...we watched the press dither about how best to describe the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. “Humiliation”—probably the most accurate term—made a brief appearance. But it was quickly retired because it didn’t make the perpetrators look bad enough. The lackluster “mistreatment” made a brief showing, as did “abuse,” especially in the phrase “sadistic abuse.” But after a few weeks the clear favorite was “torture.” After all, everyone knows Saddam tortured hundreds of thousands of people. So when a handful of low-lifes mistreat their charges, the media calls it torture, thus insinuating the desired moral equivalence between Saddam’s thugs and the U.S. army.

Don't withhold information you know happened. Al Jazeera passed that test. The US networks failed. It was Al Jazeera that showed the results of US bombing-- the dead and crippled-- and the deaths of Americans themselves once they invaded. And they showed US soldiers threatening families as they went door to door.

They also showed the other side, the US military side, where they were willing to broadcast statements by the US government as to why everything was happening. As one top US official admits in the documentary, Al Jazeera was willing to broadcase almost any statement they gave them.

Yet Al Jazeera was accused of being deceptive. Because it didn't censor images unflattering to the US. Images that the US media, as if they were state-controlled media, dutifully refused to run as part of the war effort. Who served truth?

Al Jazeera, whatever their bias, at least ran information from both sides of the argument. The roots of torture at Abu Ghraib can be seen in this documentary, as US reporters refused to ask tough questions and instead became stenographers for Donald Rumsfeld. (link)

Gazzaniga's decision comes in the wake of a contentious faculty vote last week against his leadership....
In his e-mail, Wright acknowledged the differences among faculty members that led to Gazzaniga's resignation and vowed to help heal them.