New Term for Muslim/Media Manipulation: 'CBS Ambush'

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Austin Bay has a new term to describe the technique used by the media and Muslim activists to manipulate fake events in order to inflame Muslim outrage: "CBS ambush."

The ambush technique coordinates blood-spilling violence with sensational imagery and rhetoric using a dispersed network of media operatives, guerrillas and terrorists. Networked, Coordinated Blood-spilling plus Sensationalism -- hence the technique's acronym: the CBS ambush.

The media hyped Muslim outrage during the first Gulf War.

Remember the "Arab street," that riot-in-the-road featuring flammable Israeli flags, Saddam Hussein posters, clenched fists and chants threatening "Death to America"? The street may have lacked pavement and a fire hydrant, but it had beaucoup television cameras.

Flames, clenched fists and death threats -- a heart-pounding collage of sensational imagery and rhetoric. What more could a TV exec need to attract audience eyeballs?

Recall the talking heads who told us in 1990, after Saddam invaded Kuwait, that "the Arab street" was going to rise en masse, as an ur-proletariat, which would support Saddam against the West. If you need documentation, check out a few old PBS "NewsHour" transcripts.

But the mass rising didn't happen. Why? Because the Arab street was, to a great extent, the creation of television cameras. Political operatives -- no doubt many on Saddam's payroll -- knew they could attract the sensation-hungry camera crews and use the media to project the operatives' preferred "image of anger."

But the technique has become more sophisticated.

Twenty-first century Islamo-fascist terrorists, however, have refined the model and moved beyond an image of anger to a new form of prepared global ambush that integrates murder, terror and instant media.

The Koran "flushing" story.

In May 2005, Newsweek ran its phony Guantanamo Bay prison "Koran flushing" story. Violent riots broke out in several predominantly Muslim countries. The riots in Afghanistan attracted particular attention. Indian military analyst Bahukutumbi Raman wrote that those riots were incited by "well-organized agents of the Hizb ut-Tahrir terror gang."

The Danish cartoons.

In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of editorial cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad. The cartoons attracted political protests and several violent threats, but the cartoons were no international cause celebre. In fact, an Egyptian newspaper published several of the cartoons in an article condemning the Jyllands-Posten.

But in January 2006, waves of orchestrated, coordinated violence broke out in predominantly Muslim nations and in Muslim neighborhoods. The terrorists and political operatives promoted a "clash of civilizations" propaganda line, with the cartoons as the "grievance trigger."

And most recently, the Pope.

The pope pointed out the dialog between Manuel II and the Persian examined "the truth of both (religions)." But context doesn't matter when triggering a CBS ambush, only the superficial trace of historical grievance and the energy of emotional slight. The "distributed" violence following the media magnification of the pope's remarks included firebombing Christian churches (in several Muslim countries) and the execution-style slaying of a Catholic nun who worked in a hospital in Somalia.

Only through cooperation can the various parties pull off a successful CBS ambush.

Executing a CBS ambush requires the implicit cooperation of sensationalist media -- media that delight in emotional slights and rarely probe beyond the superficial. Until that implicit cooperation ends, the Islamo-fascists will continue to exploit this productive stratagem, achieving propaganda victories designed to ignite a "clash of civilizations" and brutally intimidate their Muslim and non-Muslim opposition.