21st Century Wire says…
Al Jazeera employees Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were sentenced to three years in an Egyptian prison on Saturday, while Australian colleague Peter Greste was deported to his native Australia.
The Qatar-based media network stands accused of fabricating elements of an air strike by Egypt in Libya in February 2015. Since the charges were brought by Egyptian prosecutors in March, Al Jazeera has denied any wrongdoing or breach of journalistic practices.
The trial quickly became more about celebrity than it did jurisprudence. Giving the trial a true Hollywood and liberal seal of officialdom (and much to the dismay of the two defendants perhaps), CFR member George Clooney’s fashion model-lawyer spouse, Amal Ramzi Alamuddin Clooney, stole center stage as the star human rights lawyer who was defending the Al-Jazeera journalists.
Predictably, many mainstream journalists and ‘fans’ of Amal Clooney quickly rallied to her side, maintaining that she was unfairly defeated by a ‘corrupt Egyptian justice system’:
Just spoke to Amal Clooney who told me "what just happened here is an outrage" "independent court would have acquitted them fully" #AJTrial
— Bel Trew (@Beltrew) August 29, 2015
After the defeat, Amal Clooney, told reporters, “The verdict today sends a very dangerous message in Egypt.”
She continued, “It sends a message that journalists can be locked up for simply doing their job, for telling the truth and reporting the news. And it sends a dangerous message that there are judges in Egypt who will allow their courts to become instruments of political repression and propaganda.”
Al Jazeera: A Tool For ‘Regime Change’
It’s interesting how Clooney brings up the term propaganda here.
Undoubtedly, as a CFR member, Clooney should already know that Al Jazeera is Qatar’s state-funded and state-run broadcaster and therefore, Al-Jazeera cannot rightly classify itself as a ‘journalistic news outlet’, much less a neutral one – for the primary reason that Qatar has long been involved with both covert and overt regime change efforts – in supplying large amounts of cash and weapons, trafficking these to ‘rebels’ and known terrorist organizations in Syria, in Libya, and also through Egypt. This fact completely nullifies any pretense that Clooney might be trying to buttress regarding Al Jazeera ‘objective’ media credentials.
In the case of Syria, Al Jazeera was even caught supplying expensive satellite phones to armed rebel-terrorist factions in order to “communicate with the opposition.” This and other similar scandals prompted a number of resignations by some of Al Jazeera’s key Middle East staff at the time.
See ex-Al Jazeera editor Ali Hasham’s testimony here.
Clearly, Qatar’s own foreign policy objectives are firmly attached to that of Washington DC’s, and its capital city Doha just happens to be host to the Pentagon’s CENTCOM – US military command and a CIA operation which the US use to ‘manage’ the Middle Est and Central Asia regions – effectively making Qatar an US protectorate. Al Jazeera has been proven to be a real dab hand at staging fake news in the Middle East.
Here’s a little example of Al Jazeera staging a fake scene with an actor pretending to be an injured protester in Egypt. It’s almost comical to watch the actor use his foot to kick away the other actor playing the role of medic:
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In fact, Al Jazeera has been one of the most egregious purveyors of hard-core propaganda. Here is Al Jazeera hard at work in Syria, again trying to conjure up something which is not real, using child actors as props:
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And again, in Syria, more fake news from Al Jazeera:
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There’s also the incident where Al Jazeera appears to have faked some images of a premature ‘rebel celebration’ in Tripoli’s ‘Green Square’:
Because of their ambitious propagandizing in conflict theaters, many of al Jazeera’s own staff have jumped ship in order to save their own reputations as international journalists. Live Leak reported in 2102:
“Al Jazeera has supplied Syrian rebels with satellite communication tools to ensure telephone and Internet connection, claims Ali Hashim, a former correspondent of the Qatar-funded channel. The equipment was smuggled from Lebanon, he told RT. In protest against its performance in covering the events in Syria and the Arab region, Managing Director of al-Jazeera Office in Beirut, Hassan Shaaban has forwarded his resignation to al-Jazeera Channel, according to Lebanese al-Akhbar Newspaper. In this context, the newspaper said that Shaaban resigned in protest against the biased and provocative policy adopted by the channel in covering the events in the Arab region, particularly in Syria and Bahrain. The resignation comes a week after the producer of the Channel’s office in Beirut, Mousa Ahmad and the correspondent Ali Hashem resigned for the same reasons. A source told the Lebanese paper Al Akhbar that Al Jazeera’s Beirut correspondent Ali Hashem had quit over the channel’s stance on covering events in Syria. “… his position [which] changed after the station refused to show photos he had taken of armed fighters clashing with the Syrian Army in Wadi Khaled. Instead [Al Jazeera] lambasted him as a shabeeh [implying a regime loyalist],” a source told Lebanese press. [Also] Prominet Al-Jazeera journalist Bin Jeddo resigns. (24. April 2011)”
Despite their ambitious efforts, Al Jazeera is still no match for the masters of modern propaganda.
MORE: See Al Jazeera’s Fake Images of Crisis in Syria’s Madaya
CNN’s fake ‘bombing’ scenes with Anderson Cooper and operative Danny Dayem in Syria in 2012-2013:
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CNN’s shame during the first Gulf War in 1991:
Under Operation Mockingbird directives, CNN’s shameless approach to fake reporting and agit-prop news is almost legendary, perfecting their modern Wag the Dog news staging in ‘war theaters’ the first Gulf War where it tried to pass-off a fake air raid scene as real news in Saudi Arabia. Naturally, CNN producers felt this was good enough for hapless American TV viewers. Watch:
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And we can’t forget this all-time classic by the BBC and its flagship ‘investigative’ program Panorama, entitled, “Saving Syria’s Children,” which was cynically thrusted on to an innocent British public on the eve the Parliamentary vote for a war in Syria in August 2013:
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(THANK YOU FOR THAT ONE BBC)
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So, we ask Amal Clooney, and our readers too: in terms of propaganda, who is more dangerous and a bigger enabler of war and conflict in the world today – Egypt… or the likes of CNN, BBC, FOX News… and Al Jazeera?
