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Josh Rushing
Programme Presenter and Correspondent | United States
Biography

Josh Rushing is the host of Al Jazeera's Fault Lines - a fortnightly show that digs deeper into what is driving the big news stories of the day.

A 15-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps, he gained prominence in the major motion picture documentary Control Room, which featured his struggles as the US military's lead spokesperson to the Arab world during the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

As a long-form correspondent for Al Jazeera English, Josh Rushing has shot specials and documentaries all over the world - from Iraq to Colombia and Vietnam to North Dakota.

Latest posts by Josh Rushing

By Josh Rushing in Middle East on March 6th, 2010

For some reason I've started receiving Newsweek in the mail. No wonder the industry is facing tough times if this is how they handle their subscription base, because I'm sure I'm not paying for it.

Nonetheless, I was shocked at the cover this week which proclaims "Victory at Last: the Emergence of a Democratic Iraq" with a photo of Bush and his infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner in the background.

I had just returned to the States from my sixth trip to Iraq where I expected to film a preview of the elections for an episode of my show Fault Lines, but instead found a civil war in the making.

Tags: Bush, Iraq
By Josh Rushing in Middle East on February 27th, 2010
Photos by Josh Rushing

Kirkuk is a city full of oil, danger and birds. Every weekend, throngs of locals crowd into the city’s central market to buy and sell birds.

It’s a fascinating thing to witness, birds of all feathers - turkeys, parakeets, parrots - selling for as much as a $100. Among Iraqis and their flying prizes, I recall in literature that birds often represent the human desire to escape gravity, or maybe in the case of Kirkuk, the desire to escape the gravity of one’s situation.

There’s a precarious struggle between the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and the central government in Baghdad over Kirkuk and its oil.

Tags: Iraq
By Josh Rushing in Asia on December 17th, 2009
Photo from AFP

When I was embedded with the US military in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in August I wandered into a tent that I immediately recognized from my days in the military. It was an operations tent, but it was far more technologically advanced than any operations center I ever witnessed as a US Marine. There were rows of tables with soldiers at laptops all facing enormous television screens that were filled with video of a family compound in southern Afghanistan. I was amazed at how clear the drone's video was, even though it was being filmed in the dark of night. 

It was easy in that tent, in the middle of what locals call the desert of death, to see how vital drones had become to the US military for both intelligence gathering and for remote-controlled strikes - bombings that Al Jazeera continuously reports on from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Iraq and Somalia.

By Josh Rushing in Asia on November 30th, 2009
Photos by Josh Rushing

Barack Obama, the US president, will this week announce a new strategy for Afghanistan that is expected to involve more troops and a greater effort to turn responsibility over to Afghans. This, of course, should sound familiar to anyone who has followed the war in Afghanistan. Just last summer, Obama sent thousands of US Marines into Helmand province to provide security for the impending national elections. I embedded with those Marines. 

Embedding clearly has its challenges. I have done it a number of times, both in Iraq and Afghanistan. You only see what the military allows you to see and if things get difficult - and they usually do - you depend on those you are covering to provide for your safety and well-being. That dynamic creates something similar to the Stockholm syndrome. In other words, it may be hard to report critically on the guys that may have to save your life and who are providing you food and water.

By Josh Rushing in Americas on November 1st, 2009

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, better known as the DEA, identified three agents who were killed in a helicopter crash in Afghanistan this week. One of the agents, Mike Weston, was a friend of mine.

In fact, in a series I filmed for Al Jazeera about war last year, Mike was profiled in the first episode, in which I tracked down six former classmates of mine from U.S. Marine officer training in Quantico, Virginia. We were the first class to graduate into the new millennium and had no idea that with 9/11 a year away, our worlds would soon be turned upside down. I wanted to see how so many years of war had affected their lives.

Mike's in part two (below), you can find part one here.