ABSTRACT
On February 11, 2003, the ABC network’s late-night news staple Nightline aired an installment that was both extraordinary and typical. The episode was astounding precisely because it was presented in its customary manner. Approximately one month before the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom which began the 2nd Iraq war, the program devoted its entire broadcast to the United States’ military engagement in the Middle East. Its final segment reported on the American forces’ outpost in the African Republic of Djibouti, a predominantly Muslim former French colony that was an ideal geographic location for desert combat training and which, in fact, welcomed the foreign presence. In trying to represent the confluence of politics and culture in that milieu, Nightline producers edited its narration with evocative clips from the Hollywood film classic, Casablanca.
