“Al Jazeera is a vital component to the USG’s strategy in communicating with the Arab world.” — Joseph E. LeBaron, U.S. Ambassador to Qatar, November 6, 2008 “Al Jazeera Board Chairman Hamed bin Thamer Al Thani has proven open to creative uses of Al Jazeera’s airwaves by the USG beyond straightforward interviews.” — Joseph E. […]

Maximilian C. Forte is an associate professor in anthropology at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.  His website is at www.openanthropology.org.  Cf. Maximilian Forte, “The War in Libya: Race, ‘Humanitarianism,’ and the Media” (MRZine, 20 April 2011); Maximilian Forte, “Libya — Lather, Rinse, Repeat — Syria: Liberal Imperialism and the Refusal to Learn” (MRZine, 10 August […]

Two of my favorite quotes come into play here, one by the English poet, Alexander Pope, who explained that “some people will never learn anything . . . because they understand everything too soon,” and George Bernard Shaw, much more resigned and ironic in stating that “we learn from experience that men never learn anything […]