Posted on 11/25/2004 4:22:00 PM PST by kupia_kummi
Terrorists have become film directors and the video camera is their most powerful weapon, with the West a captive audience. In the week of Margaret Hassan's killing, Jason Burke explores the phenomenon of the reality horror show
When they kicked down the door of the living room of a house in the western Iraqi city of Falluja on Friday, US marines from the 3/5 Lima Company discovered an improvised television studio equipped with video cameras, banks of computers and cutting-edge editing equipment.
According to Captain Ed Batinga, who led the soldiers, an off-white wall behind a wooden table at one side of the room was spattered with blood and draped with the black-and-gold flag of the Islamic militant group believed to be behind the killing of dozens of hostages in Iraq in recent months.
The marines were too late to save Margaret Hassan, a slim, spry, 59-year-old Irish-born woman who had lived in Iraq for 32 years, and was shot dead at point-blank range by an Iraqi insurgent some time last week. She had been held captive for nearly a month and died dressed in a Guantanamo Bay-style orange jumpsuit.
The first and last act of Mrs Hassan's abductors was to release a videotape. The first reached the television station al-Jazeera within hours of Mrs Hassan being taken hostage. The last, which has not yet been broadcast, shows her death.
The videos are one of the most shocking elements of the war in Iraq. Scores have now been released by Iraqi insurgents. To many the terrorists' use of the media seems a radical innovation. It isn't.
(Excerpt) Read more at observer.guardian.co.uk ...
Payback, against the subhuman muslim pigsh!t filth, is going to be a major b!tch, IMO. 80-100 million PO'd, armed Americans will overwhelm anything in its way.
Bring it on, islamic garbage!
Decent analysis, poor conclusion IMHO.
APf
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