In Ayman al-Zawahri’s fetching new video, I suspect we are seeing glimpses of the mental instability American and Pakistani forces first saw, according to Ron Suskind, shortly after kicking-down Abu Zubaydah’s Faisalabad door in a March 2002 capture.


As George Bush, apparently thanks to Suskind, politically milked the man he called “one of the top operatives” running alQaeda, I wonder if this glammed-up Ayman, too, might soon feel the cold PR fingers of the President’s milking hand.
This 6th Zawahiri video, released today on the web, is slickly produced with a jazzy slo-mo’ed wavy curtain opening graphic and a thumping muezzin audio track.
In the May 30 video, at this Washington Post link, evil but man-tanned Dr. Zawahri, sits comfortably in a modern television studio and before a black cyclorama while wearing a Sony ECM-77 (PDF) lavalier microphone.
As evil Dr. Z talks and moves his head, the upper rim portions of his prescription lenses clearly show multiple sets of studio grid lights.
The evil doctor is modeled with light in a flattering and classically theatrical multiple lamp configuration.
Zawahiri’s trusty and ever visible automatic rifle is set further back from the plane occupied by our make-up wearing terror leader.
The rifle is being illuminated by another separate studio lighting fixture.
Is this triumph of the alQaeda TV production budget to herald some major threat?
Well, uh, no.
Doctor Zawahiri thinks May 29’s Kabul US/Afghan car accident was a “bitter incident…fresh proof” of the Great Satan’s same-old blah, blah, blah.
The evil doctor needs to regularly drive my deadly chunk of crumbling and over crowded American interstate to get an appreciation for what a roadway “bitter incident” is really all about.
Pretty sad when all a supposed “major terrorist” and known bomber has to bitch about is a gruesome car accident.
Naturally the Z man milks the Bush/Cheney dark side gift of torture and also finds time for other former glories from the Islamo-fascist hit parade including holy book defacements, European humorists and cartoonists, Salmon Rushdie and a fresh and curious aversion to flags.
In short, the doctor seems more fey than frightening.
The video does make me wonder if crack Homeland Security forces could make time between domestic wiretaps and molester investigations to track high tech TV and theatrical equipment purchases bound for a mysteriously modern television studio buried in the Hindu-Kush.

Photos: AP, Reuters
- posted by Sean @ 3:14 PM