From US Marines to al-Jazeera

The Guardian

'Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists," President George Bush told the world after September 11 2001, and he has made it clear ever since that he means it. But in that black and white universe, where do you put Josh Rushing?

Rushing is a blue-eyed son of Texas, a marine for all his adult life whose clean-cut friendly charm made him the ideal public face for the US military during the Iraq invasion. But he has now joined the Arab television channel al-Jazeera as an "on-screen personality", a move which, in the eyes of many Americans, is one step short of signing up with al-Qaida.

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n joining al-Jazeera's forthcoming English-language service, Rushing points out that he is in good journalistic company. He will be surrounded by former BBC employees, including Sir David Frost. But they are Europeans and journalists, two species generally associated with perfidy in the minds of the American right. Rushing is an American and a marine. For many conservatives here, he has joined a pantheon of turncoats alongside Benedict Arnold (who switched to the British side halfway through the war of independence) and "Tokyo Rose" (who broadcast for the Japanese in the second world war).

The conservative blogs hum with bile. The comments on freerepublic.com include: "He was crap to begin with - he stinks even worse now. He is no longer an American". Another writes: "He is a leftist, terrorist sympathiser who infiltrated the US marines. Now he is home". A third adds: "I sure hope he don't have some kinda accident or sumtin [sic] ..."

There have been quite a few along the lines of that last remark, enough for the former marine captain to take a few security precautions at his new Washington home, and he admits to feeling the strain. "It's kind of hard for a guy who's dedicated his entire adult life to the health and wellbeing of this country to be called a traitor by people who, I feel, have probably sacrificed a lot less than I have," he said.