Read THIS story on the EU Referendum Blog and prepare to be disgusted...There are two wars being played out in the Middle East. One is a shooting war, where soldiers fight, where aircraft drop bombs and civilians die - on both sides.But the other war, where no one dies, is probably more important in the grander scheme of things. That is the propaganda war, where the losses or gains of any one side can be negated by a deft photo-call and where the outcome of a campaign can be determined not by force of arms but by international politicians who can - if they so desire - impose a settlement that awards the fruits of victory to whomsoever the please.In this second war, the shock troops are the journalists, photographers and television crews. They supply the raw material - the bullets, if you like - which shape opinions and give substance to the debate. We cannot all be there ourselves, so we rely on that information. We need it because we are not there, because we haven't smelled the death and the terror, because we have not seen the corpses with our own eyes. But, since this is the material that will shape our opinions and, through us the opinions of our politicians, we are entitled to ask whether it is accurate and unbiased. That we are not there does not disbar us from asking - it makes the asking all that more necessary. Click HERE for more...
Are you saying the girl wasn't dead, Iain?
ReplyDeleteIf you accept the girl was dead, are you saying that she wasn't killed by Israeli bombs?
Are you saying the green helmeted man wandered round with a dead body aimlessly when he should have taken the body straight to the ambulance?
If the famous photograph was posed, does that make any difference to the girl in question? She's still dead, isn't she?
I don't see the point of that article at all. It's entirely guess-work. Regardless of this, the figures speak for themselves and even the Israeli versions of them show hundreds more Lebanese citizens have been killed than Israeli citizens.
ReplyDeleteGenerally I'm failing to see your point.
I have read elsewhere about this fellow. I read that he carried the dead child around, using the body as a prop, for around four hours, seeking out photographers, and posing.
ReplyDeleteThis doesn't seem to have been picked up by the MSN yet, but there seems to be something worthy of investigation. The BBC in particular seems (a) to have an agenda, which this doesn't fit and (b) to be on an emote-athon. We need objective reporting and serious analysis: we get Fergal "cry me a river" Keane, Jeremy Bowen (Has he got a Hezbollah minder?...does he NEED a Hezbollah minder?) and the peculiar Hugh Sykes. God help us!
ReplyDelete'Staged by Hezbollah'? Unless they (and you) are suggesting that anything other than a lot of innocent civilians were killed by anything other than an Israeli air strike I don't see that there's much to this.
ReplyDeleteThe HZB boys are simply using well tried "Pallywood" tricks. The trouble is the MSM swallow the whole lot, even when the same bodies re-appear in several "rescue" shots, and the "rescuers" are a limited group who appear at every photo opportunity in a range of identical garbs, and the images are often cropped to avoid obvious incongruities appearing.
ReplyDeleteThis makes for interesting reading as well. I cannot vouch for its veracity.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284514,00.html#n
War is Hell. Truth the first casualty. Etc. Got all that. Why should I be disgusted: because the Hezzies know how to yank our effete western self-hating chain or because bloggers are violating the sanctity of the Qana Martyrs? Please explain.
ReplyDeleteThere have always been two wars in every conflict. Even the most ancient battles had their propaganda merchants, and history was always written by the winners. Your demand for unbiased reporting is, ultimately, unattainable, since facts are invariably reported as one perceives them, or edited by one discerning authority, and each individuals' choice of camera shot or selection of a word betrays a subjectivity inherent in communication. The ideal, of course, is impartial news reporting, but the reality is elusive. It is all the more important, therefore, to have access to many media, and many reports from a war front. Sky, ITN, CNN, Fox, all contribute to this, but what irritates Cranmer beyond expression is the appalling bias displayed by the BBC, and the fact that he is obliged to pay an annual tax of £131.50 for the privilege of having it piped into his home. Propaganda is one thing, but a propaganda tax is quite another.
ReplyDeleteThat is disgusting and it looks like the British media and the British public are being duped by these people.
ReplyDeleteWhat other ways are we still being conned by them?
There are questions arising about Qana and the media reports - I hope this gets proper attention in the MSM. They should have the ability to do a full investigation - but do they have the will ? I can see how hard it would be for reporters on the ground to ask these questions, but if they don't then they have taken sides in the propaganda war and made dead civilians a powerful weapon that will be used again and again.
ReplyDeleteIain, I love reading your blog and I hope that when you say that we should be disgusted by this article that you mean that we should be revolted by the gratuitous use of a dead child's pictures to illustrate a pointless conspiracy theory.
ReplyDeleteThe child is dead. Many children are dead. Israel doesn't deny it. Images didn't need to be manipulated. The facts are the facts.
Whatever the justification (or otherwise) of Israel's actions it takes a particularly warped and sick mind to concentrate on what propaganda use was made of an action while ignoring the action itself.
What next...the dead child was really a doll...Hezbollah blew up the building themselves...It's just sick.
Israel by and large admits to its mistakes it doesn't need such crass apologists.
I totally agree with the action that Israel is taking but this is a sick way of defending it.
ReplyDeleteThe tone of the entire article displays a sickening lack of empathy for the average Lebanese civilian and a horrible umwillingness to except that a dead child is a bad thing.
As I said, I agree with Israel's action against Lebanon. I also understand that people with our opinions are assailed from all sides by those who feel that they have the moral high ground and would like to cast us as unfeeling monsters. Using a picture of a dead girl (regardless of whether those who oppose the action's of Israel are using her) is a terrible way to make a point.
If we don't want to be cast as monsters. we shouldn't engage in blasé fights over dead bodies.
Shame on you Iain!
Of course HZB wouldn't carry a dead girl around for hours...would they?
ReplyDeleteOf course the BBC would not stage photoshoots...would they? (they did in Northern Ireland did they not?)
Of course Channel four news wouldn't copy such a low life trick..would they? (they do have form!)
Cranmer is correct of course and we must pray for the day when the BBC loses its licence fee's
Now that would be a good policy DC!
Paul, I am not saying anything. I am inviting you to read the whole article and draw your own conclusions.
ReplyDeleteChris, If you can't see the point of the article then I despair.
Glasshouse, I think you have totally misunderstood the article. No one is suggesting that a dead child isn't a tragedy. It's the abuse of that dead child by those who ought to know better that's almost as terrible.
You are quite right to draw attention to this aspect of the "media war", Iain. By all means, we need to be exposed to as many different news sources (including blogs) as possible, in order that we can make our minds up and reach an informed opinion on this issue.
ReplyDelete(By the way, A Tangled Web (http://atangledweb.typepad.com/), one of my favourite haunts, has posted several illuminating articles on this subject today. The Youtube link under the post titled "Pallywood" is well worth a click).
And as for Beirut being levelled....
ReplyDeleteHave a look at this map
showing the extent of the "devastation".
Not quite what is being reported by the likes of the BBC and others.
Know thine enemy...& quislings
ReplyDeletetripper said: "because the Hezzies know how to yank our effete western self-hating chain or because bloggers are violating the sanctity of the Qana Martyrs? Please explain."
ReplyDeleteHere's on explanation: I don't hate myself or Western civilisation and they can't yank the chain of intelligent, worldly people not driven by lefty drivel. Here's something else to think about, this same man was photographed doing the same schtick a couple of years ago. A sharp eyed person on the internet picked up on it. Another year, another body for a prop, another venue. But the centre of attention and king of dramatic photo ops.
Anonymong 10:54 - Hezbollah store munitions in schools. How does that grab you? The Israelis scatter leaflets over areas they intend to bomb, giving the civilians a chance to pack some things and get the hell out. Can you spot the difference between Hezbollah and the Israelis? Did the Germans afford us such a courtesy during WWII? Did we afford the Germans such a courtesy? Did we hell! That the Israelis are going that extra mile demonstrates that they have more concern for the civilian population than Hezbollah has for its own people.
Strapworld asks: "Of course the BBC wouldn't stage photo shoots would they?" Of course not! That Palestinian family picnic that the Israelis cruelly blew up around a month ago, in which all the happy family were killed - broadcast over and over - would have been heartbreaking if one of the actors, not realising the camera was still running, got up from being dead and walked off. Fortunately, that was at the end of the pantomime, so the Beeb just lopped it off.
The eureferendum article comprises paper man arguments, totally unsubstaniated and subject to no scientific rigour.
ReplyDeleteIt fails to address the most obvious criticisms, ie, are these photos in chronological order, do they take account of the fact that the same event could be captured from different angles, what about the no doubt prevalent atmosphere of chaos in such a situation....etc
As someone who is disgusted by the destruction of Lebanon yet sympathetic to Israel's justification for its actions, I am disappointed that you've given a platform to such a poorly argued article, utterly comprised of propaganda.
Re: "The Shocking Pictures from Beirut - Who's Doing the Spinning?"
ReplyDeleteJ'accuse Iain Dale! The pictures you refer to are in Qana.
I make a light-hearted comment here. The ultimate subject of these pictures is not light-hearted, my heart grieves for all the poor people caught up in it, and no one should think otherwise than war is an ugly, dirty thing.
Yes people fake photos, and so do journalists (but I'm not sure if this is a case here - the blog is of course entitled to investigate it as they see fit). But those that think whole news organisations do it are losing the plot. Of course they all have an agenda, that's why we all choose one or another in preference. And even the BBC came under the control of the govt. during WWII, so it shouldn't come as any surprise that there is a propaganda war being fought too. In this sense I agree with Cranmer, but whingeing about his tv licence won't solve it. Isn't the lesson here that you have to be able to form your own judgement about what you see and read, not just re-cycle others opinions?
Firstly Iain, unlike you I do not need to imagine what it is like to be on the wrong side of Isaeli fire in the Lebanon, nor do I need reminding of the smell of death. I have seen that both in Beirut on on the Croat Serb front line in that "civil" war.
ReplyDeleteI have not seen any of these photographs before in any of the reports I have read.
However having been on two frontlines, whilst under fire I can confirm that things are confued. Some things are hit and some not. We do not know for example where the stretcher was in relation to the original strike, or where the ambulance was. We also do not actualy know if all the pictures are of the same child, rather than a relative or similar looking child.
Verity, Could I possibly ask for a reference for your claim that a dead person on the Gaza beach got up after the camereras were supposed to have been switched off?
ReplyDeletePlease?
Forgive me pointing this out, but some of the photos are irrelevent, and we seem bar perspective error to have children of different sizes compared to the adults around.
ReplyDeleteOr is that just me?
This story is going to kick off in a big way, I'm sure.
ReplyDeleteThat said, it could go either way - true or false - a horrible attempt by Hezbollah to play on sympathies using dead children, or a cynical misrepresentation of the reporting.
Whatever the truth on this happens to be - Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation, and Israel has willingly sacrificed numerous civilian lives with badly targeted and disproportionate military action to try and stamp it out.
We the public are a fickle lot, and outrage has a tendancy to swing wildly. Hezbollah is nothing more 'moral' than a terrorist group. Israeli policy (backed by the UK/US) is outrageous. The losers in this whole situation are the Lebanese people.
This will naturally blow up in the faces of those here and elsewhere who are gullible enough to fall for this conspiracy rubbish (they probably think the royals are alien lizards too).
ReplyDeleteStep back and think, get out of your 'desperate to find somethig that backs up my feelings' pose and look at it logically.
In any case, when they try and claim that different looking people are the same you have to wonder about their observation skills. Of course they all look the same don't they so such an *easy* mistake to make.
Glad that you posted this Iain so we can see just how perverted some have become in their views, on these sites and here.
benedict white - I don't keep links to everything I read, so of course you can ask me, and of course I won't have it.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I do suggest biased-bbc.co.uk as I believe the thread they were running was my source. I'm not going to research it for you, but some people posting on biased-bbc.co.uk had caught it, if I remember rightly. An actor with red paint on his face, not realising filming wasn't over, innocently got up and strolled off from this tragic Palestinian family picnic.
Well, EU Referendum has another update, though it has left me a little confused...
ReplyDeleteIt seems Forbes published a rebuttal of EURef's claims, saying the timestamps reflected publishing times, not when photos were taken - etc etc. They also made some very good points about the the futility of having competing photographers agree on anything, let alone a conspiracy to jazz up (or completely fake) the outcome of a bombing.
Which is all very well, but EURef's response to *that* (via Little Green Footballs) confused me more...
A (leaked) email apparently sent to AP employees following the day's reporting, congratulating them on their work, and awarding the Qana photographers a $500 'beat of the week' prize to share. Which sounds a little distasteful to us sitting at home on our nice cozy sofas, but I've seen and heard of much worse.
Thing is... Apart from the bit of discomfort you get from learning that in the real world, journalists actually get paid MONEY for photographing newsworthy events (and sometimes bonuses!), shock horror, the email does more to back up the AP story, rather than discredit it.
Picking apart EU Referedum's story, the whole thing really falls apart if you ignore the order and website timestamps of the photos (which Forbes claim do not reflect the time the photographs were taken at all).
ReplyDeleteReorder the photographs, and what you get is a couple of volunteers, picking child corpses from the rubble, taking them past waiting photographers, holding them up to be seen, then away to the ambulances. Changes in clothing (eg the removal of a reflective vest) seem even less relevant then.
As for holding up the bodies of children for the press to see? I strongly suspect that if I were a local volunteer clearing the corpses of children after an airstrike from a foreign country, I'd want the international press to see it. All of it.
Have some people taken leave of their senses?
ReplyDeleteAre we are supposed to believe the Red Cross are in on this conspiracy? (Including Red cross that weren't really targetted)
Are we supposed to believe the UN officials (that were pretending to die) were in on this conspiracy?
And Jeremy Bowen and many other reporters?
Bodies and bleeding children filmed by western camera crews, all in this conspiracy.
And investigators on the ground from Human Rights Watch, are they in on it?
I can tell you where the conspiracy is coming from.
What is a conspiracy is those that downplay or deny the disaster that this war is or those that make excuses for the mass slaughter of the innocent.
Tom
jherad - thank you for your ill-informed post. "This story is going to kick off in a big way, I'm sure."
ReplyDeleteWhy are you sure?
"This will naturally blow up in the faces of those here and elsewhere who are gullible enough to fall for this conspiracy rubbish (they probably think the royals are alien lizards too)."
[Noise off - a dull thud.]
What does your meandering statement mean: "Of course they all look the same don't they so such an *easy* mistake to make.
May I close your quotes for you, so we don't get confused about who is speaking?
"
I think quite a few people on this thread have been to the ME several times and some, as in as Benedict White, lived there for a period of time and therefore speak with greater authority than an illogical Kumbayah-man such as yourself. Have you ever visited the Middle East?
I dont think some of you lot get the point of this tread. This story has been covered by dozens of blog sites, that have made detailed observations. The fact that it is a set up job is obvious. The only thing left to debate is the extent of the set-up. However the main point is why our media dont report it as such.
ReplyDeleteOne day, if you the British people dont wake up out of your blinkered sleepwalk. You will one day be walking into the shower room/GAS CHAMBER, the BBC will be handing you the soap, and you will still have no idear, how it all happened.
Before you start to laugh, remember this. There were many German Jews in 1936 that would have laughed as well if any one have warned them of the things to come. Luckely for the Jews and us the Israelis are armed with more than a walking stick and a muza now.
I have stopped watching the news as I am so utterly disgusted by anti-Israel bias by journos who should know better. They skip lightly over facts which disagree with their lefty notions and they obviously view Hezbollah as glamourous freedom fighters just as they did the IRA.
ReplyDeleteKeane and Bowen are particularly noxious and I am so longing to smack Bowen. I really resent paying a license fee for this drivel.
Shamelessly borrowed from WSJ..
ReplyDelete'Additional questions arose yesterday about the Israel Air Force's strike on a building in Qana on Sunday, even as the number of fatalities in the incident appeared to be much lower than originally published.
The Red Cross announced yesterday that 28 bodies, including those of 19 children, had been found at the site'. . . .
Wouldn't it be nice if the media reported the true facts!!!!
Iain, I visit your blog every day and normally respect your opinions. But I have to say that posting an article like this is not what I expect of you. Don't turn your blog into something sad like Harry's Place. You are better than this.
ReplyDeleteI think many commentators here have missed the point.
ReplyDeleteIts not whether the photos have been staged or whether they haven't.( though this happens all the time)
Its not whether Hisbollah are responsible for staging the photos or not.
Its that the MSM and more especially the BBC and C4 are using them to support their own prejudices and in doing so have become Hisbollahs greatest ally in the west.
Aug 1st, 5.00pm
ReplyDelete"Read THIS story on the EU Referendum Blog and prepare to be disgusted..."
Aug 1st, 11.35pm
"Paul, I am not saying anything. I am inviting you to read the whole article and draw your own conclusions."
Come on Iain, if you're going to raise this issue, at least tell us what you think! What exactly are you disgusted at? No backtracking now...!
I note plenty of "how could there be a conspiracy", "why would the BBC et al collude" and "the truth would leak" comments in this thread. Well, does anyone remember the "massacre" at Jenin and what that turned out to be?
ReplyDeleteYou have to watch/read/listen to BBC, CNN, ITN, Euro News and all the papers then read between the lines bearing in mind that they are all currently being bombarded with letters and emails from fundamentalists whingeing about anti-semitism.
ReplyDeleteIt's one thing to suggest, quite fairly, that the photo's are staged, but the EU Ref blog suggests, quite openly, that the whole bombing was staged by Hezbollah, which is nonsense (the IDF have never suggested they bombed the building, which was holding Hezbollah militants).
ReplyDeleteHaving made such a stupid allegation, anything else that is supposed by the author has to be taken with a pinch of salt, and in the context that they clearly have a biased agenda, exactly the thing they are complaining about!
Iain,
ReplyDeleteYou're a pro-Israeli fool. I'm sure you'd be only too happy to move you and your family into southern Lebanon to see first hand what is *really* happening.
However, once there, you'd be at the whim of the IDF as to whether you'd be safe that day or not.
Maybe it will be bombs falling from the sky today, maybe a leaflet telling you to leave your home.
Why on earth should civilians move from their homes to keep their lives? And if they do move through sense of preservation, come back at a later date to find all of their worldly possessions amongst rubble and dust.
But its OK, their only Lebanese, not real people like the Israelis over the border whom it would appear are in some way sacred.
Austin, it doesn't imply that at all. Nowhere does it say that Hezbollah staged the attack, although as a terrorist organisation I certainly wouldn't put it past them.
ReplyDeletepeter north, so being pro-israeli equates to being a fool, does it?
ReplyDeleteIf these pictures are found to be staged it would be a huge story.Sadly I doubt very much that they were but would be delighted to be be proved wrong.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it reflects very well on Richard North or you Iain that you are publicising this conspiracy theory without the slightest shred of evidence.
Also interested Verity in where you read 'he carried the dead child around,using the body as a prop...',or did you make that up?
Iain, please stick to domestic politics. Getting involved in the claims and the counter claims of the Middle East will leave you in the treacle of your articles on religion. People exploit the deaths of civilians in war. Is that news ? If we start to become immune to the tragedy of the death of innocent children we will become victims of compassion fatigue, and nobody gains by that.
ReplyDeleteThere is the case of the filming of a funeral after the Jenin "massacre" which had to be refilmed when the bearers dropped the corpse out of the coffin & he had to climb back in.
ReplyDeleteHowever if ITN were able to accidentally, as they insist, fake their Bosnian concentration camp video by filming though barbed wire at people OUTSIDE the wire I don't suppose we can accuse Hezbollah of doing this intentionaly can we?
I don't see the point of the article because the assumption that seems to have been made is that everyone's been using these pictures?
ReplyDeleteWhere exactly have these pictures appeared?
And even then, if Eureferendum's arguments are correct, isn't this just a little artistic licence which matters very little in the grander scheme of things. The kid still died.
A pointless distraction from the real issues surrounding the crisis.
Deep Stoat said:
ReplyDeleteThey are real enough to give their tacit consent to the presence of terrorists in their towns and settlements.
Do any/all of use give tacit consent when terrorists move in?
I’m amazed that people should consider this kind of propaganda press manipulation to be on the same scale as mad the ‘Queen is an alien’ type conspiracy theory. The humanitarian, pacifist western press has a very predictable reaction to civilian death and this puts pressure on western diplomats to do something about it. That a terrorist organisation should seek to exploit this is so obvious that it shouldn’t need saying but apparently it does.
ReplyDeleteThere has been a lot of comparison to the so called ‘Jenin massacre’. It’s worth remembering the facts here. Early on in the campaign Fateh sources claimed “thousands” dead and called it a “massacre” with IDF forces digging "mass graves". In the end a UN report concluded there 30 PLO and 22 civilians were killed.
I also wanted to raise a different example. That was the Racak incident in Kosovo.
It is still controversial but what now appears (to me at least) to have happened is that the KLA took the bodies of (already dead) fighters and civilians, dressed them all in civilian clothes and arranged them to look as if they had been executed and dumped in a gully. ‘Villagers’ then showed the scene to the UN and the UN duly shouted war crime. A claim subsequently undermined by the forensic evidence which indicated that the majority of the dead had weapons residue on their hands and none had been shot at close range (as alleged). The Serbs claimed the whole thing was faked but given a collective memory of what had happened in Bosnia we were disinclined to believe them. What really happened will never be known but what cannot be denied is that this incident shaped western opinion to the Serbs and to the KLA with long lasting consequences.
Hezbollah are not stupid and it is not unrealistic to expect that they would ‘fake’ a massacre to reap the benefit of western indignation. I’m not accusing Hezbollah of killing civilians to place in the building but I think it possible they used civilians already dead to create a massacre. There policies of hiding in civilian areas and failing to evacuate civilians from the war zone seem designed to create one.
Iain,
ReplyDeleteThe post entitled "The "Green Helmet" mystery continues" strongly hints at this, with the text "The one thing the MSM does not want to entertain is any suggestion that the Qana incident was staged by Hezbollah".
Although I accept my initial interpretation may have been slightly harsh, the undercurrent of all this bothers me quite a lot, I just can't quite put my finger on what it is.
Journalist on assignment in Lebanon go where they want, film what they want and speak to who they want. Journalists on assignment in Israel, if they have been approved and accredited by the authorities,are not allowed to travel around freely, are told what to report, are expected to regurgitate Israeli press handouts and are escorted to what they are allowed to film. Some of the set-up film coming out of Israel is laughable, most noteable this week the shots of Ehud Olmert, Man of Action, posing in planes and ships. It was even funnier than the shots last week of two cars on fire. If Israel is mounting a campaign to tarnish the truth of film footage from Lebanon it will only serve to shine the spotlight back on themselves I fear.
ReplyDeleteIain, you are saying something, You said: "prepare to be disgusted" and your title said: "who's doing the spinning?" and also, by giving prominence to such a blog piece, you are giving it your seal of approval. Or have you been linking to loads of anti-Isreali Blog pieces as well? (I must have missed that).
ReplyDeleteIt's a legitimate story and if the main press would investigate instead of parrotting whatever they're handed we might get more truth in the papers, TV etc.
ReplyDeleteHere's another link for your inspection and comments.
desperate dan
ReplyDeleteBefore you go any further and make a complete fool of yourself read http://newsbusters.org/node/6574
which exposes the extent of Hezbollah's media manipulation.
A little background info from a Lebanese expat:
ReplyDelete"Until 2002 I lived in a small village in the south near Marjajun which was mainly populated by Shiites like myself. After Israel left the Lebanon (2001)it took not long until the Hezbollah was taking over our village and all others in the vicinity. Greeted as successful liberation fighters they appeared armed to their teeth and installed rocket arsenals in bunkers in our village too. The social work of the "Party of God" consisted in building a school and an apartment block on top of these bunkers. A local sheik explained to me laughingly that the Jews will loose in any case, either the rockets will be fired on them, or if they attack the arsenals they will be condemned by world opinion because of the many civilian dead. The lebanese (Hezbollah) population is not interested in these people, either they will use them as a shield, or for propaganda if dead. As long as they (Hezbollah) exist there, there will be no quiet and peace."
Dr.Mounir Herzallah, Berlin
German.
[Deep Stoat] Of course Lebanese people are as "real" as Israelis. (They are real enough to give their tacit consent to the presence of terrorists in their towns and settlements.)
ReplyDeleteHmm..several people are pissed off by such facile nonsense. Are you going to blame the Irish for having had terrorists in their midst ? Or the Italians for the mafia ? Oh, and somebody two doors down used to smoke pot..Grow up.
And Iain, if you really believe the nonsense that the BBC and Guardian are biased against Israel[as opposed to not always telling you what you'd like to hear / confirming your prejudices] maybe you should stop taking their money. Then your views might have more credence.
There was one point raised that many people seem to have missed.
ReplyDeleteMuch has been made about the destruction of the roads and bridges, stopping people leaving certain areas despite Israels warnings.
These roads and bridges that have been destroyed do not seem to hinder the ability of the press to move around with large amounts of equipment to show these terrible images.
If the press can get in then people can get out.
The biased view of the press is based on the desire to improve their own ratings, also they are likely to have more restrictions placed on them if they report from inside Israel rather from the Lebanese side of the border.
there will always be propaganda in war,the more intelligent of us realise that there are two sides to the story and treat such opportunistic attempts with the contempt they deserve.
the deaths of innocent people will always be a tragedy, but bfore we all condem, ask how many hundreds of thousands died when the allies firebombed dresden during world war 2.
Remember bombs are falling on both sides and if the Hezzies had the planes they would be doing much worse to Israel.
What is your point? - sounds like rabid drivel. Did the Israelis kill too many or not enough children? Is the number quoted wrong?
ReplyDeleteAll these people whining about Lebanese deaths have no alternatives to suggest. Hezbollah are storing munitions in schools and have stationed themselves in houses and villages.
ReplyDeleteAre you people saying this vicious tactic should work? That the Israelis should shrug and say, "Oh, well" and go home? What exactly are you suggesting as an alternative?
Hezbollah, an international Islamic terrorist organisation, kidnapped Israeli soldiers, within Israeli borders, and fired rockets into Israel killing, please note, civilians - i.e., men, women and children. Hebollah has taken houses, schools and villages hostage for use as human shields.
What are you suggesting Israel does? You lefties fail to carry your arguement forward to the next step. Could you stop sobbing into your hankies and give us a precise strategy, please, for the triumph of a legitimate state under attack, to prevail while not using any weapons of war?
'WmByrd' I didn't know they had brought the internet into your kind of establishment. How exactly do you use the mouse and keyboard with one arm strapped to each shoulder?
ReplyDeleteYou remind me of a mirror-pastiche of the protocol of the elders of Zion. You're right of course, the world IS flat. There there.
I wonder if you think the horrific picture of a dead Lebanese child on the front page of today's Evening Standard is faked?
ReplyDeleteObsession: What The war On Terror Is Really About.
ReplyDeleteUK clips after 30minutes or so.
Intersting that people like Verity and Wmbyrd make statements criticising the joiurnalists covering this war so that the 'facts' fit their prejudices.How pathetic.
ReplyDeleteNot a single reputable news source is claiming that the tragic events didn't happen.No doubt Verity will be able to tell us where she read that it was all a total fabrication.
For a cool, clear dissection of this issue of staged photographs, I recommend the excellent http://eureferendum.blogspot.com which has done impressive amount detective work on this.
ReplyDeleteDeep Stoat, I'm afraid the teachers' training college students and denizens of sociology departments will think you're heartless and crool.
Ah well done Verity - so for a cool unbiased opinion, backing up the alleged 'facts' that you've been spouting throughout this thread, you recommend....
ReplyDeleteThe authors of the original article.
How very droll.
The WORLD is at WAR in all but name.
ReplyDeleteOur political masters choose to tell anyone on a NEAD TO KNOW basis. Right now they think we the public dont nead to know, so they dont tell us.
When Jehad comes to a town near you my lefty friends remember this. Being a cowardly pinko anti-semitic terrorist excuser, will not save you.
Even German Jewish first WW veterans still ended up in the oven. Bus bombs dont discriminate in favour of "enlightened" lefty "itellectuals". Our civilisations enemies hate and dispise you lot the most. First in chop chop square IF the revolution comes, will be homosexuals feminists useless leftist "intellectuals", closely followed by BBC editors and journalists.
Good thing our leaders dont nead a large conscipt army anymore to stop this from happening, so now they can ignore left wingers pathetic pacifist raveings untill the job is done.
I appeal to lefties to think hard and then think hard again before ranting against Israeli actions.
Unless that is you can come up with a reasoned argument on how this tiny country is supposed to defend itself from irradication. You are a NAZI in all but name and deserve to be described as such.
Ask yourselves is your hatered of America, Jews, capitalism, and the guy you work for, so much more powerfull than your own sense of self preservation and common humanity?
This story has been discredited and I am ashamed of those that scrape the barrel to seek to undermine the case that Lebanese have been slaughtered.
ReplyDeleteWhat I find disgusting and distasteful is the enjoyment I sense from one poster here who appears to delight in telling us we are "whining about Lebanese deaths."
I find that attitude among the most chilling I have read in ten years of using the internet.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_re_us/mideast_photos;_ylt=Ai.7Nj01cUMp8om0wvgPOI.s0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ
Tom
Via His Majesty, the Emperor Mischa: http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/08/02/video-lebanese-death-pimp/
ReplyDeleteGreen helmet guy.
http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/08/02/video-lebanese-death-pimp/
ReplyDeleteReally, really not good. On the other hand, Green Hat Guy is a star.
Iain, I read about this on Monday the day after the Qana raid on a US youngster's right-wing blog ace.mu.nu. You really should check it out. There was also another article linked to on that blog a week or two ago about Hezbollah blockading southern Lebanon villages so that people could not get away to safety. I have not verified it or even supplied a link here but I got work to do unlike you journo types.
ReplyDeleteDresden was also disproportionate, and delibrate. It was a tragedy but noone would argue about the importance of fighting that war though. Actually, I guess some morons probably would nowadays.
On the 26th July 2006 was the 60th anniversary of the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. Every day the BBC has a 'what happened' on this day report. However, on the 26th July there was no mention by the BBC of a bombing that killed 91 people including 15 Jewish people. Far more one notes than Hezbollah have killed in the attack on Isreal that started the invasion of Lebanon. Surely if there is any bias at the BBC, failing to mention this Zionist terrorist attack on British soldiers is revisionist history of the very sort David Irving peddles.
ReplyDeleteAlso Benjamin Netanyahu attended the Israeli celebration of this massacre and has repeatedly justified this terrorist act, including claiming that a warning was given, despite the fact a British Major and an Arab policemen, both unarmed, had been murdered by the gang to prevent them raising the alarm, before even the terrorists claimed to have given a warning. Netanyahu should be banned from ever visiting Britain again for glorifying the murder of British soldiers and as an apologist for terrorism.
However, much of the money for Zionist terrorism against British soldiers was funded by Americans, just as Americans fund the IRA and continue to fund dissident Irish Republicans.
If the Israelis are justified in Lebanon when will we send the SAS to America and Israel to kill those who have funded, supplied and directed the murder of British soldiers in Ireland and Palestine or will we bomb America and Israel into handing over these Godfathers of terror?
Why should I care? A member of my family was killed at King David Hotel and another lost a leg in an IRA bomb attack in 1979.
Tom, aka Anonymous, aka The Injured Cyclist and God knows what else, if my posts are the most chilling things you've read on the net in 10 years, you clearly lack a sense of adventure.
ReplyDeleteThe story of Green Helmet Guy hawking around the corpses of children for photographers - including posing them, which to my mind is very chilling indeed - is not discredited. It is now accepted as undeniable.
You still haven't told us what your solution to Hezbollah atrocities aimed at Israel is. How would you protect the Jewish state from well-equipped, well-funded vicious religious terrorists? Sadly, you are typical of your socio-Gramscian breed. You sympathise, like the foul BBC, for whom you probably work, with terrorists.
Here's something to chill you further, in case the weather's still hot in Britain: Emperor Mischa, on his site, headlined this story "Qana, Qana, Qana, Qana, Qana Chameleon". Oooh, err.
Tragically awful Panorama special showing how the Hamas inculcate very young children in nursery school songs such as "drown the Jews in blood; kill them burn them bomb them" and so on. All supported by the lovely Muslim charity Interpal with money given by the restauranters you and I frequent. And the organisers of all this here in Britain? Known to MI5 and MI6 for years, yet nothing at all is done about them. Now why is that? Could it be that our government, far from being the rabid supporters of Israel that people on this blog accuse them of, are actually hedging their bets and have judged that if Israel is overthrown, they will be well in with the new Muslim masters? If I was in charge, the firing squads would be hard at work, starting at Thames House and the South bank of the Thames.
ReplyDeleteVerity said...
ReplyDelete"THE STORY of Green Helmet Guy hawking around the corpses of children for photographers - including posing them, which to my mind is very chilling indeed - is not discredited. It is now accepted as undeniable."
Please provide evidence including details of sources and eyewitnesses to verify 'the story.'
I won't hold my breath. By the way, do you swallow ice cubes to keep warm?
anonymong 11.32 - who wants me to provide links that I've read over the past few days, as though my life was devoted to researching this project instead of just reading about it... No. It's not a career. You find it. The references are all over the internet. Try EUReferendum, for example. They have done a lot of forensic work on these photos.
ReplyDeleteGreen Helmet guy has been pictured carrying the corpse of a little boy, seemingly for hours, and posing with this corpse in different venues (Green Helmet Guy always dramatically distraught, for the Western journalists), including propping the corpse's head up for the cameras and at one point getting his helpers to prop the corpse almost upright. It is sickening.
The ever-busy Mr Green Helmet Man is back pictured carrying the corpse of a little girl (over different terrain with different buildings and countryside in the background). How do we know this little child is a girl? Her pyjama bottoms have been removed and her pyjama top rolled up to her chin.
Think carefully: She is (was, God rest her soul) a little Muslim girl. She is being paraded basically naked (although she wasn't naked when she went to bed; she'd had her pyjamas on) by a man for publicity purposes. Her pyjama bottoms didn't get blown off. In the photo, there was no damage to her lower half. So what happened to them? Who took them off?
And why was her pyjama top rolled up to her chin as this man, mimicking urgency at several venues, paraded her corpse around for photographers? If you know Muslims at all, this is an obscenity perpetrated on this little girl. Actually, I think most people of any religion would consider this an obscenity.
I'm not in the research business, so you'll have to do your own work. If you don't want to do it, tante pis. Continue living in outrage-land. Meanwhile, the Israelis are fighting for their lives, and not using children as props. And Hezbollah are firing into Israel and killing Israeli children.
BTW, anonymous 11:12 or whatever, you can also go to the fabulous and vicious Emperor Mischa, the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler, on this at www.nicedoggie.net
ReplyDeleteBTW, I wonder how many paedophiles and corprophiliacs have clocked this poor little girl who had her pyjama bottoms removed in death for the world's photojournalists?
So Verity, you have one source: a Euroreferendum blog that nobody had ever heard of that nobody posts on, that has no evidence and its argument has been discredited.
ReplyDeleteI again refer to UN workers, ambulance workers, British journalists on the ground like Jeremy Bowen and Johnathan Steele and hundreds of other western reporters and fim crews, Human Rights Watch investigators, all of whom have reported on the slaughter.
Steele who saw the carnage with his own eyes said in the Guardian: "The Israeli bomb left the tall building standing but homed in on the basement which is open at one side. Twenty people who had thought they were safe died instantly."
Peter Bouckaert, a Human Rights Watch investigator, said: "They're hitting civilians time and time again."
And you criticise "all these people whining about Lebanese deaths" as if you have knowledge that Lebanese have not died.
And then when asked for sources, you say it is not your job to do research. Sorry but when you start stating as fact that the death of those in Lebanon is a fabrication, you need to do some research and produce some evidence, or otherwise show some respect for the blood of the innocent.
It is time you condemned the atrocities intead of finding new ways to excuse it.
There is no military reason why Hezbollah should choose to set up their rockets in villages. There is no shortage of roadsides & open fields in Lebanon.
ReplyDeleteConsequently the only reason for using villages is to use the locals as human shields.
It should be remembered that of the 3 marketplace shellings in Sarajevo used by NATO as excuses for bombing, 2 were subsequently found by the UN to have come from Moslem lines (you can tell the range by the angle the shell lands at & blast pattern) & the 3rd was officially unidentifiable because there were no blast traces, nobody heard the shell land & the bodies had been dead long before the shell was alleged to have landed. Much of the sniping in Sarajevo was also carried out by Moslems to get on TV. Finally the Bosnian President is on record as having said that the US had told him that what was required was the massacre of at least 5,000 Bosnians to assure intervention - shortly before the alleged Srebrenica Massacre (about which the official story has changed repeatedly).
The one thing which guarantees that various monsters will murder their own people to get TV coverage is getting such unquestioning coverage.
anonymous 10:39, from whose plangent self-righteousness I deduce is also Tom, aka The Injured Cyclist.
ReplyDeleteI won't match your prolixity, but
1. Lots of sources, among them EU Referendum, also nicedoggie.net and if you Google others, they will appear on your screen. This has been widely reported.
2. I am not saying people are not dead. Can you read? I already discussed the dead little boy and the dead little girl being paraded around for various photocalls. A lot of Lebanese are dead (despite Israel leafletting areas in advance, to warn them) and they were murdered by Hezbollah, who made them, against their will, into human shields by storing munitions in working schools and firing rockets from houses in neighbourhoods. There are videos, but I am not doing your work for you, you spineless, weak-kneed, weepy war crimes denier.
Verity, with all due respect please provide the sources to substantiate your claims. When I say sources, I mean sources of information, not sources of idle unsubstantiated and biased speculation.
ReplyDeleteI expect something better from you than a dodgy dossier standard of information as you are so sure you are right and every mainstream British reporter, the red cross and Human Rights Watch and Kofi Annan and Jack Straw are all wrong.
Otherwise why not retract your unsourced, unsubstantiated statements?
Go to the Anti-Idotarian Rottweiler. It is the bloggers who did the detective work here, not the MSM who were having their photo ops (bodies ofchildren included free of charge)organised for them by Hezbollah. Now some of the more honourable MSM have picked up on it.
ReplyDeleteI'm not a researcher. I don't copy links to things I read during the course of a day. You'll have to look the sources up yourself. Or not. Who cares? Why are you so eager to exonerate a terrorist organisation whose name means Army of God?
If you don't believe the evidence of the photographs now it has been pointed out to you, your opinion will occasion a large yawn. You're a terrorist sympathiser and beneath engaging with.
Verity. I did have a look at that anti-idiot blog, an ironic title considering the level of logic and bias used.
ReplyDeleteI saw no investigation and nothing out of the ordinary. I saw a video of normal humnan behaviour. Now I understand how you want to take that and make a case that proves something, but if that's the best you can do, you have no case.
All you have is a few blogs of outlandish idle speculation. I could equally show you David Icke blogs that show a race of lizard illuminati rule the world, but that proves nothing and you have NOTHING to substantiate your claims.
I'm surprised you aren't red-faced with embarrassment to point anyone in the direction of those sort of blogs as your alleged sources.
Tom
The EUReferendum is highly regarded and run by two well-known political writers. I'm not surprised you've never heard of it. They did an unanswerable forensic examination of the photographs.
ReplyDeleteThis is my last post on the subject, and I posted it because I cannot allow you to refer to the EUReferendum blog as being non-consequential. It has a large following among European pols and journos.
Mischa's blog, which also has many political tipsters among its readership, is called not the anti-idiot blog, but the Anti-Idiotarian Rotterweiler. He demolishes idiotarians, of which you are a ghastly example. (Jimmy Carter is another, so you're in terrible company.)
You are a terrorist sympathiser and thus not sane.
Verity, you can talk up Euroreferendum blog all you like, but I note you are posting your comments on the splendid Iain Dale blog, not Euroreferendum blog. Maybe that's because you know nobody comments on the other blog.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, that referendum blog looks to me like a site to undermine the case for a referendum on the Euro, by presenting themselves as people who want a referendum then putting fantastical theories about Lebanese fatalities that don't hold up to any scrutiny, making themselves look like nutters, humiliated by the media.
As for the anti-idiot dog blog, presumably there's not enough news about Rottweilers at the moment. Their link to a video clip shows what? Nothing out of the ordinary considering the circumstances or do you expect all people to behave exactly how you imagine them to when bombed and then filmed?
So what you have is a theory and no substance. Not a shred of substance. So not surprising as you admit you are not interested in doing any research.
However, there is no shame in admitting you are wrong, so when you do, do not think of it as a weakness, but as a strength.
Tom
Mous your argument amounts to "I won't believe any source that supports Isreal now provide me with proof I will accept favouting Israel. This is a common line in many politically correct circles but it is not an argument.
ReplyDeleteYou do not & cannot produce any reason, other than to use civilians as human body armour, why Hezbollah use villages as firing sites.
Verity I think you are wrong to believe that supporters of terrorists are ipso facto insane - if so the leaders of many countries, including our own, are insane.
Not really, Mr Craig, if you refer to my posts.
ReplyDeleteI am ready to believe collectively Western reporters and TV crews and what Human Rights Watch and UN workers have stated, that the Isrealis are killing a lot of civillians. Personally, I doubt they are all fabricating the news in an anti-Israel conspiracy.
But no, I am not prepared to believe the unsubstantiated theories of a Euroreferendum blog over all those sources mentioned above. What that has to do with political correctness, I do not know.
Tom
For those naive souls who do not believe the MSM is collaborating with the terrorists, specifically in Lebanon, you might to go to this link about al-Reuters' photoshopped pictures of Beirut bombings.
ReplyDeletehttp://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21956_Reuters_Doctoring_Photos_from_Beirut&only
Before I hear panicky shrieks of "Unsubstantiated! I don't care what one of the most widely read blogs - Little Green Footballs - in the Anglosphere accuses! The mainstream press is innocent! Innocent I tell you!", REUTERS HAS APOLOGISED and sent editors a "Picture Kill" notification.
They weren't sorry until they got caught, though. And besides, it was a mistake! - that someone spent several hours faking this photo.
Read Charles Johnson's clinical deconstruction of this photo - he takes the reader step by step through how it was done - and weep ye collaborators, fellow-travellers and terrorist apologists.
And again, from Reuters, of course, but also from AP, a Lebanese woman who seems to be a particularly unlucky multiple home-owner, wails in sorrow as her homes - if indeed, of course, they are hers - get bombed on different dates.
ReplyDeleteAnd this: http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com Scroll down to "Extreme Makeover - Beirut Edition" first, then scroll up to "More Extreme Makeover". Some of the photos were taken (ahem), by Adnan Hajj, who did such an ace job of Photoshopping Beirut on fire.
Faked photos do not make a case that Israel is not bombing innocent people, any more than those fake Daily Mirror photos that Piers Morgan resigned over proved that prisoner abuse did not happen, any more than a fake WMD dossier proved we could all be obliterated in 45 minutes.
ReplyDeleteNow then Verity, what is your point?
Tom
Well, well, well. It seems that the story has come full circle...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.journalism.co.uk/news/story1960.shtml