A few months back, I posted an entry that suggested that Al Jazeera's credibility was Nil. Well, time's up and it's time for me to provide some of the credibility to my own statement.

When I was in Iraq, I worked for two people, the Division Information Officer for 4th ID and the 2nd Brigade Combat Team's Public Affairs Officer. The Division IO was off in Tikrit and we never saw him after we crossed the Kuwaiti border, not once. Our on the ground boss, the PAO, we saw every day. He was the link between 2nd BCT 4th ID and the Media. He met and worked with every journalist who came into our sector, from Fox, CNN, AP, AFP, Reuters, Local journalists, etc, etc, etc.. AND Al Jazeera. I worked with people from each of these outlets.

When the little kid who hung out at our C-MOC pointed out the two people who'd paid him to run up and down the street waving pictures of Saddam, those two people were identified as the local Al Jazeera Correspondants by our boss.

Those same two people then later paid people to incite a riot -intended to cause American Soldiers to shoot up civilians- during a demonstration at our gate. We caught wind of this that morning (it had been a planned demonstration) and so we had people out to reinforce the C-Moc. When we got there, we were given cards with modified rules of engagement, stating specifically that there were going to be people trying to get us to fire on the crowd and therefore only the three snipers who were posted on the roofs of the buildings were allowed to fire on anyone in the crowd who might be carrying a weapon. The information was not scuttlebutt or GI-Rumors, it was given to us specifically by our Boss, who was the most likely person in the Sector to know who the two men who paid for this incitement were.

And the two men were identified by our boss as the local Al Jazeera Correspondants.

And that's how I know and that's why I have no respect at all for Al Jazeera.

Add to that the fact that they're an Arabic network and when confronted, they will lie through their teeth in order to save face so don't expect them ever to admit any sort of wrong doing or mis-use of power or position. (This is a general Arabic trait, Face is more important than honesty. That's why you don't confront or force one of them into a corner that will make them look bad. Like questioning their Journalistic integrity on Fox News or CNN, You'll never get the truth and they'll start to distrust you.)