Sorry if this has been posted already. I did a quick search and didn't find anything. http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/Midwest/04/09/sprj.irq.dearborn.rally/index.html DEARBORN, Michigan (CNN) -- Shortly after television pictures Wednesday showed U.S. troops toppling a huge statue of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in Baghdad, about 2,000 people in the heavily Arab-American community of Dearborn, Michigan, gathered to celebrate. Many held signs that read "Free Iraq" and "Thanks USA!" One read "Saddam gone with the wind." Many women, wearing headscarves, happily held their children, who waved American flags. "We are 4 million in exile," said Husham al-Husainy, a leader of the Muslim Iraqi community here. "Two million people got killed by Saddam. Hundreds of thousands of men, women and children in prison. What do you expect? It is a celebration. Thanks God." The peaceful crowd came together along the city's Warren Road, which is a main street of the area's Arab-American neighborhood, said Dearborn Police Sgt. Walter Anhut. The street is lined with Arab-American businesses, many displaying signs written in Arabic. Ralliers spilled from the parking lot of a Marathon gas station, blocking the intersection of Warren and Yinger roads, Anhut said. The seemingly spontaneous rally apparently was sparked by TV pictures of Iraqis dragging the head of a larger-than-life statue of Saddam through the streets of Baghdad Wednesday evening. A U.S. Marine armored recovery vehicle toppled the statue from its pedestal in the capital's Firdos Square as a crowd of Iraqis danced and waved the country's pre-1991 flag. In Dearborn, many celebrators shouted their thanks to President George W. Bush and the U.S.-led coalition forces in Iraq, Anhut said. As cheerful Arab-Americans filled the streets, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Washington declared Wednesday "a good day for the Iraqi people" amid evidence that Saddam's rule was crumbling under the weight of U.S.-led military attacks on the Iraqi military. At one point the crowd turned on a three-person television crew from the Arab language news network Al-Jazeera, crowding around them and chanting "Down, down Al-Jazeera!" Many in the crowd waved their hands in the air -- their thumbs pointed down -- and accused the network of being in cahoots with Saddam's regime. "Saddam paid Al-Jazeera $20 million a year for their reports, and they never reported how many people he killed," said demonstrator Kevin Altamimi. The protest grew tense as it dragged on for 45 minutes, with at least seven police officers having to protect the Al-Jazeera reporter, producer and cameraman. The police quietly suggested that the crew duck into a nearby satellite truck and they complied, although some in the crowd continued to stare intently at the vehicle. Al-Jazeera reporter, Nedam Mahdawi, told CNN, "We came here to cover a celebration here, and I am very surprised to see their anger." He added, "We are doing our job. We are working very hard to be balanced in our news coverage. We want to show Arabs in Arabic countries their views about what is happening in Iraq." Dearborn is an older suburb of 97,000 on Detroit's working class west side. It is home to Ford Motor Co. and the heart of one of the largest Arab-American populations in the United States, home to 12 mosques. About 90,000 Americans of Iraqi descent live in the entire Detroit metropolitan area and as many as 300,000 area residents are of Middle Eastern descent, according to the University of Michigan-Dearborn. Personally, I'm happy as all hell to see Iraqis pissed off at Al Jazeera. I saw a report yesterday on one of the networks that Iraqi's in Basra chased a group from Al Jazeera all the way to the Kuwati border for the same reasons.
RmTex, Yes, they are biased, but I would argue that they are far less biased then Al Jazeera....even fox. DD
You've got to be kidding me. American networks may lean left or right, but they sure as hell don't compare to Al-freakin'-Jazeera.
Bottom line is these guys are out to make money . The way they'll do it is to curry favor Arabs, the majority of whom hate the U.S. Who cares about the truth. We're talking moolah here.
Riet, You could not be more correct. That is why we need to set up a pro western world channel broadcasting all over the Middle east, right smack in the middle of Iraq. DD
I'm not denying that American media is slanted, and of course they are concerned about money, but are you honestly suggesting that American media is as slanted as Al Jazeera??
No worries, Of course they care about money, but the difference is that we have a lot more competition over here, and that in itself makes them have to be more accurate in their reporting. Al Jazeera is a propaganda machine. They only report one side of the war, and leave most pro USA stuff out. The fact that they came on yesterday and the announcers said they were "embarrassed" by how easily Baghdad fell is ludicrous. Were they blind? Or just pandering to what the audience wanted to hear. I think the arab world is getting a good wake up call...and it is about damned time. DD
Pole, After all the repression in Iraq, I am thinking...Bay Watch, VIP, The Bachelore/Bachlorette, anything that promotes sex and whiskey. DD
In the U.S., people have diverse opinions ranging from full protest to full support. In the Middle East, opinions range from full hatred to almost-full hatred. When you have such a captive and focussed audience with one mindset, it's easy for Al Jazeera to understand what they should report and how they should report it. How many vendors set up a Utah Jazz souvenier shop outside the Compaq Center?
DD, you are seriously confusing cause and effect here. Al Jazeera shows mostly the Arab side of things because that is what the audience is interested in. Therefore it is Al Jazeera reflecting public sentiment, interest and opinion rather than the other way around. If there was some anti-Al Jazeera that showed mostly the pro-war side (which most US news outlets basically were showing), no one would watch it because there is no market for it.
Why would the Arabs watch a Pro American arab network? They get CNN and Fox, they just choose not to watch it. We need Al Jazeera and Abu Dabi, it will be a pain in the ass, but we have to get them to show what the Arab world isn't paying attention to. How do we do it? I don't know, but we could start by getting Iraqis to talk about what they suffered under Saddam.
Oski, Is CNN broadcast in Arabic, or English. We need a PRO western ARABIC channel to compete with the crap that Al Jazeera is spewing. Not many may watch at first, but if it is more balanced, it will beat out Al Jazeera eventually. DD
DD, care to join "Axis of Just As Evil & Sexy " ? Clutch & Jeff are seriously considering the invitation.
