Mission Al Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World [ハードカバー]

I admit that I admire Rushing. From his first appearance in the movie Control Room through the last page of this book he is unfailingly calm, reasonable and even handed; not something we have a surplus of these days. His personal journey is compelling, but his mission: to break down barriers of misunderstanding between Americans and the world confident that most people everywhere want to live in peace is one I strongly believe in.

The book mirrors this. He recounts his personal story, his upbringing, his career in the Marines, his frustration with the political appointees who shaped relations with the media during the early days of the Iraq war and his transition out of the Marines due to their distaste with his appearance in Control Room. By the way, he explains that almost all of the film of him in that movie comes from one interview, and doesn't really reflect an arc of growth over a period of time.

My only frustration with the book is that because he so calm, that he doesn't provide many of the juicy details I was hoping for. Some are there, and my favorites are the stories of the arch-conservative spokespeople who orate against the evil of Al Jazera and then accept money from it for interviews. But even then he can't bring himself to indulge in inflated rhetoric and violent denunciations. Probably a good thing.

Most of the book is given to him arguing his case for increased and open interaction with the Arab world and the key role that interacting with Al Jazera could play in that. He points out that, by one survey, Al Jazera is the number one media brand in the world. He defends the network against some common distortions (it has never, not once, shown a beheading, for example) and reminds readers that Al Jazera has been thrown out of most of the Arab world for its honest reporting.

One of the interesting ironies is that Israel is more open about interacting with Al Jazera than is American media. Israeli government spokespeople appear on the network regularly; American's refuse.

Rushing's vision of the world is hopeful and compelling. His tag line on the book is reflected on every page: "Build a bridge, seek the truth, change the world."

Thank you, Josh. You've made my world a little larger, and my understanding of it has grown as well.

As a Marine, I would never have read this book had it not been for Josh Rushing's Marine Corps service. Had he been Army or otherwise, I probably would have dismissed his story, and that would have been my loss.

Mission Al Jazeera provided information on several ideas I think we should consider further:

-How the American and Arabic cultures have clashed unnecessarily.
-How we can find points to agree on.
-How to open up a dialogue on points where we disagree..
-How the U.S. manages (or mismanages) the publicity war.
-How we can (and why we should) engage the Arab world through their media.
-How we could improve our own military public affairs.

Josh is still a Marine, though he is no longer paid by the Corps. This shows in his writing as he is intelligent and respectful when he is critical. It is clear that Josh disagrees with almost everything the current administration stands for, but this is not a Bush-bashing book. His points against the administration are fair, and he also has criticism for the American Left, the Arabic World, and himself.

As a Conservative and a Bush supporter, I did not find this to be leftist propaganda, mindless Bush-bashing, or even a criticism of the Iraq war itself. It is a criticism of our failure in nation-building (which is well-documented) and a criticism of individual policies for which Rushing is not only opposing, but providing solutions as well.

One example of Rushing's book that I thought was insightful: He makes the argument (in front of an audience of Generals, no less) that if you can trust young men and women to lead a patrol through a village with little supervision from superiors, you should be able to train and trust at least one of those squad members to be an on-the-spot spokesperson to speak to the media and provide relevant details. This is currently forbidden, and it prevents the media from communicating the military perspective on a situation, while the victims and enemies are able to get their perspective out immmediately. Overall, Rushing argues for new communications policies due to the new, flat world we live in.

Rushing also argues that Al Jazeera English is what media should be. According to Rushing, they provide all sides of a story better than any other international news service. We all know that the American media is slanted, that they "dumb-down" the news, and they all play essentially the same stories. Maybe Al Jazeera is not the best alternative (or maybe it is,) but the fact is that they are challenging the establishment and may be the catalyst required for an American media that is overdue for a change.

I read the book over a few evenings. The book is well-paced and short enough to get to the point, provide enough information, and not drag on.

Mission Al Jazeera: Build a Bridge, Seek the Truth, Change the World, Josh Rushing, Palgrave Macmillan, 2007, 256 pages, $24.95. Reviewed by Major Charles M. Kyle, U.S. Army, student at the Command and General Staff College.

Though not an autobiography, Josh Rushing, a former Marine Captain, and now al Jazeera journalist, shares his personal story while assigned to the public affairs office at CENTCOM before and during the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The author discusses two very important topics in this book. First, from an historical perspective, Rushing discusses the interaction or lack thereof between DoD and the Arab Media. This topic of discussion is extremely enlightening on the subject of how the military public affairs office went from doing its traditional job of informing on and about the war to "selling the war", a state department public relations responsibility. Rushing goes to great lengths to explain how the US marginalized the Arab media eliminating all possibility of US influence in the Arab world.

The second topic that Rushing explores is the means by which US government officials could engage the Arab world, both governments and populace. Rushing writes "if we are to win the war on terror, we have to interact with the media at home and abroad in order to control the way we are perceived."

Rushing spent 14 years as a Marine Corps media liaison officer and is currently working as an international journalist for Al Jazeera. This mix of military public affairs with western and Arab journalism, gives him a perspective not found in the normal American Mind. This allows the author to remove the American cultural lens that most of us normally suffer from and provide a perspective that could be a great tool to be used.

The greatest take away from the book is a look into the Arab Mind and how they, the Arab world, perceive US actions. Rushing does discuss that this perception is often faulty but argues that it will continue to be until the US decides to engage instead of marginalizing the Arab media.

This work is a valuable, informative effort to discuss our media engagement plan. I highly recommend it to all readers because of its relevance to the challenges our military leaders face today of engaging and dealing with the media within the contemporary operational environment.