American efforts at ideological warfare are dismal enough to make its successes conspicuous by comparison. I was thus delighted to read this front-page item in today's New York Times, describing what seems to me an exceedingly amusing propaganda victory at the expense of the supposedly fearsome Musab al Zarqawi, recently of"Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia." Some choice excerpts from the article drive the point home:

The videotape released last week by the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi showed him firing long bursts from a machine gun, his forearms sprouting from beneath black fatigues, as he exuded the very picture of a strong jihadist leader.

But in clips the American military released on Thursday and described as captured outtakes from the same video, Mr. Zarqawi, head of the Council of Holy Warriors, cut a different figure.

In one scene, Mr. Zarqawi, the most wanted terrorist in Iraq, appears flummoxed that his American-made M-249 machine gun will not fire fully automatically. Off camera, one aide is heard ordering another,"Go help the sheik." A man walks over and fiddles with the weapon so Mr. Zarqawi can fire it in bursts.Another sequence shows Mr. Zarqawi handing the weapon off to other aides and striding away, revealing white jogging shoes beneath his black guerrilla attire. One insurgent later appears to grab the machine gun absent-mindedly by its scalding-hot barrel and drop it.

No one ever said that the preachers of death knew what the hell they were doing. I regret that I can't reproduce the photo of the hapless Zarqawi struggling with his machine gun, since it represents him as looking like a cross between an overweight Yoda, a short Chewbacca, and a bearded Bozo the Clown.

I don't know whether the clips were or will be shown on American television, but they have not so far been shown on Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya--which apparently deemed them insufficiently newsworthy, or perhaps feared that the bulk of the Arab viewing population might laugh so hard at them as collectively and simultaneously to wet their pants. I agree that that would be a hazard, but I still think the clips would be worth broadcasting.

I generally don't find military people worth quoting about anything (including war), but Gen. Lynch's comment on the video strikes me as rather astute, for a change:

"What you saw on the Internet was what he wanted the world to see," General Lynch said."Look at me, I'm a capable leader of a capable organization, and we are indeed declaring war against democracy inside of Iraq, and we're going to establish an Islamic caliphate."

"What he didn't show you were the clips that I showed, wearing New Balance sneakers with his uniform, surrounded by supposedly competent subordinates who grab the hot barrel of a just-fired machine gun," he said.

"We have a warrior leader, Zarqawi, who doesn't understand how to operate his weapon system and has to rely on his subordinates to clear a weapon stoppage," the general said."It makes you wonder."

The article doesn't tell us what it makes Gen. Lynch wonder, but it makes me wonder why it is that uninformed people rush into print daily to declare the enemy in Iraq utterly invincible, and the war irrevocably lost. Really? Behold the enemy. Have we really lost the war to this guy? How does one do that, anyway?

Of course, if Musab al Zarqawi had really been keeping up with the latest Western fashions (and by"Western" I mean: in Manhattan), he'd have known to wear cowboy boots instead of New Balances. Better luck next time, partner.