Thursday, May 04, 2006
Al-Zarqawi Fumbles Rifle; AP Fumbles Spin
As part of its continuing coverage of the Iraq Information War, the Associated Press reports that a Video Shows Al-Zarqawi Fumbling With Rifle : "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is shown wearing American tennis shoes and unable to operate his automatic rifle in video released Thursday by the U.S. military as part of a propaganda war aimed at undercutting the image of the terror leader."
Isn't that a great lead to a story about how US Centcom captured the original film from an Al-Quaeda propaganda piece played on the internet? As released by the AQ folks, Zarqawi is shown firing weapons with aplomb while taunting the US forces and trying to build up his image as a great Islamic Warrior. But the facts were very different; in the original un-edited video, the AQ Team seems to be pretty poor at weapons handling - they had trouble getting a SAW to fire in full Auto mode and then managed to get burned by grabbing the hot muzzle of the fired weapon. Not to mention having their star Islamic purist wearing New Balance tennis shoes (guess that's the newest rage among the elite Jihadis).
Yes, the AP and Reuters did tell the story; but the slant from the first paragraph would lead a scanning reader to view it as an incident of US spin. The real story is one of US success in attacking and catching the AQ team faster than they can react. You can get a better (Both more accurate and earlier) version of this story from Bill Roggio who updates his even earlier report on Hunting Zarqawi and Tales of the Tape (Updated): "Maj. Gen. Lynch's observations on Zarqawi's handling of the machine gun matches an observation I made the day the tape was released, 'In the final scene in the desert, Zarqawi shoots an M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon)... Zarqawi does not appear particularly comfortable firing the weapon.' I also noted that it was curious there was no footage of Zarqawi actually leading a tactical operation. It will be interesting to see if such footage exists.
CENTCOM should release this video immediately, as if the video is as unflattering as they purport it to be, it is an ideal opportunity to conduct an Information Operation against Zarqawi. Zarqawi is portrayed as the warrior-leader of the Iraqi jihad, and the compromising, unedited video can work to erode his image. [CENTCOM released the video after this post was published. Kudos to CENTCOM.]"
I met Bill Roggio at the recent Milbloggers Conference. He is a very smart objective reporter and analyst, who is self-embedding himself with the US military in Afganistan this month. Look for his reports and analysis on the Counterterrorism Blog.
Actually, AP and Reuters deserve credit for reporting the Zarqawi Fumble Video and I hope they get a lot of coverage from it. I just wish they would tell the story more like Bill does. Our military is very adaptive and very successful; the press should give them the credit they deserve.
Isn't that a great lead to a story about how US Centcom captured the original film from an Al-Quaeda propaganda piece played on the internet? As released by the AQ folks, Zarqawi is shown firing weapons with aplomb while taunting the US forces and trying to build up his image as a great Islamic Warrior. But the facts were very different; in the original un-edited video, the AQ Team seems to be pretty poor at weapons handling - they had trouble getting a SAW to fire in full Auto mode and then managed to get burned by grabbing the hot muzzle of the fired weapon. Not to mention having their star Islamic purist wearing New Balance tennis shoes (guess that's the newest rage among the elite Jihadis).
Yes, the AP and Reuters did tell the story; but the slant from the first paragraph would lead a scanning reader to view it as an incident of US spin. The real story is one of US success in attacking and catching the AQ team faster than they can react. You can get a better (Both more accurate and earlier) version of this story from Bill Roggio who updates his even earlier report on Hunting Zarqawi and Tales of the Tape (Updated): "Maj. Gen. Lynch's observations on Zarqawi's handling of the machine gun matches an observation I made the day the tape was released, 'In the final scene in the desert, Zarqawi shoots an M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon)... Zarqawi does not appear particularly comfortable firing the weapon.' I also noted that it was curious there was no footage of Zarqawi actually leading a tactical operation. It will be interesting to see if such footage exists.
CENTCOM should release this video immediately, as if the video is as unflattering as they purport it to be, it is an ideal opportunity to conduct an Information Operation against Zarqawi. Zarqawi is portrayed as the warrior-leader of the Iraqi jihad, and the compromising, unedited video can work to erode his image. [CENTCOM released the video after this post was published. Kudos to CENTCOM.]"
I met Bill Roggio at the recent Milbloggers Conference. He is a very smart objective reporter and analyst, who is self-embedding himself with the US military in Afganistan this month. Look for his reports and analysis on the Counterterrorism Blog.
Actually, AP and Reuters deserve credit for reporting the Zarqawi Fumble Video and I hope they get a lot of coverage from it. I just wish they would tell the story more like Bill does. Our military is very adaptive and very successful; the press should give them the credit they deserve.
