Truth is the first casualty in war

If you only watch American news networks, you must believe that the main Arab news network, Al-Jazeera, is merely a mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden.

The White House repeatedly has accused Al-Jazeera of being unfair and unbalanced and "purely inaccurate," while rarely leveling such charges to American news outlets. Defense Secretary and madman of the year Donald Rumsfeld has sputtered that, "we know that Al-Jazeera has a pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again. . . . We're dealing with people who are perfectly willing to lie to the world to attempt to further their case." Washington pols incessantly criticize the network's choice to air images of casualties of war and/or footage of hostage-takers.

These opinions aren't just opinions. They manifest themselves in US foreign policy. Qatar, the country in which Al-Jazeera's headquarters resides, was apparently blacklisted from a Group of Eight economic summit because of its failure to rein in the news network.

But as the documentary Control Room shows, many in the Arab world are also deeply critical of Al-Jazeera. Especially because of its decision to air speeches by American government leaders and commentary of all perspectives, Al-Jazeera arouses hatred from many in the region for being a mouthpiece for the United States.

Again, the seriousness of these accusations extends to actual policy. Last week, the Iraqi Government even shut down Al-Jazeera's Baghdad operations indefinitely, accusing it of inciting violence.

So if it's being attacked from all sides, maybe Al-Jazeera is doing something right.

Indeed, the documentary — which naturally arouses skepticism over whether it itself is fair and balanced about its analysis of Al-Jazeera's objectivity — demonstrates that the network is staffed by reasonable, intelligent people who aren't anti-American and aren't staging gruesome scenes of violence, as they have been accused of doing.

Is Al-Jazeera biased? Yes, but certainly no more than any other "Western" news organization covering the war. The movie does a good job showing that truth, during war, is an especially elusive ideal.

Contrary to my expectations, the movie is neither propaganda nor an anti-American diatribe. It's actually a surprisingly honest movie from the vantage point of Al-Jazeera, as well all the reporters in Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters in Qatar where both American and Arab reporters worked and where spokesmen from the US military gave (spun?) press briefings. If anything, it left me with the conclusion that while objectivity is unfeasible when covering war, it is especially impossible to achieve during this war — no matter where you are reporting from, no matter to whom you are reporting.