LAT: Iraqi TV station plays up U.S. losses

[rodeodance]

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-zawraa19dec19,1,2656201.story?coll=la-headlines-world


THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ: RENEGADE BROADCASTER
Iraqi TV station plays up U.S. losses

By Borzou Daragahi and Molly Hennessy-Fiske
Times Staff Writers

December 19, 2006

BAGHDAD — The men with laptops sat around an unadorned conference table, chatting amicably about their plans and operations.

The scene on the newly launched Al Zawraa satellite television channel could have been footage from the boardroom of any company, if it weren't for the ski masks the men wore and the subject of the meeting: future mortar attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq.

The renegade, pro-insurgent Al Zawraa channel, with a 24-hour diet of propaganda against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government, has become something of a sensation throughout the country. It has drawn condemnation from U.S. officials, Iraqi politicians and Friday prayer leaders.

Most hours of the day it plays footage of U.S. soldiers in Iraq being shot and blown up in insurgent attacks, often with religious chants or Saddam Hussein-era nationalist anthems in the background. There are segments warning Iraq's Sunni Arabs to be wary of Shiite Muslims, and occasional English-language commentary and subtitles clearly meant to demoralize U.S. troops.

"Your new enlisting qualifications are kind of comical," an announcer says in slightly accented American English, over an image of a U.S. soldier in a field hospital, a bandage on his newly amputated arm. "I mean, what are you doing? Thirty-nine years old? That's the new age of recruiting? Are you recruiting nannies? I guess if we are patient, we might witness crippled people enlisting for the Marines.".........

[VegasWolf]

1. Humm, an anti-occupier TV station is doing well in Iraq! Who woulda thunk? nt