"AL JIHAD"

What Iraqi's think of the "All Terrorist, All the Time" networks like Al Jazeera.

Al-Jazeera could just as well be called Al-Jihad: It typically features visceral anti-American and anti-Western propaganda. Having repeatedly appeared on it as a debater, I can say that fairness, balance and even basic good manners have no place when its commentators weigh in on the United States.

But what do Iraqis outside the Governing Council think? Happily, we can find out - because new voices are being heard on the Iraqi side of the famous "Arab street," from websites to the burgeoning Baghdad daily newspapers...

Only days before, an Iraqi commentator named Tayseer Abdul Jabber Al-Alousi wrote, "Most of the Arab satellite channels defend the former dictatorship and justify every one of its degrading crimes against the Iraqi people. This outlook has stimulated certain Arab leaders to pay off dishonest writers with petrodollars.

"Anyone watching these satellite broadcasts will recognize the hatred of our Iraqi people that emanates from them. They encourage terror, assassination, and some of them seek to destroy our national unity through incitement of civil strife between differing religions, sects, and ethnic groups. Some of these satellite networks' correspondents pay people to say things that follow their destructive propaganda line."

He says, "These satellite networks never explain how to help or support the Iraqis. They never talk about the [Coalition] heroes who did a lot for Iraq and who are working hard to establish safety and security. They concentrate on crime, death, bombings, and destruction."