Bring It On in Arabic or Any Other Tongue

Cable operators in America and Canada blocked Al-Jazeera's first English-language television broadcast this week, depriving North American viewers of the opportunity to peruse the premier all-news Arab network, a world-class troublemaker. What, are they protecting our "young" democracy?

Since its inception in 1996, Al-Jazeera has been the favored bête noire for governments that chafe at its needling, double standards, advocacy of suicide bombers and martyrdom in the name of Islam, and general jihadist orientation.

Al-Jazeera has been banned and boycotted repeatedly. One of its correspondents, Tayseer Allouni, is serving a 10-year jail sentence in Spain for acting as an Al Qaeda operative. Another correspondent is at Guantánamo.

The network ranks as Osama bin Laden's primary outlet for cave tapes and incitement of murder against Christians, Jews, and Muslim infidels.

Indeed, Al-Jazeera enjoys the unique distinction of being singled out for American aerial bombardment until, we are reliably told, President Bush was dissuaded by Prime Minister Blair. Its Afghanistan and Iraq offices have been bombed three times anyway, with several staffers killed or wounded.

Most important, it is a network with a huge audience estimated at 100 million, more than other networks dream of having.

Okay, so it is not a nice place. But should Al-Jazeera English be blocked in North America, where freedom of expression is next to godliness? Not in my book. America doesn't have — or need — government censorship, and no one should compel our privately owned cable companies to carry the station. But in my view, those that deny Al-Jazeera English are making an error of judgment.

Having watched Al-Jazeera Arabic for a decade, I believe in the eternal adage "information is power." As a journalist, I have long considered its distortions just as important as its scoops.

When it started inciting Muslims to riot worldwide in the wake of the Danish cartoons of Prophet Muhammad, it was useful to know what was coming. Its religious programming offers priceless insights into the minds of jihadists.

A positive is its reports exposing the excesses of Arab regimes, replete as they are with double standards. To me, this falls under the heading "the enemy of my enemy can be a useful friend."

Now for the other side of this coin — Al-Jazeera's owner and financier, the friendly government of Qatar, a military ally of America.

Al-Jazeera is funded, to the tune of several billion dollars, by the emir of Qatar, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, and his immediate family. The emir came to power after overthrowing his father and several brothers in 1985, and he fancies himself a progressive.

Never mind that Qatar is an absolute monarchy with no elections, or that the emir's several wives, concubines, and monopoly of all land and resources put something of a damper on his liberal Renaissance man credentials. He thinks of Qatar as a powerhouse, despite its minuscule size.

This is what makes Al-Jazeera and its assorted staff — Palestinian Arab militants, Islamic fanatics, and a sprinkling of fiery preachers and dejected Soviet-trained and Soviet vintage Arab nationalists and secularists — the emir's pit bulls, to be unleashed against enemies and to bark for the greater glory of their man. That stuff works well in the Middle East, but I doubt it will prosper in America.

To be sure, the emir is convinced that after offering the huge Al Udeid air base, built at a cost of about $2 billion, as a gift to America, which placed its Central Command there, he can relax. Indeed, his royal highness does operate like someone who has his cake and can eat it, too.

Al-Jazeera calls him an Islamic revolutionary and reformer, juxtaposing him against "corrupt" Arab regimes, while I suppose his nascent English channel will present him as a Western bon vivant sitting comfortably in the embrace of an American military alliance.

If one is very rich and living in a banana monarchy off Saudi Arabia, I guess one can believe this stuff, but now that Al-Jazeera's work has landed on these shores, the honeymoon may begin to fray, and tough questions will surface. Another benefit will be to see how brainwashing is attempted.

I have few concerns about American brains. An audience that weathered two seasons of intrigues on "Desperate Housewives" is — believe me — immunized against hallucinations.