Fashioned on recent US government commercials warning Americans that profits from narcotics are used by terrorists to wage war, the commercials tell consumers that the gas they pour into their thirsty vehicle benefits terrorists.
The ads begin with a man at a gas station and a girl's voiceover says: "This is George. This is the gas that George bought for his SUV." The ad then cuts to a map of the Middle East and the voiceover adds: "These are the countries where the executives bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his SUV."
The ad then shows pictures of Arab-looking terrorists in the desert as viewers are told that "these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his SUV".
A second commercial shows a number of Americans who proudly claim things such as: "I helped hijack an airplane"; "I gave money to a terrorist training camp in a foreign country"; "What if I need to go off-road?"
The ad finishes as the endline "What is your SUV doing to our national security?" flashes up on the screen.
Behind the two 30-second ads is the Greek-born and Cambridge-educated US columnist and author Arianna Huffington, whose first book 'The Female Woman' was a response to Germaine Greer's 'The Female Eunuch'.
The ads, paid for by wealthy donors including Steve Bing, the father of Elizabeth Hurley's son, and members of the public, are targeting motor city Detroit and the US Congress as part of the campaign for fuel-efficiency standards.
"On average, SUVs consume over six miles per gallon more than a family station wagon. No small difference when you consider that an improvement of just three mpg in autos nationwide would save 1m barrels of oil per day," Huffington wrote in a recent article.
"On top of this, I have belatedly discovered that despite those TV ads showing them heroically scaling snow-capped mountains in a single bound, SUVs are actually risky to drive: four times more likely than cars to roll over in an accident and three times more likely to kill the occupants in a rollover."
Last year, Republicans and Democrats voted against a bill, sponsored by Senators John McCain, Republican of Arizona, and John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, that would have improved fuel-efficiency standards.
Huffington's Detroit Project group has bought almost $200,000 of air time for the spots, which run until Thursday, on 'Meet the Press', 'Face the Nation' and 'This Week with George Stephanopoulos' in Detroit, Los Angeles, New York and Washington.
However, some local stations, including the ABC affiliate in New York, are refusing to run the ads. Art Moore, director of programming, told the New York Times: "There were a lot of statements being made that were not backed up, and they're talking about hot-button issues."
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