This can definitely be filed under truth is stranger than fiction. From billmon.org The Abu Zarqawi Hour Fans of Paddy Chayefsky's incredibly prophetic '70 satire Network may remember the The Mao Tse-tung Hour -- the terrorist-of-the-week reality show produced by his fictional UBS news division: Diana: Look, we've got a bunch of hobgoblin radicals called the Ecumenical Liberation Army who go around taking home movies of themselves robbing banks. Maybe they'll take movies of themselves kidnapping heiresses, hijacking 747's, bombing bridges, assassinating ambassadors. We'd open each week's segment with that authentic footage, hire a couple of writers to write some story behind that footage, and we've got ourselves a series. Given that Paddy's dark vision of the future of broadcast journalism has since become the programming bible for an entire generation of cable news executives, I guess it's no great surprise that the Mao Tse Tung Hour has also reached the little screen -- but in Iraq, not the U.S., and suitably updated to reflect both modern political realities and the rise of the Internet. Iraqi blogger Nibras Kazimi (a neocon fan of Ahmed Chalabi, but also an increasingly disillusioned witness to Iraq's "democratization:") tells the story at his blog, Talisman Gate: Remember the days when a bunch of ragtag hoodlums in ski-masks and training suits would hover over a hapless victim to read their jihadist manifesto? Remember those same thugs brandishing Kalashnikovs and RPG-7s under crackling fluorescent lighting, with a tattered banner advertising their group’s name and slogan as a backdrop? Well, times have changed if the latest video installment from the “Media Division of the Jaish Ansar Al-Sunna” is any measure to go by. In this 30 minute video, we see two individuals, Abu Munther Al-Ansari, and Abu Ahmad Al-Baghdadi, comfortably sitting in a studio modeled along a talk-show format. Yes, they are SITTING IN A STUDIO! And I’m not talking about two stools and a desk; this is a modern studio with ample lighting, three camera angles and nice woodwork. They’ve even got the name of their organization, Jaish Ansar Al-Sunna (‘JAS,’ the no. 2 organization on the terrorist charts after Al-Qaeda in Iraq), engraved up at the front. Now if they were real propaganda professionals, the terrorists would have had multiple copies of some trite but catchy slogan -- "Killing the Crusaders" -- posted as the backdrop to the set, like Bush at one of his "Saving Social Security" town hall meetings. But even if the production values are still a little rough, the insurgents clearly see ratings potential in the talk show format: Abu Munther sits sporting a black blazer and a white turtleneck, even though the ski-mask is still a mandatory part of the wardrobe, and he’s performing the role of the host of this setting. Today’s guest is Abu Ahmed from the Military Council of JAS, who is underdressed for the occasion because “I didn’t know that this was going to happen,” as he apologetically explains towards the end. Talk, however, doesn't hold that prized young-armed-male demographic. So it isn't long before Abu Munther and his guest switch to the bang bang shoot 'em up: We are shown a montage of JAS’s ‘Greatest Hits,’ which run the gamut from blowing up Humvees in Ramadi to firing-off C5K missiles in Samarra. We are shown about twenty such operations, including one in which an observation tower within a US base is blown-up in broad daylight. Abu Ahmad explains that JAS has spies operating inside US military installations. These spies are equipped with GPS navigation devices and their job is to deliver the coordinates of sensitive points within these far-flung bases to those rigging up missiles or setting-up mortar attacks. We even glimpse a scene of a man sitting down with a calculator and a notepad making preparations for just such an attack. Then it's back to the studio for the wind up: The half-hour interview, interspersed with footage and commentary, ends with a customary handshake and a plug for future programming. End credits include “Pray for us” and “Copyright is reserved for any Muslim, 2005.” Insurgents: You hear that, CNN? And don't give us any of that "fair use" bull**** or you'll be hearing from our lawyers. Now you gotta admit, that's a pretty slick piece of work -- especially for a bunch of desperate terrorists who are relentlessly being hunted down and killed by the U.S. Army and its heroic Iraqi allies in their drive to total victory. That probably explains the wardrobe problems. Desperate as he is, Abu Zarqawi isn't going to let a rival network steal audience share so easily. According to Kazimi at Talisman Gate, he put up the first installment of his own new show the same week that the JAS version of 60 Minutes (well, 30 Minutes) debuted. I guess it must have been sweeps week. However, being more of a Fox Network/Spike TV kind of guy, Zarqawi skips the talk show wrapper and sticks with his classic reality TV formula -- confession followed by execution: So what did [Al Qaeda in Iraq] come up with? Their own version of Cops . . . a response to a popular version of that show being shown on the official Iraqi TV network, Al-Iraqiyya, and called “Terrorism in the Grip of Justice.” But this time around, Zarqawi’s Omar Brigade (set-up to kill and capture members of SCIRI’s Badr Brigade) showcases a bunch of captured Badrists and has them utter their confessions on tape. As with most reality shows, you already know how this one will end: Abu Zemen, whose confession is shown towards the very end after we hear voice-overs from Zarqawi condemning Shias in general, lists the goals of the Badr Brigade as follows: to distribute drugs, to kill Sunnis and rape their women, and to kill Sunni university professors, doctors, and ex-officers. The video ends with Abu Zemen being shot in the back of the head, as well as having his house blown up. Let's see Kiefer Sutherland top that. Now it seems to me there are a few things worth noting about the ratings war in Iraq. One is that the terrorists appear to be getting a much bigger bang for their propaganda buck than the U.S. military is for its. With all due respects to the Lincoln Group, planting phony op-eds in Iraqi newspapers and blasting out text messages praising the democratic process is pretty thin gruel compared to exploding Humvees and videotaped executions. (Programming suggestion to JAS: Since you like to use highlights so much, why not take a look at the NFL Today format?) See http://billmon.org/archives/002353.html for the rest of the post.
