulls filled with neo-McCarthyism, and surely need some Al Jazeera to counter it.

UPDATE: Linked by LGF.

The media wing of the Muslim Brotherhood and the global jihad, Al Jazeera, has been unable to get many US cable providers to carry their sanitized (but still on message) English version. As we’ve noted several times, the lack of interest and the outrage and protests when providers do try to carry Al Jazeera have driven the Islamist channel to find other avenues to infiltrate, such as the jihad-friendly YouTube where they have their own special sponsored channel.

Thanks for the link!