BloguesRichard Martineau

Les amateurs

Et si les gros méchants terroristes qui nous faisaient si peur étaient des twits finis?

Un texte à lire sur le webzine Slate.

Last week, Zarqawi, the head of al-Qaida's operations in Iraq, released a slick videotape showing himself firing an automatic machine gun, denouncing President Bush, and predicting victory over all his enemies.

The outtakes-which Special Operations forces captured during a raid of a safe house outside Baghdad-reveal a much less imposing figure. Zarqawi is seen fumbling with the machine gun, which jams. Someone off-camera is heard to say, "Go help the sheikh." An aide comes over and fixes it.

After the shooting, another aide grabs the gun by its hot barrel, burning his hand. Zarqawi, who's clearly put on a few pounds since last seen, walks away from the camera, exposing, beneath his black guerrilla outfit, a pair of New Balance running shoes.

In short, these guys look like Keystone terrorists, hapless amateurs…