Film at 11

Remember these wisened words from the master of disaster?

The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.

Well, check out the latest Billmon, The Abu Zarqawi Hour, as he discusses a post by Nibras Kazimi at Talisman Gate, about the televised terrorist reality shows now being broadcast in the Middle East.

times have changed if the latest video installment from the “Media Division of the Jaish Ansar Al-Sunna” is any measure to go by. In this 30 minute video, we see two individuals, Abu Munther Al-Ansari, and Abu Ahmad Al-Baghdadi, comfortably sitting in a studio modeled along a talk-show format. Yes, they are SITTING IN A STUDIO! And I’m not talking about two stools and a desk; this is a modern studio with ample lighting, three camera angles and nice woodwork. They’ve even got the name of their organization, Jaish Ansar Al-Sunna (‘JAS,’ the no. 2 organization on the terrorist charts after Al-Qaeda in Iraq), engraved up at the front.

Yes, at least two terrorists groups, Jaish Ansar Al-Sunna (JAS) and Zarqawi's Al-Qaeda in Iraq, have television shows and broadcast studios. They sit in comfy chairs, wear blazers and ski masks, "analyze" the newest in terrorist-activity fashion and then show a few film clips of missle launches and exploding Humvees, the products of their latest handiwork.

More unbelievably, JAS and Al-Qaeda in Iraq each appear to be trying to outdo the other in slick production values and on-screen mayhem.

In another video of what seems to be the Week of Jihadist Sweepstakes, Al-Qaeda in Iraq was determined not to be outdone by JAS and their slick studio. So what did they come up with? They own version of COPS, which itself is a response to a popular version of that show being shown on the official Iraqi TV network, Al-Iraqiyya, and called “Terrorism in the Grip of Justice.”

Last throes, indeed.