The American, Main Stream Media were less then enthused about the U.S. killing of al-Zarqawi because it hurt their not so subtle campaign against the war in Iraq and George W Bush. For a detailed analysis of the Main Stream Media's reaction the Blog Newsbusters.org says:
"If Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and all of al Qaeda's leaders in Iraq and throughout the world laid down their arms and surrendered to American forces, would the media report it as good news?
Judging from the initial press reaction to the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq by the American military on Wednesday, the answer appears to be no.
In fact, this tepid response to the death of the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq; a man who has at times in the past couple of years been depicted as more vital to this terrorist network than the currently in-hiding bin Laden; suggests quite disturbingly that America's media are fighting a different war than America's soldiers.
According to NewsBusters, CNN's senior editor for Arab affairs Octavia Nasr said the following about Zarqawi's death on ;American Morning; Thursday:
"Some people say it will enrage the insurgency, others say it will hurt it pretty bad. But if you think about the different groups in Iraq, you have to think that Zarqawi's death is not going to be a big deal for them."
However, CNN didn't always feel that Zarqawi's death or capture would be so inconsequential. Just days after Saddam Hussein was found in his spider hole, Paula Zahn brought CNN national correspondent Mike Boettcher on to discuss a new threat in Iraq. Zahn began the December 15, 2003 segment:
"The capture of Saddam Hussein may lead to renewed attention on the search for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists, and next to bin Laden, there is one man emerging as a major threat. He is believed to be the leader of a group much like al Qaeda, and the U.S. wants to catch him before he strikes again"
Boettcher entered the discussion:
"The reward for his capture is only a fifth of that offered for Saddam Hussein, $5 million to Saddam's $25 million, but abu-Mus'ab al- Zarqawi, say Middle East intelligence analysts, is emerging as the most dangerous terrorist conducting operations in Iraq, the surrounding region, and perhaps the world."
Subsequent to this report, Zarqawi's reward was raised to $25 million, meaning that the importance of his capture increased fivefold. Mysteriously, CNN didn't see it that way, as, in its view, the death of what was once described as "the most dangerous terrorist in perhaps the world" somehow became "no big deal."
At roughly the same time as Nasr was downplaying Zarqawi's death on CNN, ABC's Good Morning America was replaying an interview with the liberal activist father of one of the men Zarqawi actually beheaded, American Nicholas Berg. At the conclusion of the video, correspondent Bill Weir stated the following as reported by NewsBusters:
"And we did speak with Nick Berg's father this morning and he says he takes no satisfaction in news of Zarqawi's death there. In fact, he denounces the killing as yet another death in a never ending cycle of retribution and death there as well. And he has been a rather vocal, harsh critic of the Bush administration for, you know, invading this country in the first place and he expressed that again this morning."
A little later on Good Morning America, Diane Sawyer invited perennial Bush-basher Richard Clarke on to solicit his opinion of Zarqawi's death. As reported by NewsBusters, Sawyer asked, "[Is] it any safer in Iraq and will the war end any sooner?" Clarke responded:
"Well, unfortunately the answer is no. This man was a terrible man. He was a symbol of terrorism. He was the face of terrorism, the only real name we knew of an insurgent leader in Iraq. But he commanded only a few hundred people out of tens of thousands involved in the insurgency. And so, unfortunately for the loved ones of troops over in Iraq, this is not going to mean a big difference."
Click on the title above for a link to the rest of NewsBusters media analysis of the Main Stream media's reaction to al-Zarqawi's death.
