Oh my god. I’m speechless, have no words, and my brain just froze. So pardon my terrible blogger protocol in just copying over from Wonkette.com:
The CIA has inexplicably come up with a logo for the “Terrorist Buster,†some sort of imaginary Christian cheerleader representing the DCI Counterterrorist Center. Take a better look at the logo, realize that this is actually happening, and then continue reading. We’ll wait for you. [Pause]. Ready?
THIS IS AN OFFICIAL GOVERNMENT LOGO?!
This is not a joke. I can’t believe this is not a joke. The CIA really did create a logo for a “Terrorist Buster” (who the hell would that be anyway? Is this related to those “If you see something, say something” campaigns? Does a counterterrorist center really need a logo? If yes, then THAT?!) and unveiled the logo on the official CIA website. Go see for yourself at www.cia.gov
As Wonkette goes on to point out, the logo looks like some mad, racist twisted version of the logo (after the jump) from the Ghostbusters movie. Goddamn. What would Peter Venkman say??
It looks like a deranged gingerbread cookie…oh MY.
Gumby spawn
Is that Grimace?
Good Lord…
This is our tax dollars at work
that does look like Grimace!
i wonder how many drafts they went through before they decided that the logo is appropriately de-racinated and de-gendered, b/c that looks like a blob.
Why is Grimace holding a CIA-issue Kalashnikov?
Best Logo EVER
According to camille’s link Grimace became a good guy (did lose a set of arms though). You think this is a cleaver ploy rehabilitation?? 😉
mad i agree, and color me brown, but what is racist about the logo?
i like the cute sickle (or is it crescent) like end of the gun to evoke appropriate subliminal fears though.
the CIA graphic designer recruitment program has not been going well :).
In movies they tell us that Jason Bourne, James Bond and Arnold Swarchenegger are using killer technology to defeat all that stand in their way, when in reality all the govt has is this abortion as their offical logo and a bunch of people who read online forums for clues to terrorist activity.
well, you know, all the good graphic designers are gay or taken.
why is the the terrorist depicted in black??
not a very fear-inducing terrorist. perhaps they used the same graphic artist as the London Olympics Committee.
I was wondering about that too.
Aren’t we reading a little too much here? It’s a light background logo. Ergo..
What would Peter Venkman say??
We came, we saw, we kicked it’s ass.
What confuses me is the gun. It seems so silly and out of date. Shouldn’t the terrorist be wearing a shoe, carrying a larger-than-tester-size bottle of shampoo (not in a plastic bag, of course), or perhaps be eating french (as opposed to freedom) fries? Because thats what it would to shock and awe me into being impressed by the “terrorist buster”. He’s not related to that Wal-Mart smiley face “price buster,” is he?
i thought all terrorists were brown? are all newspapers, or even this blog, racist now since their lettering is in black? in seriousness, a choice of brown or the islamic shade of green could be argued to be racist, but i think we’re seeing something that is not there if we believe this logo is racist for its color.
This is now the official logo for the Jal Jeera club.
It’s not a person that is black. It’s a person wearing ninja-like camoflouge.
Ay caramba. My frozen brain made me do it. I don’t like throwing the race card around needlessly, so it’s all fixed, up in the post. But they do seem to think it was more disturbing at Wonkette – the first comment was:
they symbol should be a redneck behind those bars. look where this redneck president got us!
i am totally appropriating that image.
Whatever it is, it sure does seem cheerful. It’s definitely prevailing over the “ban the” part of the symbol, like some kind of demented Kalashnikov-wielding tar-baby redneck leaning out of a pickup-truck window.
“W00T!”
Damn, I need to get the hell out of rural NC soon.
Hey, could we maybe take a break from the ignorant train and refrain from classist language? Given the silver spoon on which this president was fed (from his silver-footed father), “redneck” hardly describes him and just makes you look verbally lazy.
I love the idea of this guy being a ninja. Perhaps it is Grimace as a ninja? The abstract AK is a little weird, though.
That seems very similar to an image used on the Indian Express website! Anybody if it is connected? I just went fishing on IE and found nothing on todays page.
stay there long enough, and you can become slade maniktahla, governor.
wasn’t ann richards’ silver-foot jab at dubya, not his dad?
the terrorist reminds me of those little plastic Lego men, especially the ones from The Brick Testament check out the guy on the right.
I was 5 when she made this speech, so I can’t say this with great authority, but I’m pretty sure it was aimed at H.W. She made her speech at the DNC in an election year when H.W. first stood as the Republican candidate for President. When she talks about “eight years” of George Bush she’s referring to his 8 years as Reagan’s VP — George W. didn’t come on the scene (politically) until 1994 when he beat Richards for the Governorship of Texas.
camille, you are right. i was confusing with the fact that dubya beat her for the governorship.
IMHO, nothing really racist to me, but it’s just funny in a ‘roll your eyes’ way. They even curved the bayonet on the AK? It looks like a damn ninja farmer with a sickle/scythe. Giggling. Good lord…
It seems funny…and stupid…not racist or offensive.
ahh, the exuberance of youth. For one so young, you are very wise.
well, the ghost in the ghostbuster’s icon was white. why only white ghosts? not fair. Other colors die too. by the way, for a really effective scare-tactic image, they should look to Iran. When I was working in an American university office in the mid-, after the Iranian Revolution, we got a letter from that fair land. On it was a stamp showing Uncle Sam’s right hand hacked off by a scimitar, with blood squirting everywhere! It was done in bright colors of red & green & white. The idea was doubtless to strike fear&loathiing in Gotham, but by then, Freddie Kruger posters decorated the dorm walls and Iran had nothing on him.
Oh my god. I KNOW!!!
Who’s going to make the tee shirts?!?!?
Just in time for Hallowe’en?
It’s one of the dancing condom men.
I don’t understand the fuss about the logo. I think it’s funny. And the guy is not black. He has his face covered. Also the terrorist is a righty. Hopefully they won’t ignore the left handed terrorists.
a much better logo for terrorist buster. it might help mukasey in deciding whether the super-ultra-maximally-underground-secret technique of waterboarding is indeed torture.
There are some Graphic design jobs available over at the CIA, but you may have to wield your Photoshop wand like a manly man.
wow. when i was making my mother watch the condom video and saw this from a ways away, i totally thought it was a swastika.
How can a citizenry take a government-deemed threat seriously if that same government insists on Mickey-Mousing it to death?
I always wondered what the lovechild of Jack Bauer & Egon Spengler might look like…
looks like a 10 year old trying to draw this comic book character.
dude. there will totally be t-shirts of this. or, at least, in my case, bags bearing print-outs of this. i love that there exists a world in which irony lives and is entirely earnest. and that this is a world i inhabit.
Sepoy, resistance is futile.
Re 9:
Now, let me preface this by saying that I’m being facetious here; but one could always read into the logo that the “crescent” in the top left quadrant implies that the Gumby/Grimace terrorist is Muslim (given that the crescent is used as a symbol in the flags of many Muslim countries).
exactly what i was alluding to. and i too was trying hard to see the racist angle when i was doing that.
I think the crescent looks like the letter “A” to me 🙂
since when did ninjas use bayonets?
also, this looks like some hipster design logo that should be on t shirts selling in the bowery or williamsburg
p.s. wonkette sucks