By: Imtiaz Ahmed

In April of 2004, as the insurgency in Iraq was steadily worsening, President Bush met with Tony Blair and reportedly floated the idea of bombing the headquarters of al-Jazeera in Doha, Qatar. Bush had his reasons: The satellite network, after all, was at the time single-handedly shaping the outcome of the battle against insurgents in Fallujah, by broadcasting images of violence and civilian casualties from inside the besieged city to its 200 million viewers across the Middle East, eventually forcing the U.S. military to withdraw from the city in the face of widespread protests.