09 Jun Al Jazeera’s Coverage of Zarqawi’s Death
09.06.06
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17 Comments
Al Jazeera has some of the most appalling coverage of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that one could possibly imagine for a major news network. First, there is the lead story entitled “U.S., allies hail Zarqawi killing” which reports that family members of Zarqawi’s beheaded victims had “mixed reactions” to the news of his death. The article concludes with reports that “Al-Qaeda in Iraq, the organisation headed by al-Zarqawi, has vowed to fight on.” Then there is a top story from Zarqawi’s family praising his martydom and stating how “happy” they were at news of his death because “he’s a martyr and he’s now in heaven.” Al Jazeera then offers an obituary of Zarqawi that describes him as a “Jordanian-born fighter” who rose to “prominence as leader of the Islamist Tawhid and Jihad group in 2003.” It notes that his group “carried out some of the most deadly attacks in Iraq since the US-led invasion, including the January 2005 bombing of a crowd of police and Iraqi National Guard recruits in the southern city of Hilla that killed 125 people.” It further notes that since 2005 his “campaign” has expanded beyond the Iraqi borders. And finally there is a story of how elusive Zarqawi had been, with reports on how “US forces and their allies had come close to capturing al-Zarqawi several times since his campaign began in mid-2003.” But somehow he always escaped. Al Jazeera also unhelpfully provides links to transcripts from Zarqawi’s speech last week calling on Sunnis to “prepare to get rid of the infidel snakes and their poison” and an April video lashing out at the Iraqi government’s collaboration with “Western crusaders.”
Shame on Al Jazeera.
Roger,
Forgive me, but I’m not clear as to what you find disturbing. I watched CNN today for a little while and they reported virtually everything you note here from Al Jazeera. Do we proclaim ‘Shame on CNN?’ There seems to be nothing but reporting about al-Zarqawi: his life, death, family members’ reactions, reactions from those of his persuasion and others…. What do you suggest Al-Jazeera should have done? Not report such things? I found the information above useful as part of the greater project of attempting to understand the psychology of like-minded Islamist militants, of attempting to figure out the socio-psychological and political circumstances that help give birth to and nurture such individuals, etc. There’s nothing here that glorifies or apologizes for his behavior. Again, I may be missing something, but if so, please help me understand just what it is.
Patrick
I find myself in a similar position to Patrick – wondering whether I’d missed something in Roger’s post. In fact I had to reread the post to make sure that I hadn’t. There seems to be a disconnect between the first sentence pronouncing the appalling coverage and the rest of the post. There was nothing in the post that I hadn’t heard or seen in other reports. In fact the way in which Roger describes the reporting of the mixed reaction by family members of victimes appears a bit milder than the interview I heard on BBC radio this morning with the father of one of Zarqawi’s victims.
Perhaps there was something about the way Al-Jazeerah put these reports together that is disturbing.
To appreciate why I think Al Jazeera’s coverage of Zarqawi’s death was so appalling, you have to compare it to other news outlets. So look again at its coverage and ask a few questions. First, the photos. The photos are of Zarqawi alive sitting next to machine guns. There are no photos of Zarqawi dead, but almost every other news outlet included this graphic photo. Second, the links. Al Jazeera links to Zarqawi’s venomous speeches and videos. There are no links to the video of the bombing of his compound. Third, the omissions. There is no discussion that Zarqawi was betrayed from within his own organization. There is no discussion of worldwide reaction welcoming his death. It is only the United States and its allies on the one hand, and Zarqawi’s family rejoicing about his martyrdom on the other. Nor do they include a segment (like the BBC has) on Zarqawi’s enemies in the Arab world, including those in his hometown in Zarqa, where residents “wanted him dead.” Fourth, the choice of words. Literally thousands of other news outlets refer to Zarqawi as a terrorist or the leader of a terrorist network. Al Jazeera describes him as a “Jordanian-born fighter.” They dramatically downplay his attacks on civilians and emphasize his attacks on military targets. The impression one is left with after reading Al Jazeera? He was an elusive target who struggled mightily against the United States and had the support of “honest Iraqis” who were resisting the occupation. I could say more, but that gives you a flavor of why I am underwhelmed by Al Jazeera’s coverage.
Perhaps my reaction to Al Jazeera is also prompted by my first memories of Zarqawi and his beheading of Nicholas Berg. It is important to remind ourselves just how evil Zarqawi was, and Al Jazeera clearly does nothing to help us remember this. They appear agnostic at best. Go back to May of 2004 and recall the images of the Berg beheading and remember how you felt about Zarqawi. Here is how Andrew Sullivan put it, “This is the really striking thing about the Zarqawi execution of Nick Berg. Al Qaeda never learns. Listening to the hooded coward shriek on that video and reading what he says can only remind us that these people are a) vile, b) as alien to true Islam as the KKK was to the Gospels, c) pathetic and d) dumb. They think they terrify us by this? The gang-murder of an unarmed, innocent civilian? And they think that it will add to the shame of Abu Ghraib, demoralize Americans still further, and prompt a withdrawal? In fact, of course, the Berg beheading does a grim but salutary service. In the midst of our own deserved self-criticism, we are suddenly reminded of the larger stakes, the wider war, why we are in Iraq in the first place. Most Americans do not in any way excuse Abu Ghraib, but also see that any sort of moral equivalence between our flawed democracy and Islamism’s pathological hatred is obscene. In a purely strategic sense, stiffening American resolve and inflaming American outrage at this juncture is exactly what a smart al Qaeda would avoid. But there is no such thing as a smart al Qaeda. Evil can sometimes be stupid, and often is….For our part, we must not take the deeper bait, which is to polarize this still further and associate these fanatics with Arabs or Islam as a whole. This is not a war against Islam. It is a war to defend Islam. And a democratic Iraq – not run by mullahs – is indispensable to that end.”
Roger,
Thanks for further clarification.
Might it be that showing photos of him dead in this manner helps to glorify him as a ‘martyr’ of sorts? Today their website does in fact include a dead photo of him. And I did see a photo of the bombed ‘compound,’ but as it is reported that some civilians died there as well (including a child), there may be very good reasons for not seeing videos of his this. Al Jazeera does discuss the worldwide reaction under the heading, ‘The US and its allies have hailed the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, as a major victory in the fight against terror.’ It does mention the ‘betrayal:’ ‘Al-Maliki said the air strike was the result of intelligence reports provided to Iraqi security forces by residents in the area and US forces acted on the information.’ It may not have had the privileged access to information that allowed some news agencies to report more specific items in this regard. Keep in mind the US does not treat all news agencies equally, and its well known that, at times, some news sources have privileged access to information. Al-Jazeera is largely a regional news agency and thus, unlike the BBC, will not be providing as much in the way of ‘global’ coverage and reactions.
The report on the reaction of Iraqis seems fair and well-balanced:
‘Iraqis around the country have reacted largely along sectarian lines to the news of al-Zarqawi’s death.
He was mourned in Anbar province, the heart of the Sunni-led insurgency.
Abid al-Duleimi, 40, said: “This is a black day in Ramadi. This a great loss for all the Sunnis.
“If they killed al-Zarqawi, more than one al-Zarqawi will come out.”
In the Shia Sadr City area of Baghdad, there was a positive view.
Anwar Abdul Hussein, a baker, said: “We hope the killing of al-Zarqawi and his aides, those who killed many Iraqis, will finish all the terror in Iraq and let everybody live safely.”
While many Iraqis welcomed the news of his death, they also expressed scepticism that it would stem the sectarian and militia violence taking place across the country.
Yassir al-Hamdani, 25, a student in the northern city of Mosul, said: “The killing of al-Zarqawi will not change the bad security situation unless the Iraqi government eliminates all the terrorists.”
Abdul-Amir Ahmed Ali, speaking in the Shia holy city of Najaf, called on the Iraqi government to take advantage of the vacuum left by al-Zarqawi’s death to strike against other militia groups.
“Killing Zarqawi made us very happy … but we have some fears that the followers of this criminal will try to undermine this happiness,” the 56-year-old carpenter said.
“I hope the government will hit with an iron fist. I hope this day will be a turning point in the life of the Iraqis.”‘
It does say he was ‘the head of an organisation known as al-Qaeda in the Land of Two Rivers.’
It does say, among other things:
‘who is believed to have beheaded at least two American hostages, became Iraq’s most wanted man.’
‘In the past year, al-Zarqawi had moved his campaign beyond Iraq’s borders, claiming to have carried out a November 9, 2005, triple bombing against hotels in Amman that killed 60 people, as well as other attacks in Jordan and even a rocket attack from Lebanon into northern Israel.’
‘The group carried out some of the most deadly attacks in Iraq since the US-led invasion, including the January 2005 bombing of a crowd of police and Iraqi National Guard recruits in the southern city of Hilla that killed 125 people.’
‘Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the bombing of Shia mosques and al-Zarqawi described Shia Muslims as “enemies of Islam” in an audiotape posted on the internet in June.’
From his obituary we learn:
‘Criminal
Born Ahmad Fadhil Nazzal al-Khalayla in 1966, al-Zarqawi was known in the Jordanian industrial town of al-Zarqa as a small-time criminal.
He adopted his Islamist radical ideology while in a Jordanian prison in the late 1990s.’
Another thing to bear in mind. Al-Jazeera does not have the resources of BBC or conglomerate news organizations. It also does not want to simply repeat the entire substance and tone of non-Middle East news sources insofar as it will lose all credibility in the region based on the perception of providing an independent perspective, i.e. one not unduly shaped by U.S. interests, etc. (however accurate that assessment in any given case might be).
Even the US government is taking pains now to play down his role in the insurgency, admitting his death is not likely to affect things in a noticeable way (read today’s reporting on the front page of the LA Times).
The somewhat ‘detached’ tone adopted by al-Jazeera may reflect the better part of discretion when it comes to considering the impact a more thoroughly demonized portrayal of mythic proportions might have in the long term.
For better and worse, the term ‘terrorist’ has been emptied of meaningful referent and moral approbation in the Middle East owing to its overuse and indiscriminate employment in popular and political discourse. For instance, those who fought for the state of Israel are not labeled ‘terrorists,’ despite having historically initiated the species of violent (i.e. ‘terrorist”) tactics later adopted by Palestinians fighting for national self-determination. Moreover, the refusal of some to acknowledge the possibility of ‘state-terrorism’ in the pursuit of otherwise worthy democratic ends has led to no small amount of cynicism as to its precise denotation and possible connotations. I’m not condoning the refusal to use the term, but attempting to understand why it no longer carries the requisite lexical weight in some quarters.
I could say more, but this gives you a better sense of why I did not find Al Jazeera’s coverage disturbing (and why, for example, referring to Zarqawi as a ‘leader of a terrorist network’ is over-the-top, according him far more credit than he deserves). I simply did not receive anything remotely close to the impression you describe above: the difference here may be in the prior pliability of the source receiving the impression….
Roger,
I just read your further clarification/elaboration and it does not pain me to say there’s much (meaning not all) I agree with. Still, the pathological hatred of Islamists did not arise in a vacuum (which does not mean we need capitulate to demands of Islamists), and so I think once we get beyond expressions of moral revulsion and disgust, of reassuring utterances as to the stupidity of any perceptions of ‘moral equivalence,’ we would do well to figure out what motivates those drawn to terrorist tactics, to giving in to pathological hatred, and so on (I sometimes wonder if this is not a red herring: who, after all, is making such claims. The fact is that it’s easier, if not more effective, to hold those accountable who in fact profess adherence to standards and principles, hence the attention; it does little good to express similar sorts of moral disapproval to those not upholding or expressing any sort of fidelity to such standards. This may lead to the impression that something on the order of ‘moral equivalence’ is at work, when in fact it is not).
On ‘evil and stupidity: Here we part ways, as I think part of the problem is that we often underestimate the intelligence, the cleverness, the resourcefulness of those who are ‘evil’ (actually, I prefer, with some religious traditions, to make a distinction between the person and his/her acts, so it’s preferable to speak of evil actions or deeds, not evil persons as such; if not, the fact that, say, one can be ‘redeemed’ in the Christian tradition would no longer be true; in other words, no one, in theory, is irredeemably evil, although we still might have sufficient reason to speak of those who appear ‘bereft of conscience,’ lacking an understanding of good and evil, etc.). Certainly we’ve done this in the case of bin Laden, at least that is one conclusion I drew from the London Review of Books article by Charles Glass” ‘Cyber-Jihad,’ Vol. 28, No. 5, 9 March 2006.
Patrick writes, “For better and worse, the term ‘terrorist’ has been emptied of meaningful referent and moral approbation in the Middle East owing to its overuse and indiscriminate employment in popular and political discourse.”
I’m sorry Patrick but it is simply wrong and obscene to suggest that Zarqawi is not a terrorist or should not be labelled as such. There is a five minute video of a civilian telecommunications worker screaming as his head is cut off by four hooded terrorists. The severed head is then held up to the camera and placed on his body. How can anyone in any part of the world possibly not describe Zarqawi as a terrorist? There may be some outer boundary for that term, but he fits the very essence of the description. For a news outlet to not accurately describe his behavior as terrorism is appalling.
As I said above, ‘I’m not condoning the refusal to use the term.’ I was making a descriptive observation, not a normative claim. Something similar has happened with the word ‘socialism.’ No one is quite clear as to its meaning anymore (I happen to think that it can be definded in a meaningful way). I cannot find a better term than ‘terrorist’ to refer to the sorts of things Zarqawi practiced and encouraged, as several individuals do in their comments covered by Al Jazeera. I was not apologizing for Al-Jazeera here, but rather trying to account for why they don’t use the word. Will there be similar indignation when CNN, FOX News, or the New York Times does not refer to following actions as ‘terrorist?’:
Israeli artillery shells have struck a group of Palestinian civilians at a beach in Bait Lahiya in northern Gaza, killing seven people, including three children, and wounding 36 others, Aljazeera reports.
The artillery shells were fired on Friday by Israeli gunboats stationed just off the Mediterranean coast.
The dead and the wounded Palestinians were having a picnic on the beach as it was the weekly holiday, Aljazeera’s correspondent Wael al-Dahduh said.
The barrage scattered body parts along the seaside. A tent was destroyed, and bloody sheets were scattered about. A crowd quickly flocked to the are, screaming and running around in confusion.
Three Palestinians were killed in an earlier air strike on a car in the northern Gaza Strip, Palestinian security sources said.
The killings raised the death toll in Israeli attacks on Friday to 13. At least nine civilians were among the dead, according to Palestinian officials.
Incidentally, if I have not viewed a video, say, of the napalming of civilians in Vietnam, or the atomic bombing of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and so forth, I still would not hesitate to refer to such actions as ‘terrorist.’ By my lights, they ‘fit the very essence of the description.’
My comment may be unuseful, but: I completely agree with Roger. Zarqawi was an animal. Perhaps that’s a mere moral assertion, but his behavior – both before the conflict when he had been jailed as a criminal – and after, demonstrate not the behavior of a man but of a beast.
Tom:
Such a characterization is inappropriate and unjust in comparative reference to creatures great and small in the non-human animal world. The kind of violence practiced by Zarqawi and other terrorists is not exhibited by ‘beasts’ in the animal kingdom: it is a uniquely ‘human’ sort of action.
Who is Patrick S. O’Donnell and why doesn’t he get his own blog?
Who is ‘guest?’ And why does he/she hide behind anonymity?
Wow.
And this is an international law blog.
Personally I’d like to see Patrick S. O’Donnell get his own blog. I’d like to read it.
Patrick:
The extent of my comparison earlier was between the absence of value placed on life by animals and that by Zarqawi &cohort. Inasmuch as animals do not make moral assessments in the animal kingdom neither did Zarqawi when it came to killing to meet his political goals. To this extent, in my opinion, he was roughly morally equivalent to an animal/beast.
Tom,
I appreciate the explanation. It is true of course that animals do not exercise moral agency, and thus we have one of the properties often used to distinguish human from non-human animals. However, the fact that Zarqawi was a human agent and thus in theory capable of exercising such a capacity, suggests my comment as to the inappropriateness of the comparison remains cogent if not compelling. In other words, it is unfair to our beastly companions to be compared to Zarqawi when in effect they suffer from the comparison insofar as, by definition, they are constitutionally incapable of exercising moral agency (at least the kind of ‘rational’ moral agency at issue here; for there’s some evidence that animal behavior on occasion exhibits altruistic or ‘moral-like’ behavior) as you thereby conclude he was ‘roughly morally equivalent to an animal/beast.’ I would contend therefore, and rather, that such an assertion of ‘moral equivalence’ doesn’t make sense or falls flat, that it is essentially impotent in effect. It does nothing to account for or help illuminate the moral quality (or lack thereof) of Zarqawi’s political ethics (such as we can infer them from what we know up to now) and, to reiterate, is it quite unflattering to our beastly companions (in other words, the phrase ‘moral equivalence’ is inappropriate).
Personally, I think it would be more interesting to discuss Zarqawi’s actions in the light of the moral psychology of violence, as well as within the rubric of possible definitions and discussions of terrorism (cf. Burleigh Taylor Wilkins’ Terrorism and Collective Responsibility, 1992, or Ted Honderich’s Terrorism for Humanity: Inquiries in Political Philosophy, 2003 ed.) (or within the recent discussions of militant Islamist understandings of the ‘lesser jihad’).
It simply sheds no light on Zarqawi’s use of terrorist means for political ends (assuming coherent ends here) to compare him to animals in this manner, however revealing it is of our transparent and frustrating inability to find words sufficient in expression of our moral condemnation and opprobrium, to expressing our feelings of anger, contempt, fear and revulsion (but of course you’re free to believe–opine–otherwise).
Tom,
I should have first mentioned the fact that since animals are thought to be incapable of exercising rational moral agency, it makes no sense whatsoever to speak of ‘the absence of value placed on life by animals.’ The capacity to ‘place’ (intrinsic) value on life is a uniquely human one. To be sure, we may infer from animal behavior, as Buddhists do, that animals ‘value’ life in some sense, that they ‘cherish’ it, at least to the extent they typically behave in a way so as to avoid suffering and death. In other words, there’s something about the very nature of their existence that provides eloquent testimony to the value of life, even if these animals cannot self-consciously become ‘aware’ of that value in a reflexive and reflective sense. What is more, Zarqawi himself placed some value on life, although not in a way that most of us would find, to put it somewhat feebly, morally sufficient or ethically sound and consistent.
al Jazeera’s Value as a News Agency
Roger Alford at Opinio Juris has drawn the short straw. He is the poor, woe betide soul to subject himself to al Jazeera’s coverage of the death of terrorist leader Abu Musab al Zarqawi. Just to see, I suppose, if…