Here is an interesting video clip from Al Jazeera television

[nicky g]

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Note: Just received this from a friend, if you want to get the full scope of Mrs. Sultan you must watch and read to the very end! Very interesting what the Muslim world watches, you'll be surprised that they allow this discussion!

Here is a video clip from Al Jazeera television.

The woman is Wafa Sultan, an Arab-American psychologist from Los Angeles.

I would suggest watching it ASAP because I don't know how long the link will be active.



http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.a...wmv&ak=nul

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I would question where it was actually broadcast. They have multiple feeds and the audience for this one may have been severely limited. One clue is that this was a Qatar feed, so the audience was already predisposed toward more Western values.

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I can't say for this one. But it is routine for AJ to interview/give a platform to people whose views go contrary to that of the majority of Arabs. I'm in Morocco for the moment and last night for instance there was a long debate on AJ between some neo-con type geezer from the American Enterprise Institute and some Palestinian professor about the merits of the Iraq war etc. The whole point about the channel is that it pisses just about everyone off by giving just about everyone a platform.

Someone once told me a probably apocryphal but funny AJ story that I like. Apparently the Algerian government, when faced with the airing by AJ of a programme about the Algerian civil war that highlighted the implication of Algerian security forces in massacres, racked their brains for ways to prevent it ebing shown in ALgeria. In the end they were reduced to cutting power to the entire country during the programme's duration.

(Tangential rant):
It is really ironic that the people who harp on about democracy in the Middle East when it comes to Iraq are so relentlessly critical of AJ. When it comes to justifying a bloody war, they are all for democracy.W hen it comes to the first independent Arabic channel that offers debate and multiple viewpoint to the entire Arab world, previously dominated by stane run propaganda vehicles, they suddenly aren't because it doesn't always serve their short term interests. Equally people like Rice justify invading Iraq to create democracy, but coddle the likes of Mubarak and Saud with speeches about how democracy can't be expected to flower overnight in client states. Unless it's needed to justify a war, of course.