It IS the occupation, stupid
October 7, 2004
It’s one thing for Al Jazeera to cave in to American pressure and tone down the criticism a bit. It’s quite another to start changing facts, and become more royal than the king.
News presenters have already been referring to American and British troops in Iraq as “multinational forces.” Which they are in a very limited sense, if one is to be only partly accurate. Now, editors of the station’s English-language website have laid down the law: Al Jazeera’s staff is henceforth not allowed to describe US-led military "presence" in Iraq as occupation.
UN Security Council resolutions (beginning with UNSCR 1483) have already defined it as an occupation. The US has described it as an occupation by sponsoring the resolution. The word “occupation” is not a qualifying one, it is an accurate depiction.
If that’s what they’ve managed to do to Al Jazeera, even after banning it from Iraq, imagine what they are doing to other “independent” media.
A few weeks ago, during an interview I was taping for BBC television on various aspects of Iraq, I used the offending word where appropriate. The interviewer, very nicely and believing he was actually helping me, stopped the recording and asked me earnestly: “You DO realize that you are saying 'occupation' about the US, don’t you?”
