Irredentist CNAS Now Seeks Cultural Hegemony

Truly the Center for a New American Security is a revolutionary power, not a status-quo power. First the counterinsurgency-heavy think tank is greeted as liberators within the Gates Pentagon and the State Department. Now, via Small Wars Journal, CNAS wants your TV as well. Army special-forces veteran and CNAS senior fellow Roger Carstens — a great guy to have a beer with, it must be noted — is going to be on an NBC reality show called “The Wanted,” which apparently tracks a team hunting the ex-leader of the Kurdish terrorist group Ansar al-Islam, an individual named Mullah Krekar, who now lives in Oslo. I’m not sure what to make of hunting accused terrorists on television, but this is great-if-bewildering news for Roger. CNAS’ next foray obviously has to be into the music industry, where its experts can contend that the only way to truly kill Autotune is to protect rappers from the pitch-correction software‘s merciless ravages.

Update: Apparently the show isn’t really a manhunt, but it displays Roger and members of this NBC-assembled team planning an operation to confront war criminals and get them to answer for their actions. Not having seen the show, it sounds kind of like an Inside Edition for the age of terrorism, and not like a freelance, televised police action. But who knows! Monday, July 20, 10 p.m., NBC…