reading the american press (primarily cnn) one might get the impression that only americans and british are dying in iraq. my quest for a balanced view of casualties led me to gather information from a variety of news outlets, and one of these sources was the arab language satellite new station al-jazeera.

al jazeera is one of the only arab-language news media services free of any sort of state control in the arab world. it has been hailed by american and british press outlets as a bastion of free press in the middle east, and has earned the respect of 35 million-plus viewers throughout the region (who receive state-sponsored news reports with cynicism).

even the bush administration recognizes the power of al jazeera and has offered its journalists the opportunity to travel with u.s. forces. both condaleeza rice and donald rumsfeld have given interviews to the station within the past week.

here are some sample reporting and news analyses headlines from today’s al jazeera news: “bombardment continuation and civilian victims in baghdad and mosul,” “america avoids trial of saddam or his assistants,” “economy drives russia, germany, and france towards baghdad,” “arab american ties,” and “bush…religious enthusiasm predominates over political insight.”

i’m not saying that al jazeera is not biased. i’ll bet that you won’t find a lot about american casualties on there. but if you are a fair-minded individual who wants to study the current situation from as many different perspectives as possible, or if you want to understand the view of the middle-of-the-road arab masses (rather than the extreme views that are often highlighted in our press), i encourage you to check it out.

supposedly aljazeera will have an english portal on their page later this month, but until then (if, like me, you can’t read arabic) try this translation page. paste the following: http://www.aljazeera.net into the “web page translation” field at the top of the screen.

tuesday, march 25th: if you’re having problems accessing the site, apparently al jazeera’s english version of the site went live today, and is suffering a denial of service attack. i guess some people can’t abide a free press::