I closely followed the beginning of the war in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2002) on Al-Jazerah simple because it was the only channel allowed to operate at the beginning of the two wars. Al-Jazerah’s reporter in Afghanistan was Taysir Allouni who ran with the Taliban out of Kabul when the Northern Alliance marched through the city. He made headlines last year after his arrest in Spain for aiding Al-Qaeda. At the end of the Iraq war, the relationship between Al-Jazerah’s manager and Saddam’s intelligence agency became known and the ruler of Qatar (who finances Al-Jazerah with $30 million annually) had to fire him.

However, Al-Jazerah’s covering tactics in Afghanistan and Iraq cannot be compared to what it did in Fallujah. The level of biases and lies propagated during the first two wars would pale in comparison with the coverage of the Fallujah war. I personally have not seen such hate and incitement as I have seen in its coverage of Fallujah. They dispatched their Muslim Brotherhood affiliated Ahmed Mansour who writes in one of Egypt’s top conspiracy theory tabloids. They were so smart; Taysir was busted in Spain, now they can send Mansour. The level of unconfirmed lies that Mansour spilled out forced the CPA to post a matrix where they countered his claims on a daily basis. Why was Fallujah different? Why did Al-Jazerah forsake any rules they might have learned in Journalism 101 when they were covering Al-Jazerah[sic]? The answer is quite simple: Iraqis are now watching...