Freedom's Fidelity

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Al-Jazeera is a Zionist Agent

I have always been a bit intrigued by conspiracy theories, and not because I subscribe to them, on the contrary, frankly, it's just amusing as hell the depths of depraved logic their proponents will fall to in order to explain away any possible refutation, regardless of the validity. Look: Shut up about fixing the election, shut up about "we only went to Afghanistan to build a natural gas pipeline" *cough*Michael Moore*cough* and then to Iraq to trade blood for oil, shut up about we didn't really land on the moon, shut up about the government inventing crack and AIDS as a way to exterminate the blacks and the gays.

As much as I complain about the media and their shortcomings, it is in some ways those shortcomings that, at times, provide a valuable service - transparency amongst our public figures. There is no shortage of journalists that dream of being the next Pulitzer prize winning Woodward and Bernstein. They love a scandal - Monica Lewinsky, Abu Ghraid, WMD's, Richard Clarke's testimony. With so many with that incentive, memos should and do leak from Washington like incontinent old men. Not one allegation of even one overheard conversation? Maybe something not disimilar from this:

"Rumsfeld: I can't wait to steal all the fucking oil from Iraq and give it to Halliburton."

Cheney: "Yep good thing no one will find out, because we control all of the media and every individual journalist."

You mean to tell me we really didn't go to the moon, it was all a hoax and none of those journalists could find even a sketch or blueprint of the phony plan? No papertrail outlining the plot to steal Iraq's oil and estimations of the profit potential for "Big Oil" that would soon follow? Not one bit of proof for and an abundance of simple explanations against. No matter, because what is most amazing, er maybe amusing, is that when one brings up facts that cast doubt on a particular conspiracy theory, those facts are then used as evidence to actually further the conspiracy theory - i.e. they show that the conspiracy actually runs *even deeper* than originally thought.

You know what I think? I think that those that believe in such theories do so because it provides them some sort of comfort. They want to believe that the world is a hoax, that life is rigged against them from the outset. This way they can absolve themselves of any responsibility for their own failures/shortcomings, because, they never really had a fair chance anyway, nothing is their fault.

I guess that Iranian Mulluhs are no exception as the Tehran Times is reporting the following, best conspiracy theory of all time. (Note the Tehran Times link is now dead - another conspiracy? - Right Thinking has much of the text however.) Here it is:

The Al-Jazeera network was founded in 1997, ostensibly to create a new movement in the static media of the Arab world, which are mostly government controlled, and was initially welcomed.

Many media experts believed that the new network would create a revolution in the field of information dissemination, particularly in the Arab states on the Persian Gulf.

However, at the same time, rumors arose suggesting that the network was established by U.S. and Israeli agents in order to present a bad image of Islam to the world.

Some regional experts expressed doubts about the allegations though, because the establishment of a media outlet with the aim of promptly informing Arab nations about the latest world news seemed to be a good idea.

But the actions of the network gradually revealed the fact that Al-Jazeera officials, on the orders of Zionist agents, are trying to divide Islamic countries and tarnish the image of Islam.

After Al-Jazeera broadcasted some distorted news reports about Saudi Arabia, tension rose between that country and Qatar, and the two Arab states almost cut off diplomatic relations. ...

By broadcasting abhorrent scenes of the beheadings of foreign hostages by the criminal agents of the Abu Musab al-Zarqawi terrorist group, the network succeeded in increasing anti-Muslim sentiment throughout the world, particularly in the West.

Following the advice of U.S. and Israeli experts in psychological operations (psyops), Al-Jazeera took actions which gave Westerners a negative image of Islam and Muslims.

In fact, the Al-Jazeera network was founded at exactly the same time when Iranian President Mohammad Khatami introduced his Dialogue Among Civilizations initiative as a logical strategy to bring the West and the Islamic world closer together.

Of course, the Zionists were not pleased at the idea because they believe that increased proximity between the Islamic world and the West is not in their interests. And that is why they founded the Al-Jazeera network to tarnish the image of true Islam.

Right. It's not that some thugs in the name of Islam are actually sawing off heads for the camera, but that Al-Jazeera incorrectly frames it in a violent context. So rather than confront the violent sects of Islam, and the fact that your miserable societies create and an endless stream of suicide bombing recruits, with little hope for improvements in the realms of economics, individual freedom, and living standards just blame it all on the Jews and call it a day.

posted by Paul  permalink | |