thedrifter
09-29-05, 06:16 AM
Former Marine in media glare as he joins Al-Jazeera
By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Marine officers are taught to think ahead. So Josh Rushing, a captain in the Corps until last October, anticipated the unpleasant questions.
Is he a modern-day Tokyo Rose, the nickname GIs in World War II gave to the womenthey heard on Japanese radio trying to turn them against America? Is he a propagandist set to tear down the country he once served? A collaborator aiding the enemy?
Rushing, 33, has taken a job reporting for a new channel for Al-Jazeera. That's the Qatar-based network that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said is "perfectly willing to lie to the world" and has "a pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again" for its 50 million viewers, most of them in the Arab world.
Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly branded it a "propaganda network ... bent on encouraging violence and sympathetic to terrorists." And Iraq's new government temporarily closed the network's offices in Baghdad, saying that Al-Jazeera incites insurgents by showing video of attacks and statements from Osama bin Laden and his deputies.
But Rushing, who will appear on a global, English-language news channel the network hopes to start by spring, considers his decision to work for Al-Jazeera noble, not seditious. "I've given my entire adult life to the health and well-being of this nation," Rushing says. "I wouldn't do anything to threaten that.
"What the Marines trained me to do was to represent the best of what America stands for to a foreign audience. That's exactly what I'm going to do."
The network, heavily subsidized by the emir of Qatar, says it presents news from all sides in a part of the world in which most Arab media outlets are government mouthpieces.
Rushing views Al-Jazeera's English-language channel as a forum for reaching millions of Muslims, many of whom may not understand the America he knows, and for reaching millions who he thinks know little about the Muslim world, including Americans.
"The gravity of it sets in all the time," he says during an interview in the dining room at the private Army and Navy Club, two blocks from the White House. "It puts me where the good fight is — at a station that's going to bridge America and the rest of the world."
Not everyone agrees with his reasoning. "I don't see how in good conscience he can work for Al-Jazeera," says Cliff Kincaid, editor of the conservative Accuracy in Media Report. "It incites Arabs and Muslims to kill Americans."
Another former Marine also is concerned. "I wish I could count on him to further our efforts" in the war on terrorism "rather than hinder them," says Keith Delp of Louisville. He spent five years in the Marines, leaving as a corporal in March 2004 after a seven-month tour in Iraq. Delp writes the weblog Kadnine. In an e-mail, Delp says he will "be watching Josh closely."
So will others, says the author of a book about the network.
"Al-Jazeera has been judged already and found guilty already in the eyes of most Americans and particularly the (Bush) administration," says Hugh Miles, a British freelance journalist and the author of Al-Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel That Is Challenging the West. "Many people will see Josh Rushing as collaborating with an enemy propaganda outfit."
Rushing's response to such criticism: "I believe in America so dearly and the values that it stands for that I'm in no way threatened by the kind of information this station's going to put out. ...
"Besides," he explains, "once a Marine, always a Marine."
Learning from Al-Jazeera
THE JOSH RUSHING FILE
Age: 33; born July 24, 1972.
Grew up in: Lewisville, Texas, just north of Dallas.
Now lives in: Washington, D.C.
Family: Wife, Paige; 13-year-old son, Luke, from previous marriage.
Education: Bachelor's degree in classic civilizations and ancient history, University of Texas, 1999.
Marine Corps experience: Enlisted in 1990. Wrote for and edited Corps publications for five years, then attended college while on active duty. Served as a Marine public affairs officer in California. Liaison to Al-Jazeera at the U.S. Central Command media center in Doha, Qatar, during the Iraq war.
Says he is: "A Marine at heart" and "very conscious of being a Texan. Supposedly, my family goes back to Sam Houston. Every other person in the family seems to be named Sam, Samantha or Samuel."
How Rushing, a self-described "blue-eyed, American son from Texas," has wound up working for Al-Jazeera is something of an only-in-America tale.
Rushing grew up in Lewisville, Texas, just north of Dallas. He played high school football until he hurt his wrist and led what he calls "a normal suburban life." At 18, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. His rationale? "I was immature enough I wouldn't have made it (through college) and just mature enough to realize that."
On Sept. 11, 2001, Rushing was serving as a public affairs officer based at what is now Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, north of San Diego. He was at a seminar with other public affairs officers when terrorists attacked New York and Washington. "How could you watch 9/11 and not say, 'Life is different now?' " Rushing asks. He says he pressed commanders at the Pentagon to send him overseas.
In early 2003, when U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) set up a media operations center in Doha, Qatar, for the war in Iraq, he was ordered to go there.
Though he was one of the youngest public affairs officers, he was made liaison to Al-Jazeera.
"I wanted to learn Arabic," Rushing says, "and when the Al-Jazeera guys showed up, they were the first Arabs I'd run into. ... So I would go by each day and learn a phrase from them.
"There were so many reporters in the media center, and we only had nine spokesmen, we divided them up into accounts. The boss said, 'Rushing, you've got a pretty good relationship with those Jazeera guys, why don't you take them?' "
The assignment would bring Rushing unexpected attention.
When Egyptian filmmaker Jehane Noujaim first came to CENTCOM's media center in Doha, Rushing and the other public affairs officers thought she was making a student film about the media's coverage of the war. Instead, her documentary, Control Room, gained worldwide attention and brought Rushing a modest amount of fame. He's the only American who figures prominently in the film, which focuses on Al-Jazeera's coverage of the war's early days.
continued....
By Mark Memmott, USA TODAY
WASHINGTON — Marine officers are taught to think ahead. So Josh Rushing, a captain in the Corps until last October, anticipated the unpleasant questions.
Is he a modern-day Tokyo Rose, the nickname GIs in World War II gave to the womenthey heard on Japanese radio trying to turn them against America? Is he a propagandist set to tear down the country he once served? A collaborator aiding the enemy?
Rushing, 33, has taken a job reporting for a new channel for Al-Jazeera. That's the Qatar-based network that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said is "perfectly willing to lie to the world" and has "a pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again" for its 50 million viewers, most of them in the Arab world.
Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly branded it a "propaganda network ... bent on encouraging violence and sympathetic to terrorists." And Iraq's new government temporarily closed the network's offices in Baghdad, saying that Al-Jazeera incites insurgents by showing video of attacks and statements from Osama bin Laden and his deputies.
But Rushing, who will appear on a global, English-language news channel the network hopes to start by spring, considers his decision to work for Al-Jazeera noble, not seditious. "I've given my entire adult life to the health and well-being of this nation," Rushing says. "I wouldn't do anything to threaten that.
"What the Marines trained me to do was to represent the best of what America stands for to a foreign audience. That's exactly what I'm going to do."
The network, heavily subsidized by the emir of Qatar, says it presents news from all sides in a part of the world in which most Arab media outlets are government mouthpieces.
Rushing views Al-Jazeera's English-language channel as a forum for reaching millions of Muslims, many of whom may not understand the America he knows, and for reaching millions who he thinks know little about the Muslim world, including Americans.
"The gravity of it sets in all the time," he says during an interview in the dining room at the private Army and Navy Club, two blocks from the White House. "It puts me where the good fight is — at a station that's going to bridge America and the rest of the world."
Not everyone agrees with his reasoning. "I don't see how in good conscience he can work for Al-Jazeera," says Cliff Kincaid, editor of the conservative Accuracy in Media Report. "It incites Arabs and Muslims to kill Americans."
Another former Marine also is concerned. "I wish I could count on him to further our efforts" in the war on terrorism "rather than hinder them," says Keith Delp of Louisville. He spent five years in the Marines, leaving as a corporal in March 2004 after a seven-month tour in Iraq. Delp writes the weblog Kadnine. In an e-mail, Delp says he will "be watching Josh closely."
So will others, says the author of a book about the network.
"Al-Jazeera has been judged already and found guilty already in the eyes of most Americans and particularly the (Bush) administration," says Hugh Miles, a British freelance journalist and the author of Al-Jazeera: The Inside Story of the Arab News Channel That Is Challenging the West. "Many people will see Josh Rushing as collaborating with an enemy propaganda outfit."
Rushing's response to such criticism: "I believe in America so dearly and the values that it stands for that I'm in no way threatened by the kind of information this station's going to put out. ...
"Besides," he explains, "once a Marine, always a Marine."
Learning from Al-Jazeera
THE JOSH RUSHING FILE
Age: 33; born July 24, 1972.
Grew up in: Lewisville, Texas, just north of Dallas.
Now lives in: Washington, D.C.
Family: Wife, Paige; 13-year-old son, Luke, from previous marriage.
Education: Bachelor's degree in classic civilizations and ancient history, University of Texas, 1999.
Marine Corps experience: Enlisted in 1990. Wrote for and edited Corps publications for five years, then attended college while on active duty. Served as a Marine public affairs officer in California. Liaison to Al-Jazeera at the U.S. Central Command media center in Doha, Qatar, during the Iraq war.
Says he is: "A Marine at heart" and "very conscious of being a Texan. Supposedly, my family goes back to Sam Houston. Every other person in the family seems to be named Sam, Samantha or Samuel."
How Rushing, a self-described "blue-eyed, American son from Texas," has wound up working for Al-Jazeera is something of an only-in-America tale.
Rushing grew up in Lewisville, Texas, just north of Dallas. He played high school football until he hurt his wrist and led what he calls "a normal suburban life." At 18, he enlisted in the Marine Corps. His rationale? "I was immature enough I wouldn't have made it (through college) and just mature enough to realize that."
On Sept. 11, 2001, Rushing was serving as a public affairs officer based at what is now Marine Corps Air Station Miramar, north of San Diego. He was at a seminar with other public affairs officers when terrorists attacked New York and Washington. "How could you watch 9/11 and not say, 'Life is different now?' " Rushing asks. He says he pressed commanders at the Pentagon to send him overseas.
In early 2003, when U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) set up a media operations center in Doha, Qatar, for the war in Iraq, he was ordered to go there.
Though he was one of the youngest public affairs officers, he was made liaison to Al-Jazeera.
"I wanted to learn Arabic," Rushing says, "and when the Al-Jazeera guys showed up, they were the first Arabs I'd run into. ... So I would go by each day and learn a phrase from them.
"There were so many reporters in the media center, and we only had nine spokesmen, we divided them up into accounts. The boss said, 'Rushing, you've got a pretty good relationship with those Jazeera guys, why don't you take them?' "
The assignment would bring Rushing unexpected attention.
When Egyptian filmmaker Jehane Noujaim first came to CENTCOM's media center in Doha, Rushing and the other public affairs officers thought she was making a student film about the media's coverage of the war. Instead, her documentary, Control Room, gained worldwide attention and brought Rushing a modest amount of fame. He's the only American who figures prominently in the film, which focuses on Al-Jazeera's coverage of the war's early days.
continued....