Zarqawi looks like a fool on camera, and MSM utilizes its excuse-making machine

By now you’re all probably familiar with the video released by the US military that shows terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi fumbling with an American weapon known as a Squad Automatic Weapon (SAW). The guy looks like an incompetent fool – obviously, not a side he’d want those doing his bidding, as well as potential new terrorist recruits to see.

Anyone familiar with the way wars work knows that the utilizing the media as a useful tool against the enemy can work to your advantage if a military plays its cards right. Since just a few weeks after the war in Afghanistan, and starting immediately after the first shots were fired in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the media have done their level best to portray the military in its worst light by focusing on unfortunate incidents like Abu Ghraib and trumping up alleged “prisoner abuse” at Gitmo. The few times they try and portray anyone in the military as a hero usually involves one or more of the following criteria: 1) the person has to be a disgruntled military guy (or gal) like the generals who’ve spoken out strongly against Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld, 2) a woman they desperately want to pin hero status on (Jessica Lynch) who they build up to make the implied case for women on the front lines in the military, only to find out later that the story they’ve been trumping up for months is exactly that – trumped up, and by them, 3) the person has to be a Republican who has served in the military who strongly expresses their displeasure and/or disagreement over some or all aspects of the war in Iraq (Hagel, McCain, Powell for starters), or 4) the person has to be a Democrat military veteran who is either running for office or who is supposedly a military “hawk” – who is harshly critical of use of military force in Iraq.

But I digress.

Back to the point about the media being used as a tool, that obviously works both ways. The media know the sway they hold with the American people in terms of what they print, and they (let’s face it) are anti-war and hold a strong anti-military bias (scroll down in this post to read a candid admission of that anti-military bias by ABC Nightline’s Terry Moran) and that reflects in their writing. As a result of that, opinion of the war can sway one way or the other. The US military knows this as well, and will utilize the media to intimidate, embarass, and scare the enemy. Case in point: the Zarqawi video.

The media dutifully reported on the Zarqawi video, but wasted little time after the release of it to question if it was “good strategy” and helped trump up excuses for why he looked like a bumbling idiot. The NYT led the way with an almost sympathetic portrayal of Zarqawi in the video, and they did so by quoting current and former military folks (only two, as I recall, are quoted – but supposedly there are more) who essentially say “BFD – it’s an American weapon, of course he doesn’t know how to handle it.” Alrighty then. Zarqawi doesn’t know how to use an American weapon so we should cut him some slack. Ok.

CNN Senior Pentagon Correspondent Jamie McIntyre contributed to the excuse making as well – Confederate Yankee and CounterColumn have the details.

The media has wasted no time letting us know that not only are ‘some’ in the military questioning the tactical use of the video, but that ‘some’ Iraqis are taking it a step further by condeming its release altogether.

What’s happened here is that the US media initially helped the military it loathes by writing about and/or publishing the parts of the video in question, but they didn’t like doing that, so they found a few former and current military folks who said it wasn’t a great strategy and some Iraqis who condemned it outright, thereby putting doubt into the minds of the casual follower of what’s going on in Iraq by getting them to question (yet again) whether or not our strategy for winning there is working.

That the media would rather continue to try and influence people against our military and the Iraq war is shocking, I must say. /sarcasm.

(Hat tip for the NYT link: Rantingprofs)

Also blogging about this: Powerline, Thomas Joscelyn (more here), Seixon, Amy Proctor, Atlas Shrugs, Sachi at Big Lizards

9 Responses to "Zarqawi looks like a fool on camera, and MSM utilizes its excuse-making machine"

Big Bang Hunter says:

May 7, 2006 at 12:52 am

– The NYT, AP, CNN ect ect, are falling into this immediate kneejerk reaction on such a regular basis, its coming to remind me of a barnyard full of turkeys grazing quietly when suddenly something disturbs one of the “gaggle”, and the entire flock bursts into this god-awful cachophony of awbble-gobble gobbles, running back and forth, hoping up and down, and just generally doing what the bird on either side of them is doing without any real understanding of whats going on. Thats the principle reason you see so many really dumb mistakes being made these days. No one in the left-wing drive by press cares about fact checking anymore, and I suspect that the Ed rooms spend all thier time crawling over every story looking for the “angle” they can apply in Bush bashing.

– Look for a sudden ratcheting up in the coming months to even more feckless rumor mongering, and outright lying with the Congressional elections coming up, and the recent Bush job popularity polls indicating a 5 point uptick. Besides the Democratic leadership in Congress wants to get anything it can out there on the front pages in order to push this Patrick Kennedy mess off the radar, because its playing havoc with the lefts moral indignation campaign, particularly the “culture of corruption” meme.

– I still think the NYT is girding itself for the oncoming onslaught when press/CIA leak investigations get into full swing. If General Hayden is given the post vacated by Goss, that won’t take very long.

– The Libby scam is also nearing a meltdown point, with Prosecution stonewalling. At this point even if Fitzgerald can put in the “Fix” and get some low level conviction, hes already broken enough GJ rules to have anything he gets overturned. The left can’t count on a favorible activist judge in every hearing, particularly the SCOTUS. I thought it was remarkably candid of the judge in the ruling the other day when he denied Libbys council the right to subpeona “certain” players because he “didn’t want the whole trial to turn into an argument on the Iraq war”. As if anyone in America doesn’t already know that was the purpose from the very beginning.

– Bang
CHOW says:

May 7, 2006 at 5:37 am

When I first saw the video, the only thing I could think of was ‘glad THAT guy is not on my paintball team. (Actually, I don’t play paintball. But that is what I thought anyway.)

Best Regards, CHOW
Mwalimu Daudi says:

May 7, 2006 at 2:22 pm

Wonder how the MSM is going to spin this video about their hero Abu Musab al-Zarqawi? He looked like an Islamofascist version of Barney Fife.

This is the worst news to hit the Holy Jihad against Warmongers and Other Infidels since reports began to surface that Paradise is running out of virgins.
Never Yet Melted » Times Defends Zarqawi says:

May 7, 2006 at 5:52 pm

[…] Sister Toldjah: Zarqawi looks like a fool on camera, and MSM utilizes its excuse-making machine. […]
Tyrmadris says:

May 8, 2006 at 9:40 am

I downloaded the original ‘propaganda’ version of the video being put out by the insurgents (the one that doesn’t have them showing him how to work it when he gets confused, the same one with him ranting for like 10 minutes holding up one finger). All I could think when seeing him in the desert with that gun (looks like one of our SAW’s, the M249) was “THIS is what we’re up against?” Watching him wander across the ground with his jihadi buddies was humorous as well. I think the best part was him holding the gun while the audio clip of a machinegun was played, then in the next frame you see puffs of smoke hitting the ground randomly in the distance. It was immediately obvious, due to the lack of a series of shells being kicked out of the weapon and his amazing ability to hold it straight without any effort or his ‘muscles’ (I use the word loosely) jiggling that he was not, in fact, firing. Lack of muzzle flare and smoke would do that, too. At least he squeezed off one or two single shots. It looks like he just got impatient and had some of his buddies shoot at the desert for him (even if he was seriously actually firing it, his accuracy left much to be desired–look, I can hit the desert!).

If his video was made to ‘recruit’ more people, it must be slim pickings nowadays.

As for me, it made me laugh, though I did get upset when I saw that sweet tricked out M4 Carbine resting against the wall of his “Intel-Yurt” during the map portion of the video. Eh, likely he got it on the black market or something anyway, but it was to me the most upsetting portion of the video.
Baklava says:

May 8, 2006 at 1:01 pm

Too much common sense there Ty
watcher says:

May 13, 2006 at 11:02 pm

It seems like the media used to be more accepting of working with the government during times of war. Granted, I wasn’t alive during WWII, so my impressions may be affected by time, but everything I’ve learned about that period has led me to believe that the media worked WITH the government instead of constantly trying to undermine it. I don’t know how much of this current trend is due to political bias and how much is simply a factor of 24/7 news programs looking for something… anything… to report on. Whatever the cause, I think the media should act more responsibly in what and how they report. Spin in either direction is unacceptable; the media should confine itself to the facts, even if that makes for less sensationalism.
redstaterep says:

May 15, 2006 at 1:07 pm

To be honest, I’m not surprised that a news outlet like the NYT is trying to defend a terrorist. They have a hard time defending anything American and patriotic. Fortunately, the American people are not fooled, and we have videos like this of said terrorists to reinforce our preconceived notions of their nature.
AnnaB says:

May 17, 2006 at 4:53 pm

You’re absolutely right – the media is very powerful and they have realized this power. I’m not expecting the media to work for the government but they need to understand that this power they wield could jeopardize our national safety. When they publish negative reports it shows our enemies that we are divided just like showing the weakness of our enemy helps our fight on terrorism. I just wish they would understand they are Americans first, then journalist – not the other way around. This gives them the obligation to do what is right as an American – starting by supporting our troops. This doesn’t mean they have to publish all positive and/or misleading information but give us all of the facts at least!

Comments are closed.