The documents show that a major reason a Sudanese cameraman for Al Jazeera, Sami al-Hajj, was held at Guantánamo for six years was for questioning about the television network’s "training program, telecommunications equipment and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan," including contacts with terrorist groups.

The Times' piece is definitely worth reading, though I wish they didn't feel the need to add this type of equivocation:

The Guantánamo assessments seem unlikely to end the long-running debate about America's most controversial prison. The documents can be mined for evidence supporting beliefs across the political spectrum about the relative perils posed by the detainees and whether the government’s system of holding most without trials is justified.

This would seem to be true of most policy debates about controversial subjects, so it doesn't seem worth noting.

Frustrated by its continuing inability to crack the American television market, Al Jazeera English's new strategy is to make itself available for free on every other possible screen.

The Qatar-based news network said its 24-hour newscast has been streamed over the Internet for 18 months. The company said it will expand its presence on various smart phones, is launching an iPad application and is aggressively distributing content through Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

So, a quick refresher about how our media system works. Every weeknight I could easily tune in to Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly and Glenn Beck. And part of my cable bill every month goes to paying for that programming, no matter what I think of Fox News Channel, or whether or not I even watch it.

But Al Jazeera English--with actual reporters around the world doing journalism--is largely unavailable on U.S. TV screens, and is forced to resort to Facebook and YouTube.

Does that seem like a good system?

Part of the answer might lie in a media environment heeding former Col. Ralph Peters' recent "essay for a leading neocon group calling for future U.S. military attacks on media outlets and journalists" along with "censorship" and "news blackouts."

Of course, Scahill is savvy enough to point out that "what Col. Peters is advocating is not new"--"It is already a de facto U.S. policy to target journalists":

The U.S. has consistently attacked journalists and media organizations in modern wars. In the 1999 US-led NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark, then the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, ordered an airstrike on Radio Television Serbia, killing 16 media workers, including make-up artists and technical staff, an action Amnesty International labeled a “war crime.” Richard Holbrooke, who is currently Obama’s point man on Afghanistan and Pakistan, praised that bombing at the time.

The U.S. bombed Al Jazeera in the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, attacked it multiple times in the 2003 Iraq invasion, and killed Jazeera correspondent Tarek Ayoub. On April 8, 2003, a U.S. Abrams tank fired at the Palestine Hotel, home and office to more than 100 unembedded international journalists operating in Baghdad at the time. The shell smashed into the fifteenth-floor Reuters office, killing two cameramen, Reuters' Taras Protsyuk and José Couso of Spain's Telecinco....

Last week, a Spanish judge reinstated charges against three U.S. soldiers in Couso’s killing, citing new evidence, including eyewitness testimony contradicting official U.S. claims that soldiers were responding to enemy fire from the hotel. One year ago, former Army Sergeant Adrienne Kinne told Democracy Now! she saw the Palestine Hotel on a military target list and said she frequently intercepted calls from journalists staying there.

All of which makes it less than surprising that, as Scahill tells us, "the U.S. military continues to hold journalists as prisoners without charges or rights in...Iraq. Ibrahim Jassam, a cameraman and photographer for Reuters has been a U.S. prisoner in Iraq since last September despite an Iraqi court's order last year that he be freed." See the FAIR Press Release: "Is Killing Part of Pentagon Press Policy?" (4/10/03)

The site, IWantAJE.net, lets consumers send electronic letters directly to their cable or satellite provider demanding the channel. It also includes a "Speak Out" forum and a "Hits & Myths" page debunking popular assertions, such as: "Al Jazeera Supports Terrorism," "Al Jazeera Is Anti-Semitic," "Al Jazeera Is Anti-American" and "Al Jazeera Shows Beheadings."...

AJE filled a news vacuum during the recent war in Gaza, when Israel’s decision to ban foreign journalists from the region arguably gave Al Jazeera English a priceless amount of exposure. As the only English-language news organization with a presence in Gaza, its reports and video were widely seen on television sets in the U.S. and Canada. PBS's World Focus aired full segments. And other networks, including NBC News and the CBC, aired video from Al Jazeera English.

Indeed, "traffic on the network’s website... spiked by 600 percent during the war in Gaza." Contrast the fact that "more than half of that traffic came from North America" with current accessibility: "AJE is available in 130 million households internationally but is only carried in the U.S. in Burlington, Vt.; Toledo, Ohio; and Washington, D.C."

Listen to the FAIR radio program CounterSpin: "Ken Picard on Al-Jazeera in Burlington" (6/6/08)