Phoney Mujahedeen

I mused previously over here on how the Iraqi mujahedeen -the suicide-bombing division specifically-did business and how some of those suicidebombers turned out to be mentally retarded( I know it sounds redundent, but i mean it in the actual sense) or actually tricked by the Zarqawi people. Apparently it's not only the suicide-bombing division that's phoney amongs the mujahedeen, and that thanks to an Iraqi TV show many iraqis are actually finding that out, as this Middle-east Times piece shows: Looking cowed and frightened, a bruised young man looks into the television camera and stammers replies to questions from an unseen interrogator. Yes, he says, he was paid to kidnap foreigners in Baghdad. No, he was not a mujahid (holy warrior); just a common criminal cashing in on Iraq's climate of fear. The man, described as a captured insurgent, is making a public confession on a TV program on Iraq's government-run Al Iraqiya television station called "Terror in the Hands of Justice". Twice daily, Iraqis watch fascinated as a procession of alleged Islamist guerrillas reveal the details of terrorist operations on what can be described as an Iraqi variation on "America's Most Wanted". One man said that he had stalked 10 college girls who were translators for the US Army, then raped them and killed all of them. Another described how he had beheaded several hostages after first practicing on animals. What's the purpose behind this show you may wonder? The program has a double aim of showing Iraqis their tax dollars at work: in other words, Iraq's security services making headway in combating the mainly Sunni Muslim insurgency. The second aim is to undermine the mystique of a sinister force that had spread terror among ordinary Iraqis, and to embolden people to come forward with information. The irony of the situation is that in true middle-eastern homophobic fashion, the show was able to portray a lot of those "freedom-fighters" in, ehh, gay light: A report in Thursday's Financial Times said that the television program has discredited the mujahideen and their professions of religious fervor by showing captured insurgents who said that they were homosexuals - still not a socially acceptable group in much of the Middle East. As a result the word mujahid "once worn as a badge of pride by anti-American insurgents has become street slang for homosexuals", the paper reported. LoL. Now that's a bit unfair, don't you think? I mean, just because they hang out with men all the time, want women coverd and hidden from their sight because they might make some men horny, and have no problem killing women who wear revealing cloths that may entice their "brothers in arms" in maybe not hanging out with them, well, that doesn't make them gay, right? right? Ehh, apparently wrong: Some of the captured guerrillas confessed to holding gay orgies. Recently, Abu Tabarek, a preacher, confessed that insurgents had held morally deviant parties in his mosques. Hmmm...... Well, you can guess which iraqi ethnic group is not amused by this TV show. Here is a hint: their name starts with an S, and no, not that group that is in power right now. Get it? Awww, fuck it: The Sunnis man. The Sunnis are not amused by this TV show at all. Geee, I wonder why? One indication of the program's effectiveness is the anger of many Sunnis at the way "Terror in the Hands of Justice" holds up the insurgency to public ridicule. Even Sunnis who are not necessarily supporters of armed opposition to the United States and the fledgling Iraqi government object to the insurgents being portrayed as bloodthirsty, corrupt, venal, morally deviant and religiously hypocritical. Some senior Sunni politicians are pressing the government to take the show off the air, claiming that it is divisive. The insurgants, bloodthirsty? NOOOOOOOOOO. Not the insurgants! They are as cute and cuddley as puppies. I mean, they are forced to kidnapp ionnocent bystanders and slaughter them like sheep. Not to mention, the whole suicide-bombing thing? Just their way of blowing off some steam. It's not their fault that people insist on being around them when they blow themselves up. Right? The best part about this article though, is the producers' response to the complaints by the Sunni leaders. If there is ever a doubt that having americans occupying iraq influenced iraqi thinking with american culture, then there was never a better evidence of that then the producers second reason to not take the show off the air. Reports say that the producers are sympathetic, but put forward two arguments for keeping it on. Firstly, it has made Iraqis less fearful of retaliation if they come forward with information about insurgent suspects. Secondly, it has something television executives dream of: it is a hit. God Bless America!