- Quote:O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, now one final
thought here. You did a very careful translation of your own, of the statement.
And in it, you see no reference to al Qaeda. And yet the official U.S.
government translation does. Explain how that happened.
-
- NASR: Oh, I find it very interesting, because out of
the blue, there is a mention of al Qaeda on the U.S. government translation.
It says: "Does al Qaeda need any further excuses?" Any speaker
of the Arabic language is going to notice a difference between the word
al Qaeda, which means "the base," and al qaed, which means "the
one sitting, doing nothing."
-
- My translation says: "Is there any excuse for the
one who sits down and does nothing?" Basically they're telling people,
you have no excuse for not doing anything, for not acting and defending
Islam and so forth. Whereas the U.S. government translation has this factual
error, I'm sure it's an honest mistake, but basically it sort of adds al
Qaeda to the statement, which is not on the statement.
-
- OCTAVIA NASR, SR. EDITOR FOR ARAB AFFAIRS
-
-
- Aired on CNN May 12, 2004 - 12:59 ET
-
- http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/12/lol.02.html
-
-
- O'BRIEN: Responses throughout the Middle East are reflected,
of course, in Arab TV coverage. Our senior editor of Arab affairs, Octavia
Nasr, who watches Arab the Arab television assiduously, is here to give
us a little sense of what's being said and perhaps more important in this
story, what is being shown and not shown. The big question is, of course,
on this tape, just horrific tape, which is available on the Web, obviously.
Are places like Al-Arabiya, Al Jazeera, are they showing it in its entirety?
-
- OCTAVIA NASR, CNN SR. EDITOR FOR ARAB AFFAIRS: No. Arab
viewers of the big networks, as well as the local TV stations did not see
the actual execution. They did see at the beginning of this tape, just
like we saw here on CNN and most Western networks, you saw the beginning
of the tape right before the beheading. They reported on it, and as a side
story. It certainly isn't playing as a big story or as the story.
-
- O'BRIEN: That's very interesting. When we hearken back
to Danny Pearl, "The Wall Street Journal" reporter who was killed
in Pakistan in 2002, the entirety of that, which included a beheading,
was shown on these outlets. What happened? What changed?
-
- NASR: What changed is the learning. And also the reaction
to showing gruesome pictures and atrocities and the reaction from viewers
and authorities alike. Also, it has been a few years since then. Back then,
there was no Al-Arabiya. Al-Arabiya is brand new. It started a few weeks
before the war last year.
-
- Again, it's a learning process. It seems that the networks
are responding to their viewers. Remember, Al Jazeera is seen all over
the world, the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, all over the world. And
viewers there are not accepting of these images as people in the Arab world
are.
-
- O'BRIEN: Well, let me ask you this. You've had a chance
to really listen to this tape and get a sense who might be responsible,
just by deciphering, say, accents. And certainly, there in the Arab world,
they're very attuned to that. And given the fact of who this may or may
not be, does that have some effect on how it is being played?
-
- NASR: Yes, and if you listen to these voices that we're
hearing on Arab networks, Iraqis are condemning this execution. And they're
saying these are foreigners. These are not Iraqis. They do not represent
us and so forth.
-
- Now, of course, the original claim was that Zarqawi is
the actual man who performed this execution. Our experts listened to the
accent, as you said, and they determined the accent is not Jordanian...
-
- O'BRIEN: He is a Jordanian who is working supposedly,
allegedly, at the behest of al Qaeda in Iraq. So go ahead.
-
- NASR: Right, he is very close to bin Laden, and works,
you're right, as an agent of al Qaeda in Iraq. Now, the accent is not Jordanian
so that takes the Jordanian element out of the story immediately.
-
- O'BRIEN: Interesting. All right, now one final thought
here. You did a very careful translation of your own, of the statement.
And in it, you see no reference to al Qaeda. And yet the official U.S.
government translation does. Explain how that happened.
-
- NASR: Oh, I find it very interesting, because out of
the blue, there is a mention of al Qaeda on the U.S. government translation.
It says: "Does al Qaeda need any further excuses?" Any speaker
of the Arabic language is going to notice a difference between the word
al Qaeda, which means "the base," and al qaed, which means "the
one sitting, doing nothing."
-
- My translation says: "Is there any excuse for the
one who sits down and does nothing?" Basically they're telling people,
you have no excuse for not doing anything, for not acting and defending
Islam and so forth. Whereas the U.S. government translation has this factual
error, I'm sure it's an honest mistake, but basically it sort of adds al
Qaeda to the statement, which is not on the statement.
-
- O'BRIEN: All right, Octavia Nasr, we don't know exactly
how that got in there. We'll try to get more on that. We appreciate you
bringing that all to light and appreciate your insights, of course.
-
- NASR: You bet.
http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0405/12/lol.02.html
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