Last Friday (April 1st) Cliff Kincaid of America’s Survival held a press conference in the First Amendment room of the National Press Club titled “Al-Jazeera, Global Jihad, and the Suicide of the West“. This conference was held to highlight the dangerous nature of Qatar-based Al-Jazeera, the “Terror TV network,” how it is infiltrating U.S. media outlets, and to call for Congressional investigations into its activities, as well as those of other similarly disposed propaganda organs like Russia Today USA and Iranian Press TV.

As reported last fall, Kincaid’s conferences provide a wealth of information on whatever topic they are discussing. This one was no different.

Cliff brought in Pam Geller, Atlas Shrugs blogger and co-author of The Post-American Presidency. Cliff also invited radio personality Jerry Kenney, financial analyst Charles Ortel, and undercover investigative journalist Lee Kaplan. Bios on all conference participants can be read here.

In his opening remarks, Kincaid said that Al-Jazeera has been sold as a moderate voice of the Arab world, but that it is nothing of the sort. He described Al-Jazeera’s role in the Middle East “…like an arsonist first on the scene of a fire, telling everybody who is coming in later to give him credit for the photographs and the film footage of the blazing inferno…” He says that Al-Jazeera’s agenda is clear: “to target pro-Western and secular regimes in the Middle East, and overturn them, enabling the Muslim Brotherhood to take power.”

He pointed out that the so-called “democracy movements” occurring in Egypt and Libya are nothing of the sort, comprised, at least in part, by elements of al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, a fact that we have reported elsewhere, here and here. Cliff added:

What is mystifying to me is so many people, even on the conservative side, who claim not to understand the Obama administration’s agenda, but we find in the Wikileaks cables on Al-Jazeera, and its sponsor and funder, the government of Qatar, that Al-Jazeera has changed its coverage since Obama become president, to be more sympathetic to the American government, which suggests that the American government under Obama is on the side of the global jihad…

It is difficult to reach any other conclusion, given Obama’s willingness to support the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, using American firepower to defend an unholy alliance of the Muslim Brotherhood, al Qaeda and former Iraqi insurgents–all led by a former Taliban fighter, in Libya, while giving the mass-murdering Iranian regime of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a pass during what was probably the only genuine “freedom” revolution among the bunch.

Cliff reminded the audience of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and his death at the hands of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad–broadcast by Al-Jazeera. Conference materials included a statement by Daniel’s father Judea Pearl. He characterized Al-Jazeera as “…the most powerful voice of the Muslim Brotherhood, upon whom they can rely for full collaboration.” Notably, he added:

Al Jazeera’s editors choreograph a worldview in which an irreconcilable struggle rages between an evil-meaning Western oppressor and its helpless, righteous Arab victims. Most worrisome, perhaps, it often reports on supposed Western conspiracies behind most Arab hardships or failings, thus fueling the sense of helplessness, humiliation and anger among Muslim youths and helping turn them into potential recruits for terrorist organizations.

Yet the mass media doesn’t seem to get it. Kincaid described his interview with Associated Press’s Matthew Lee, the “Dean of the State Department press corps,” where he grilled Lee on Lee’s acceptance of a meal ticket from Al-Jazeera for the Congressional Correspondents Dinner held March 30th. The conversation went something like this:

Kincaid: Can you explain why you sat at a table for Al-Jazeera?

Lee: I was invited and I accepted…

Kincaid: why would a journalist associate with a channel known for being a mouthpiece for terrorist organizations ranging from Al-Qaeda to Hamas to Hezbollah?

Lee: That’s what you might think.

Kincaid: Were you aware that Al-Jazeera has been sued for $1.2 billion for facilitating rocket attacks on Israel during the Lebanon war?

Lee: I was not.

Cliff said that when he began asking Lee whether or not Lee knew about Al-Jazeera’s promotion of terrorists like Hamas, Lee then demanded that his statements be “off the record” and that he needed to consult with his editors. Cliff chuckled at that point, because as he explained, “normal and ethical journalistic operating procedures do not permit a subject of a news story to change the ground rules governing specific quotations after the fact. The quotes were on the record…”

The room erupted in laughter.

But the point was made. The mass media consider Al-Jazeera just another news organization, and the way some members of our esteemed fourth estate regularly conspire with our enemies in developing news stories, this should really come as no surprise. Cliff added that:

The Congressional Correspondents Dinner attended by Matthew Lee on behalf of Al-Jazeera also featured Obama officials from the CIA, the National Security Council and the State Department. Using big names from the press and the government gives Al-Jazeera a sense of public acceptance, which the channel desperately craves as the Jihad TV channel battles to get more carriage in U.S. media markets.

You can watch his entire presentation on video here.

Jerry Kenney

Florida talk show host Jerry Kenney revealed that Al Jazeera and Russia Today television have been broadcasting anti-American propaganda via taxpayer-supported public television on something called MHz Networks.

Along with attorney Jeff Timmons, Kenney described their FCC complaint detailing how he learned of Al-Jazeera’s influence within U.S. media. This broadcast is on at least thirty stations all over the country. See the list here.

Kenney has initiated an FCC complaint, charging that the television network entered into an agreement with these organizations–in violation of FCC regulations–wherein the network essentially abdicated its role to oversee and control the content of their broadcasts. Agreements allowed Al-Jazeera to dictate show content entirely, explicitly forbidding the network from pre-empting any programming. Watch their entire presentation here.

Charles Ortel

Charles K. Ortel serves as Managing Partner of Newport Value Partners, L.L.C., an investment research and advisory firm. Raised in Manhattan, Ortel graduated from Harvard Business School with an M.B.A. in 1980, from Yale with a B.A., cum laude in 1978 and from Horace Mann School, cum laude, in 1974.

Ortel has been warning that many initiatives launched by the Obama Administration seem to constitute a “War on Capitalism”. In October 2010, Ortel observed that political conditions inside the U.S. were unusually polarized and unlikely to be resolved in a business-friendly way for years.

He also discussed structural changes in our economy that will have a significant impact, most notably, population demographics. Noting that our population is aging, he cited for example, the odd habit of society, that as it become affluent, parents want to have fewer and fewer children. This makes economic growth self-limiting, according to Ortel.

He also noted the many external threats we face, calling the situation in the Middle East “dire.” Ortel’s discussion was wide-ranging and deep; difficult to do justice in a paragraph or two. Watch his entire presentation here.

Lee Kaplan

Undercover investigative journalist Lee Kaplan, has repeatedly risked life and limb by going undercover and getting inside the malevolent organizations he reports about. In this conference he focused on the International Solidarity Movement which he describes as:

…technically a Palestinian-led movement but involves heavy use of American radicals and leftists and exploits the U.S. educational system, particularly American colleges, to de-legitimize the democratic State of Israel, a U.S. ally. At the same time, it provides support for groups such as Hamas that use armed violence and terrorism against Israel…

But the ISM is not just a problem for Israel. These activities, conducted in part on U.S. soil, raise serious questions about whether U.S. laws are bring broken, since such groups as Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) are officially designated by the U.S. State Department as foreign terrorist organizations. In this regard, it is significant that groups associated with the ISM in Chicago and other cities conducting “solidarity work” on their own were raided by the FBI last September.

ISM’s Free Gaza Movement, launched flotillas of ships last year bringing supplies to the terrorist group Hamas. In an effort to search one of the ships for weapons, Israeli commandos were attacked by activists, resulting in injuries to both activists and commandos and nine activists’ deaths.

ISM has an indirect connection to the Obama administration. The radical leftist Code Pink and Global Exchange are affiliated with ISM. One of Code Pink’s co-founders, Jodie Evans was a major fundraiser for Obama’s presidential campaign. Both Evans and fellow Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin have made numerous trips to the Middle East, Egypt and Afghanistan, meeting with Hamas in Gaza, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

They have returned more than once with correspondence from these groups supposedly for Obama and are listed on White House visitation logs shortly after their return. Benjamin has asked Attorney General Eric Holder to call off FBI investigations of Palestine “solidarity” activists like those raided in Chicago and reportedly Holder has agreed to look into it.

Former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn have also been involved in the Free Gaza Movement, have traveled to Egypt for protests more than once, and Ayers similarly has visited Obama at the White House numerous times.

These trips may have been to coordinate aspects of the revolutions in Egypt and Libya. Kincaid’s resources include WikiLeaks cables indicating:

U.S. knowledge of a plot to destabilize Egypt by laying the groundwork for a new government that would include members of the Muslim Brotherhood and Revolutionary Socialists. This sounds suspiciously like the Obama Administration’s policy.

Kaplan’s report delves into ISM’s creation, a subject unto itself:

It should be noted that “ISM” is a generic term for “solidarity” groups under multiple names acting together as a unified project with no discernable leadership to create the impression they are a simple grassroots movement. As the FBI raids suggest, so-called “solidarity work” has become popular among left-wing and Marxist groups that not only support Palestinian terrorist organizations like Hamas, an affiliate of the Muslim Brotherhood, but communist terrorists in such places as Colombia.

Despite the diffuse nature of the ISM, the founding of the movement can be traced to two “activists” who started out as employees for what became a U.S. State Department “peace” initiative in the region, “Seeds of Peace.” This interesting fact is part of the evidence suggesting a possible relationship with the U.S. State Department that should be investigated by the House Homeland Security Committee of Rep. Peter King.

Kaplan’s report on the International Solidarity Movement is a must read. You can watch his entire presentation here.

Pam Geller

Pam Geller, who called Al Jazeera “Goebbels News Network,” provided an entertaining and informative presentation. She is going to be interviewed separately for this magazine, but you can watch her conference presentation here.

Kincaid used the conference to justify calls for Congressman Peter King’s (R-NY) Homeland Security Committee to investigate Al-Jazeera as a global terrorist entity, and get the station banned and its principals prosecuted, just as happened with Hezbollah’s Al Manar TV. He also called for similar investigations into Russia Today and Iranian Press TV, both of whom he characterized as merely propaganda “instruments of …dictatorial regimes.”

Almost as if on cue, Press TV was in the streets this weekend, reporting on a Muslim/Leftist solidarity march in New York City to protest “Islamophobia.” The headscarf-garbed female reporter summarized the event: “Inspired by the uprisings in the Middle East, North Africa and the United States, notably in Wisconsin and Ohio, thousands gather to call for what simply may be described as the restoration of peace and democracy.”

This march was organized by the ANSWER Coalition, among others. Its national coordinator, Brian Becker, was caught on video in February advocating violence in the streets and claiming they are working so that “the same phenomena that happened in Egypt will actually happen in the United States.”

Interestingly, C-SPAN did not video Cliff’s event; something they usually do for venues like this. However, Russia Today USA television certainly did. And while the RT staff was very cordial, their presence at this conference was probably not entirely benign. As former Soviet KGB officer Konstantin Preobrazhensky explained:

“Russia Today” was founded in 2005 especially for propaganda abroad… [It] is only a part of the Russian industry of misinformation and manipulation created recently in the USA by Putin’s KGB. It is including the utilization of some American think-tanks and political scientists…

For a good analysis of Russia Today, USA, see J.R. Nyquist’s article Rightwing Bolshevism, Part 2.

In his concluding remarks, Cliff Kincaid offered an impassioned plea for American television networks to recognize the dangerous nature of Al-Jazeera:

To Comcast and other cable and satellite providers, we say do not expand Al Jazeera throughout the US, otherwise you will increase the chances of Americans being killed by those manipulated by Jihad TV, the Terror Network, and you, Comcast, will have blood on your hands.

Just as it would have been insane to give Tokyo Rose access to the American airwaves during World War II, it constitutes the suicide of the West to accommodate Al-Jazeera’s campaign to destroy the West through violence and terrorism. They must be exposed. They must be stopped.

First posted at RightSideNews.com