COULD THE WHITE HOUSE HAVE BROKERED THE ALGORE JAZEERA DEAL ?

First, a flashback. Could Obama or his advisors have brokered this deal?

• Obama Hosts Boss of Terror Channel Al-Jazeera
• Obama admin official urges cable companies to carry Al-Jazeera

via Qatar’s New Pearl: Al Jazeera America

Most disturbing about the sale of Al Gore and Joel Hyatt’s Current TV to Al Jazeera are the reported sanctimonious remarks about the character of the Current Network and the comparable frame of mind of Al Jazeera. Qatar’s leadership, according to Gulf analyst Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, would like to propagate “a Qatari sponsored narrative of events in the Middle East and elsewhere,” and be “able to shape that narrative and and how it is seen.” Al Jazeera regularly promotes its superstar, Muslim Brotherhood leader Yousuf al Qaradawi, who is barred from entering the US and other Western countries. He has for years said such things as : “The last punishment [against the Jews] was carried out by Hitler. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hands of the believers,” and “Oh Allah, do not spare a single one of them [Jews]. Oh Allah, count their numbers, and kill them, down to the very last one”. Given Al Jazeera’s record of backing the Islamist revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt, one can see why Qatar’s leadership would “like to be able to shape that narrative and how it is seen.” Al-Qaradawi has also said, according to the peerless MEMRI.org, that Islam’s “conquest of Rome” will save Europe from its subjugation to materialism and promiscuity, and that Islam will return to Europe as a conquerer.

Al Jazeera has also, according to MEMRI, “continued to call for the Muslim world to to damage the U.S. economy by boycotting American products.” In justifying the sale, Gore apparently explained to the The Blaze: “the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with out point of view.” His partner, Joel Hyatt, added: “Al-Jazeera was founded with the same goals we had for Current,” and that the Qatari network intends to “invest heavily” in new programming. Got it. Most moving is to hear that Al Gore finds these statements as “aligned with our point of view.”

More via Al-Jazeera’s “Alternative Viewpoint” in Qatar’s Paradise :: Gatesto….

Al-Jazeera, which bought Current TV from Al Gore, is not a communications medium in the Western sense. It is a psychological warfare medium, a fundamentalist terrorist communications base operating under Qatari cover. It sets its sights on changing regimes.

Al-Jazeera TV, located in and financed by Qatar, which just bought Current TV from former presidential candidate Al Gore for a reported $500 million, “is providing an alternative viewpoint on domestic news,” according to Cathy Rasenberger, “a cable consultant who has worked with Al-Jazeera on distribution,” as stated by the New York Times of January 3, 2013.

What sort of alternative viewpoint?

Anyone regularly watching Al-Jazeera TV in Arabic cannot help being aware of its Islamist agenda, inspired by the Muslim Brotherhood’s Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, wo is currently a resident of Qatar.

Regular viewers are familiar with the network’s biases — also apparent in its otherwise different English-language programming — in covering events in the Middle East. Its reports are stunning in their lopsided descriptions of the cruelty and oppression of Arab leaders who, because they became weak and thus vulnerable, were called by Qatar’s opportunistic rulers, “oppressive dictators whose time had come.”

Here and there are points of light, when we become aware of regional events about which we might otherwise never have known. For example, the recent exposure of Iranian terrorist cells in Yemen and the Gulf States, the accelerated progress of Iran’s nuclear agenda in the Persian Gulf, and Iran’s naval exercises designed to challenge the United States.

Al-Jazeera is not, however, a communications medium in the Western sense; it is a psychological warfare medium. Its cameras are always turned outward; they never criticize Qatar’s tyrannical, dictatorial, corrupt, plutocratic leaders or their exploitation of foreign workers, who have neither the status nor rights of Qatari nationals. Al-Jazeera’s ongoing propaganda campaign against the Arab states in the Middle East is a move chosen by the rulers of Qatar to deflect Arab, Western and effervescent local attention from what is happening in the corrupt Al-Thani family’s dark, closed emirate of wealth.

Although it promises aid to financially needy Islamic countries, it sends just the occasional pittance when t feels a need to bolster its popularity. Meanwhile huge unreported sums go to support Islamist terrorist organizations such as Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Jabhat Alnusra Al Islamiya in Syria. The rest of country’s enormous oil revenues are channeled into the coffers of the rulers and their close associates, and are used to pay for their entertainment or for building enormous towers. The rest of the population — most of which are foreign workers whose labor they exploit and who have no civil or social rights — is not invited to join the party.

Although Al-Jazeera incites Muslim masses around the world to revolt against “repressive regimes,” while calling for “democracy,” “pluralism,” and the ousting of totalitarian rulers, Qatar itself does not hold elections, has no political parties, has no democratic institutions, and its citizens have no political or social rights. What Qatar does have, with the help of Sharia [Islamic religious law], is a strong, family-run system of enforcing internal security and suppressing opposition. Al-Jazeera is the well-oiled and well-funded machine of a family employing armed mercenaries who call themselves “media personnel”: Propaganda warriors who use cameras and microphones as weapons. Qatar therefore has every reason to hide what happens within its borders and look for defects in other places.

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As a TV channel, Al-Jazeera does not operate under accepted Western norms. It is a fundamentalist terrorist communications base operating under Qatari political cover, with a pretense of pluralism. While in the other Arab countries, to reach the Islamic paradise, people need to kill Jews and be killed in wars, dying as shaheeds [martyrs] in the battles of Islam, according to Al-Jazeera only Qatar is already a genuine paradise on earth. Everything there is perfect, so there is no need to report the news.

And the liberal tree huggers at Current TV aren’t too happy with boss Gore and his air-polluting Islamist owners, Staffers talk about first meeting with Al Jazeera:

Yesterday morning, the still shell shocked staff at Current TV was called to an all hands staff meeting at its San Francisco headquarters, which was teleconferenced to their offices in LA and NYC, to meet their new bosses.

That would be two of Al Jazeera’s top guys: Ehab Al Shihabi, executive director of international operations, and Muftah AlSuwaidan, general manager of the London bureau.

Ominously missing was the creator of Current, the self proclaimed inventor of the Internet and savior of clean energy, Al Gore, although his partner, Joel Hyatt, stood proudly with the Al Jazeera honchos.

“Of course Al didn’t show up,” said one high placed Current staffer. “He has no credibility.

“He’s supposed to be the face of clean energy and just sold [the channel] to very big oil, the emir of Qatar! Current never even took big oil advertising—and Al Gore, that bulls***ter sells to the emir?”

The meeting, while not contentious, was, according to staffers who spoke on the condition of anonymity, miserable.

The mostly left-leaning group—some still in denial —weren’t buying what Al Jazeera was selling.

The “new” American Al Jazeera will, according to Shihabi, appeal to the American audience with a mixture of national and international news—and, of course, entertainment.

But you won’t be getting that Middle East merriment until April, which is when the network says it will be ready to take over.

“Sometime within three months—no more, no less—we were told,” said the Current staffer.

One person at the meeting, who has already announced that she’s leaving, former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm, tried to ask about severance packages for those who wouldn’t be staying.

“This isn’t the place to discuss this!” Hyatt barked at her.

“After that, everyone kept their questions pretty much to themselves,” according to the staff member.

“We all know now that Al Gore is nothing but a bulls***ter,” said the staffer bluntly.

We do stories on the tax code, and he sells the network before the tax code kicked in?

“Al was always lecturing us about green. He kept his word about green all right—as in cold, hard cash!”

Congress Must hold Hearings into the Al Jazeera Deal

If Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) lets the Al Jazeera-Al Gore deal go through without scrutiny, then every broadcast entity or communications facility in America is ripe for the plucking by any of our nation’s enemies and adversaries.

For those who haven’t been paying attention lately, the government of Qatar has announced a deal through Al Jazeera with former Democratic Vice President Al Gore for his Current TV cable channel, in order to transform it into an arm of its Jihadist or “Terror TV” network, once known as a mouthpiece for mass murderer Osama bin Laden. They are planning to call it “Al Jazeera America,” when the oil money for the transaction is coming from abroad. This is part and parcel of the deception, which is designed to make it appear as though Al Jazeera is as American as apple pie and simply has a foreign-sounding name.

To be sure, the deal was not technically announced by Qatar, a Middle Eastern dictatorship where freedom of the press is not permitted. Instead, Al Jazeera made the announcement. But that is part of the deception. Al Jazeera is an arm of the Qatar regime and is not in any sense of the term an “independent” news organization. It is government-funded with “advertising” from such entities as Qatar Airways, the national airline partly owned by the regime. Qatar and Al Jazeera are one and the same.

The purpose of this transaction is to soften the American people up for more Middle East revolution, including within the borders of the U.S.  Dr. Judea Pearl, the father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl, supports an investigation of the dealand says, “Al Jazeera weaves the ideological structure and combustible angers from which Jihadi recruits eventually emerge.”

Qatar postures as a friend of the United States and hosts a U.S military base. But Qatar also served as the base for anti-American and anti-Semitic “cleric” Yusef al-Qaradawi before he returned to Egypt to help consolidate the Muslim Brotherhood revolution there. Al-Qaradawi is a leading television personality on Al Jazeera.

You may have missed the news that Qatar just extended another $2.5 billion in economic aid for Egypt, following a gift of $400 million that the emir of Qatar made to the terrorist group Hamas.

Al Gore and his partners, including Joel Hyatt, got more than that—$500 million, according to reports. Whether or not that is an accurate figure, any amount is a drop in the bucket to the emir, who is worth billions of dollars and lives in opulence.

By the way, Muslim Brotherhood leader and president of Egypt, Mohamed Morsi, just told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he wants the release of the Blind Sheikh, sentenced to life in prison for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York City. This first terrorist attack on the World Trade Center killed six people and injured over 1,000 others.

Dr. Pearl calls Al Jazeera “the main propaganda machine” of the pro-terrorist Muslim Brotherhood. It is no surprise, therefore, that Qatar would underwrite the Egyptian regime and Hamas, and that the Obama Administration would voice no public objection to the sale of Current TV to Al Jazeera.

However, there is no reason to believe this sale is legal. The circumstances surrounding the sale clearly require Congressional hearings and this is where the Republican House of Representatives and its new chairman of Homeland Security, Rep. Michael McCaul, come in.

If ever there was a time for Congress to take action, this is it. This is not a time to let the Obama Administration take the lead, since it has already approved the questionable deal, which fattens the coffers of two prominent Democrats.

There are many things about this deal that stink and which require an investigation by McCaul’s committee.

First, there are unresolved complaints to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) about Al Jazeera’s operations in the U.S. Jerry Kenney of Kenney Broadcasting has asked that the DOJ enforce the law by requiring that foreign propaganda pumped into American homes by Al Jazeera be labeled as such. He says, “Why is it that if I buy a pair of tennis shoes made in China, it has to be labeled made in China? But foreign propaganda which is being aired in the U.S. is not being labeled as foreign propaganda, with its country of origin, in violation of the law? I want to know what I am getting. If you know who has produced something, you look at it differently.”

Secondly, it appears that Al Jazeera has evaded the law requiring federal approval for foreign investments in America that have national security implications.

Al Jazeera has issued a 26-page document in which it claims that the deal “does not involve any federal communications licenses or other assets subject to FCC approval.” Again, this is deceptive, since broadcaster Jerry Kenney has filed an FCC complaint about Al Jazeera programming being illegally aired on taxpayer-supported public TV stations. Al Jazeera also claims that “None of the statutory factors that trigger a CFIUS review—e.g., production of important technology, production of military goods, operation of critical infrastructure—are implicated in this transaction.”

CFIUS is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States and is under the jurisdiction of the Treasury Department. It is described as “an inter-agency committee authorized to review transactions that could result in control of a U.S. business by a foreign person (‘covered transactions’), in order to determine the effect of such transactions on the national security of the United States.”

What “covered transactions” come under the review of CFIUS? We have learned through press reports that CFIUS approved China-based Dalian Wanda Group Corporation’s purchase of AMC Entertainment, one of the nation’s largest movie theater chains.

The CFIUS process is secretive but we learned about this approval from the Chinese entity, which announced it in a press release in July of 2012.

The writer Zach Coleman notes, “News broadcasting is more politically sensitive than cinema operation and Al Jazeera is a much more controversial acquirer than Dalian Wanda, which was previously unknown in the US.”

This is precisely the case. Yet, Al Jazeera claims it had no obligation to obey the law in this case.

I asked the Treasury Department whether Al Jazeera was required to apply for approval of the purchase and all I got was a run-around. A spokesman said, “I will decline to comment. By law, information filed with CFIUS may not be disclosed by CFIUS to the public. Accordingly, the Department does not comment on information relating to specific CFIUS cases, including whether or not certain parties have filed notices for review.”

How’s that for transparent government? Mark Jaskowiak, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Investment Security at Treasury, should be called before Congress to explain the double standard.

If the Chinese buying a movie theater chain comes under the auspices of CFIUS, then a takeover of a cable channel reaching 40-50 million homes has to qualify as well.

Jerry Kenney, president of Kenney Broadcasting, says, “It’s even more insidious in the case of Al Jazeera because cable companies bundle these packages of channels and deliver them to your home, whether you watch them or not. You end up subsidizing the channels you don’t want. Current TV was actually getting a fee from the cable operators to run the channel. So subscribers who pay for that package will end up paying money to Al Jazeera for its new channel.”

In the case of a movie theater, Kenney points out, “you have to make an effort to get out of your home to drive to a theater to watch a movie. With Al Jazeera, you will be forced to pay for it coming into your own home, whether you want it or not.”

It is time for Rep. McCaul to do his duty and announce hearings into this curious transaction. The Committee on Homeland Security can be reached at 202-226-8417.

More from Cliff Kincaid:

My new article once again calls for the House Homeland Security Committee to investigate Al Jazeera: Congress Must hold Hearings into the Al Jazeera Deal We have released a letter to Chairman McCaul: Letter to Homeland Security Committee Chairman Rep. Michael McCaul … Our release begins: A group of media critics, journalists, academics, and national security and Middle East experts has asked the chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security to open hearings into Jihadist propaganda channel Al Jazeera’s acquisition of Al Gore’s Current TV cable channel. “The announcement that the Qatar-funded enemy propaganda channel, which has functioned as a voice for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, has taken over an existing U.S.-based cable TV channel, Current TV, must be examined by the Congress,” they say in the letter to Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas). Read the letter to see the diverse group of people that have agreed to sign it. We have a high-powered list.  Once again, here’s a screen shot of my ad in the Canada Free Press: See it for yourself here at the Canada Free Press website. My great thanks to Judi McLeod, the editor, for placing this ad. It’s also up on our home page www.usasurvival.org We will soon be announcing a Washington, D.C. news conference on this matter. We need your support and I hope you will be able to attend. Help us keep up the pressure.

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