[Common Tator]

Why is "Al-Jazeera Arab satellite television" still in operation?

1st rule of war. Never ever destory your enemies means of communicating with their followers. With out it, they can only surrender themselves. What is important is for all their followers to surrender. It is one reason we did not destory Tokyo Rose, or Lord Haw Haw in World War II. It was important for Germans and Japanese leaders to be able to tell their own people that they had surrendered. Lots of their followers would not have believed they surrendered, if their only source of info was us. We wanted them to lay down their weapons when their leaders told them too. That is what they did.

One other factor in world war II was that during the period of 1939 to 1943 the German people believed everything that Hitler told them in his media. But by 1944 even the Germans could see that Hitler's media was lying and the Voice of America was telling the truth. It was a major factor in destroying the German will to fight.

How do you prove to people that their leaders are liars, if you don't let their leaders lie.

Those two reasons were the logic in not destorying their media. It worked before. It will work again.

[habs4ever]

I think there is a subtle error you are making about al Qada.Because they pose an asymmetrical threat to all of us, they can never be taken lightly.They can do such great harm with so little, as compared to the power that the US can unleash.Bargaining Game Theory would only give the US a 3:1 edge over al Qada,and its easier for Iraq to use them as a surrogate, instead of their own conventional forces, to be a hostile threat.

What may sound sound like Arab huffing and puffing really only applies when two equal foes are facing off using the same threat capability.Change the intensity of desire of one party to achieve its outcome, its tolerance for risk to achieve it,and the technological power it possesses, and you have a whole new dynamic.