posted August 24, 2006 04:21 PM            

This is the lead into the story. There are many pictures on the page which prove Hezbollah staged another "war crimes" hoax and their collaborating media photographers and reporters dutifully reported the propaganda to the world as absolute truth.

The Red Cross Ambulance Incident

How the Media Legitimized an Anti-Israel Hoax and Changed the Course of a War

+ Introduction

+ What Supposedly Happened: The Media Accuses Israel of War Crimes

posted August 25, 2006 12:43 PM              

Just goes to show, Hezbollah is not above diabolical misinformation campaignes. This is a very malicious organization, with extremely sininster ambitions, and the sooner people realize that, the better off we'll all be.

posted August 25, 2006 01:55 PM            

In any case, it will be those same sympathizers that will state WE are actually the ones that doctored the photos to make Hizbollah look bad...

posted August 28, 2006 08:13 PM            

Now that's the last excuse I would have expected

Why we don't believe you
By Mary Katharine Ham
Monday, August 28, 2006

Does the mainstream press ever wonder why conservatives distrust them so much?

If so, they need look no further than the “fauxtography” scandals of the last couple of weeks. Conservative bloggers have been hard at work sniffing out suspected fakery and staging in the photos sent back on the newswires from the Israel/Hezbollah conflict, and the investigation got pretty smelly.

First, there was Reutersgate, in which the international news organization had to pull a photo and fire a freelance photographer because he clumsily Photoshopped thicker smoke into the skyline of Beirut.

This incident got bloggers wondering what other photographic evidence of Israeli aggression had been Photoshopped or staged into existence, and just how complicit the news media was in the fakery. They came up with a photo by the same Reuters photographer, in which he had added flares to a photograph of an Israeli plane, and called them missiles.

But that was just the beginning. There was Green Helmet Guy, who seemed to be ever-present at the sites of Israeli “atrocities,” always making the most of the evidence of civilian casualties. He even played director to international news crews and photographers, showing them how to get the best shots of Lebanese casualties.

Then there was the “Passion of the Toys,” in which brand-new toys—poignant symbols of childhood innocence—seemed to keep popping up, perfectly framed by the destruction of war, yet strangely unscathed by it.

Oh, but it doesn’t stop there. Later came the “unluckiest multiple home owner in Lebanon,” photographed on several occasions, weeping in front of her several homes, bombed by several Israeli airstrikes. Then, we have the New York Times’ pieta, in which a rescue worker was carelessly identified as a victim of an airstrike when, in fact, he had been injured while working in the area. And, the flaming tire atrocity. And, the time Hezbollah bombed an Israeli ship in Australia.

Finally, this week, there was the ambulance attack that maybe wasn’t. There’s strong evidence to suggest that the two ambulances allegedly hit by Israeli airstrikes on July 23 were not exactly pulverized by missiles, as we were led to believe.

Reuters fired its fake photographer, which was the correct response to such deception. But, beyond that, there has not been much comeuppance for photographers and reporters involved in airbrushed, faked, and staged news.

The mainstream media’s response to the allegations from blogs has been more along the lines of Greg Mitchell’s, editor of Editor & Publisher, a trade magazine whose mission it is to cover “all aspects of the North American newspaper industry, including business, newsroom, advertising, circulation, marketing, technology, online and syndicates.”

Mitchell’s response to accusations from bloggers—instead of answering the charges and refuting evidence—was to get very defensive, claim that “rightwing bloggers” were only attempting to smear photojournalists as a group, and then proceed to smear rightwing bloggers as a group for daring to point out the dishonesty of some photojournalists, and raise questions about how business is conducted in the Middle East.

You can see Mitchell’s response to the accusations, here and here. You can see the deconstruction thereof, here and here. All are worth a read to really understand how the mainstream media deals with accusations of fraud, and how cavalierly it tosses aside some of its most avid consumers’ concerns. Here’s a typical paragraph from one of Mitchell’s pieces:

Time does not permit a point by point documentation of the dozens of ludicrous, or at least completely unproven, examples of doctored or staged or otherwise manipulated photos on the Web. Have no fear, I will soon return to this subject, but in the meantime, feel free to plunge into the blogosphere. If you go deeply enough, you may feel you are back on the Grassy Knoll. One of the most-linked sites in this controversy, EU Referendum, goes so far as to suggest that a kind of Hollywood "film-set" was improvised at the site of the Qana killings "for the benefit of both Hezbollah and the media."

I would highly recommend you go through the links I’ve listed above and decide for yourself whether the accusations are “ludicrous,” particularly the video of a Hollywood film-set improvised at the site of the Qana killing, “for the benefit of both Hezbollah and the media.”

Instead of addressing concerns and refuting evidence, Mitchell calls bloggers a bunch of Grassy Knoll-ers intent on discrediting “the media as a whole.” This is not the way to win trust with your audience.

Mitchell then went on to discredit himself within the space of just a couple hours.

On Friday, the Confederate Yankee blog brought attention to a column Mitchell had written in 2003, in which he confessed to making up news as a young reporter. He had been sent out to do a story on Niagara Falls, and found himself unable to talk to tourists to get quotes. So, he sat on a bench and made the quotes up. He confessed his journalistic sin in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal.

Many other blogs picked up on the 2003 column, suggesting that Mitchell might be sympathetic to faked news because he himself had been a faker.

Several hours after Confederate Yankee’s post went up, that blogger noticed the text of the 2003 article had been changed. The lede had gone from this:

"Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?"

To This:

"Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back in 1967, when I was 19 and worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette) as a summer intern, our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally "turned off" the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?[/b]

The column had been edited, without notation, within a couple of hours of bloggers calling attention to it, to emphasize Mitchell’s youth and inexperience at the time of his ethical faux pas. Luckily, several bloggers and the Internet preserved the original piece.

So, it seems someone went back and altered a three-year-old column to reflect more positively on Mitchell, once it got a bit of attention from the “Grassy Knoll,” “rightwing bloggers.” Makes all those “ludicrous” accusations of dishonesty of the mainstream press seem not so ludicrous, doesn’t it?

Mitchell now has not just his industry’s malfeasance to answer for, but his own malfeasance, which he admitted to in a 2003 column, and which was then compounded when someone altered his three-year-old copy to protect him.

Changing copy three years after it has been published, without providing a “correction” or “clarification” note, is entirely unethical by the very standards of the newspaper industry Mitchell is charged with covering. Dan Riehl, another blogger, has evidence that Mitchell may have been altering copy in his latest E&P column, as well.

Rightwing bloggers are predisposed to distrust the media, as are most conservatives. The fauxtographers and defenders like Mitchell are giving us no reason to be encouraged. The mainstream press’ stock is in credibility. The right course is to answer, quickly and thoroughly, any credible charges against them, so as to preserve that stock.

Instead, with the notable exceptions of David Perlmutter and Jim Pinkerton, the mainstream media seems content to blame it all on the Grassy Knoll while half of its readers find news coverage is greener on the other side.

posted August 28, 2006 08:38 PM            

Better yet, maybe they can call everyone a racist and get the attention off their inability to carry on an intelligent conversation / debate.

posted August 29, 2006 02:44 AM              

quote:

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Actually one can even see it here on a small scale with certain Radical Libbies deleted or editing posts so that there words "never happened".--pidaua

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posted November 29, 2006 10:46 AM            

Is it a war crime to use civilians as shields during offensive operations where rockets, missiles or gunfire is initiated from private residences, residential apartment buildings or crowds of civilians?

Is it a war crime to set off car bombs in civilian crowded outside bazaars?

Is it a war crime to set off explosive belts and/or explosive vests in restaurants, buses or other areas where there is no military target but rather large gatherings of civilians?

Are members of Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al-Qaeda, the Madhi army or other militias "civilians" or are they "combatants"?

posted November 29, 2006 11:48 AM            

One network, NBC News used the story of 6 Iraqis doused with kerosene and set on fire as an excuse to redefine the fighting in Iraq as a "civil war".

This story was spread around the world by news media outlets. But it's a hoax, like other terrorist hoaxes already exposed and part of the terrorist propaganda campaign to get the United States to withdraw military forces from Iraq. After all, we wouldn't want to be in the middle of a "civil war".

The facts make it clear the so called main stream media are not only complicit but willingly complicit since they were warned the "quoted" individuals whom they are taking their accounts from either do not exist at all or do not work where they say they work and therefore there is not one reason to believe a word they say.

As more Americans come to realize the so called main stream media are engaged in a politically driven agenda instead of reporting the news, fewer and fewer Americans believe a word they say or print either.

The AP's new Baghdad Bob
Posted: November 29, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
Michelle Malkin

You will not read one of the most significant stories of the week out of Iraq on the front page of the New York Times. CNN will not make it headline news. The Associated Press has yet to touch it.
That's because the story exposes the media's own widespread malfeasance in reporting on the war on terror – and their refusal to be held accountable when challenged by "amateur" bloggers investigating fishy sources and claims recycled recklessly by "professional" journalists.

One of the most sensational news items over the Thanksgiving holiday came from the Associated Press, which reported on six Sunni civilians burned alive as they left Friday mosque services. The shocking dispatch received global coverage. The front cover of the Philadelphia Daily News blasted: "WORSHIPPERS BURNED ALIVE: Capping deadliest week of war, 6 Sunnis doused with kerosene, set afire as Iraqi soldiers reportedly stand idle." The Chicago Sun-Times blared: "Sunnis burned alive in revenge." The Sydney Morning Herald in Australia headlined: "Shiite militia burn Sunnis alive in revenge attacks." The Calcutta Telegraph in India echoed: "Shias burn Sunnis alive."

The Washington Post announced: "New savage twist to violence in Baghdad." The lead paragraph reported: "Revenge-seeking Shiite militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers, drenched them with kerosene and burned them alive, and Iraqi soldiers did nothing to stop the attack, police and witnesses said."

The story continued: "Police Capt. Jamil Hussein said Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in the burnings of Sunnis carried out by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia, or in subsequent attacks that torched four Sunni mosques and killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same northwest Baghdad area."

Just a few small problems with the massively publicized story:

"Police Capt. Jamil Hussein" is an unreliable, unauthorized spokesperson whom the military has warned the Associated Press about before.

The incident cannot be verified.
Readers of newspapers around the world that carried the story have not been informed of any of this by the Associated Press or any other mainstream media outlet. But those who follow the blogosphere have been unraveling the story over the past week at lightning pace. Curt at the Flopping Aces blog has led the way, first raising questions on Saturday morning about "police Capt. Jamil Hussein's" account. He noted an official Multi-National Corps-Iraq statement in response to the AP report that "neither we nor Baghdad Police had any reports of such an incident after investigating it and could find no one to corroborate the story."

Next, he published a bombshell e-mail from U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in Iraq (which CENTCOM also confirmed to me). Since September, Multi-National Forces in Iraq, or MNC-I, have worked with a group of retired police officers there to verify the legitimacy and employment of Iraqi Police and Ministry of Interior "spokesmen" quoted in the media. According to the military, the Associated Press has been warned previously about these unreliable sources who have not been established as bona fide employees – but "they have pretty much ignored us."

The list includes the following sources, many of whom have appeared in countless AP stories: police Lt. Ali Abbas; police Capt. Mohammed Abdel-Ghani; police Brigadier Sarhat Abdul-Qadir; Mosul police Director Gen. Wathiq al-Hamdani; police Lt. Bilal Ali; Ali al-Obaidi, a medic at Ramadi Hospital; police Maj. Firas Gaiti; police Capt. Mohammed Ismail; Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the Interior Ministry spokesman (a.k.a. Police Brigadier Abd al-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, Brig. Abdel-Karim Khalaf); Mohammed Khayon, a Baghdad police lieutenant; police spokesman Mohammed Kheyoun (a.k.a. police Lt. Mohammed Khayoun); Lt. Thaer Mahmoud, head of a police section responsible for releasing daily death tolls; police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid; police Lt. Ali Muhsin; police 1st Lt. Mutaz Salahhidine (a.k.a. Lt. Mutaz Salaheddin); Col. Abbas Mohammed Salman; and policeman Haider Satar.

And that's a partial list.

After Curt's inquiries, CENTCOM sent a request for retraction to the Associated Press. Public Affairs Officer Lt. Michael Dean of the MNC-I Joint Operations Center wrote:

We can tell you definitively that the primary source of this story, police Capt. Jamil Hussein, is not a Baghdad police officer or an MOI employee. We verified this fact with the MOI through the Coalition Police Assistance Training Team. ...
... Also, we definitely know, as we told you several weeks ago through the MNC-I Media Relations cell, that another AP-popular IP spokesman, Lt. Maithem Abdul Razzaq, supposedly of the city's Yarmouk police station, does not work at that police station and is also not authorized to speak on behalf of the IP. The MOI has supposedly issued a warrant for his questioning.

... Unless you have a credible source to corroborate the story of the people being burned alive, we respectfully request that AP issue a retraction, or a correction at a minimum, acknowledging that the source named in the story is not who he claimed he was. MNC-I and MNF-I are always available and willing to verify events and provide as much information as possible when asked.

The Associated Press has yet to respond to queries from both Curt and me regarding its reporting on the incident. As of Tuesday afternoon, I could find no retraction, correction or reference to the shady spokesman angle in any Associated Press report. The silence from AP (and the rest of the media, for that matter) comes as no surprise. This is, after all, the same organization that sat on the news for five months that one of its Iraqi-based stringers, Bilal Hussein, had been and remains in detention after being captured by U.S. military forces with an alleged al-Qaida operative.

At least we know how to get the blabbermouth media to clam up now: Just start asking them questions and a mammoth hush will fall over newsrooms faster than you can press "mute."
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53147

posted November 29, 2006 02:34 PM            

quote:

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Dont be so quick to assume my position on issues my dear

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Hmmm, don't think I did that...hence the questions.

Lots of people here have differing definitions for the term "war crime".

posted November 30, 2006 04:52 PM            

To this sorry contingent of Americans, the truth is whatever they can make you believe.

To this end, these leftists never miss an opportunity to lie in pursuit of their causes.

Their current cause is handing terrorists a victory in Iraq...and every other place where America engages an enemy in military action.

November 30, 2006
Fanning the flames
Sharon Tosi Moore

Our contributor Sharon Tosi Moore is an officer in the United States Army Reserves, currently serving in Iraq. Today, she writes about the disputed report of Sunnis burned alive by Shiites.

"Sunnis Burned Alive in Revenge Attacks"
This headline was blared with authority and gleeful revulsion across every newspaper in the U.S. Even Stars and Stripes, the military newspaper overseas, declared this in 2-inch letters on its front page.

And why not? It is compelling story and a sure sign that sectarian tensions in Iraq have reached a new high (or low). THIS is surely the signal that Iraq has descended into new depths of barbarity and depravity.

MSNBC's story is typical:
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Revenge-seeking militiamen seized six Sunnis as they left Friday prayers and burned them alive with kerosene in a savage new twist to the brutality shaking the Iraqi capital a day after suspected Sunni insurgents killed 215 people in Baghdad's main Shiite district.
Iraqi soldiers at a nearby army post failed to intervene in Friday's assault by suspected members of the Shiite Mahdi Army militia or subsequent attacks that killed at least 19 other Sunnis, including women and children, in the same neighborhood, the volatile Hurriyah district in northwest Baghdad, said police Capt. Jamil Hussein.
Sunni "eyewitnesses" confidently denounced the Shiite-dominated government for their inaction. There were bold claims that the Iraqi Army stood by and did nothing as this horrifying crime happened. People around the world braced themselves for the spectacular reprisals that would surely come from the Sunni. The press practically salivated at the bloodshed (and glorious headlines) that would be forthcoming.

A winning situation all around.

Except, well, except for the tiny little detail that the incident most likely never happened. A week has gone by and no charred bodies were produced. No dramatic funeral parades, with all the attendant wailing and gnashing of teeth, occurred. Not one photo. No grand reprisals. Not even any speeches (and it is hard to imagine Iraqi religious leaders miss an opportunity to make speeches). Just a few remarks from the Iraqi government, largely ignored by the U.S. press, that all reports showed that that particular district had been quiet, and pleading the Iraqi people for calm.

No one thought to question this unusual divergence from normal protocol.

The gullible press swallowed the initial claims whole. Of the major news sources, only TIME Magazine used the word "reportedly" in their headline. Besides, there are always new and dramatic stories of gore and bloodshed in Iraq and no one has the time to check their sources carefully or to go back and correct erroneous reports.

A review of the databases that painstakingly record every single incident in Iraq shows no evidence or report of the event. It is hard to believe that something as momentous as this would have escaped the notice of both the U.S. military and the entire Iraqi government. And yet not one major news organization has recanted their article. The story has been allowed to stand, and as such has become a truth. It is now just one more legend that will be confidently repeated as truth in future histories of the conflict.

posted December 01, 2006 01:26 AM            

Michelle Malkin has the details of a press conference held today by Iraqi Brigadier General Abdul-Kareem, speaking for the Iraqi Minstry of the Interior:

From CPATT PAO: BG Abdul-Kareem, the Ministry of Interior Spokesman, went on the record today stating that Capt. Jamil Hussein is not a police officer. He explained the coordinations among MOI, the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Defense in attempting to track down these bodies and their joint conclusion was that this was unsubstantiated rumor.

He went on to name several other false sources that have been used recently and appealed to the media to document their news before reporting. He went into some detail about the impact of the press carrying propaganda for the enemies of Iraq and thanked "the friends" who have brought this to their attention.

AP did attend the press conference.

Michelle has also posted a partial transcript of the press conference. In it, Abdul-Kareem accuses the wire services of printing unsubstantiated rumors using anonymous sources and bogus named sources.
So far, the Associated Press is standing by their story, claiming that their reporters visited Jamil Hussein at his police station.

This brings the AP's reporters themselves into question. Are they simply trying to cover up a costly and humiliating mistake, or are they unvetted local hires whose allegiance is really to al Qaeda?
http://newsbusters.org/node/9348

posted December 04, 2006 05:13 PM            

I wouldn't be surprised if an ambulance was hit. However, media has the tendency of blowing everything out of proportation much like terror threat alarms in the U.S. and Britin. Did it ever occur to anyone as to why MI-6 or the CIA would reveal actual terrorit cell numbers and plans to the public when the support for the so called "war on terror" is at an all time low? Fear people. Fear and vunerablility. In their opinion, people need to be swayed to see the imaginative concequences of not passing laws that contradict the very essence of U.S. constitution and the Bill of rights.

posted December 05, 2006 01:04 AM            

Perhaps you haven't heard but terrorists killed 3,000 Americans on 9/11, destroyed a symbol of America, the WTC, attacked another..the Pentagon and attempted to attack another..either the Capitol Building or the White House.

Perhaps you also don't know the story of America's encounter with the Barbary Pirates.

It seems Muslim terrorists were capturing ships from the European powers of France, England, Spain and even the Vatican and demanding ransom be paid for the release of prisoners...and tribute. America paid ransom too and continued to do so for about 30 years off and on. Jefferson attempted to stop it and had marginal success.

This is the story about what happened when America had had enough. Far from your illusions that early America did not involve itself in the affairs of other nations, the American flag was planted on foreign soil by US Marines about April 1805 during the Presidency of Thomas Jefferson. If you sing along with the Marine Hymn, you will come to the phrase "to the shores of Tripoli" which denotes the battle in which the American flag was first raised on foreign soil and for a very good reason.

"Following the War of 1812, Stephen Decatur entered the Mediterranean with ten tall ships and the steely determination that made him a hero. Like Preble before him, he let his cannon do the talking. Fighting fire with fire, he took 486 prisoners and forced the Algerians to pay a ransom of $10,000, to release all captives immediately, and to cease and desist all demands for further tribute from America forever. Such insurmountable logic was not lost on the Dey. Likewise the Dey of Tunis paid Decatur $46,000 to not hurt him, and the Pasha of Tripoli contributed $25,000 to see the last of the Americans. Decatur finally broke the Barbary threat with the only weapon the pirates understood.

Writing in American Heritage, Kevin Baker wrote: ?It had taken the United States three decades and plenty of missteps to finally rid itself of the terrorists of the Mediterranean, but in the process it had become a stronger, wiser nation, with some invaluable new institutions."
http://www.deanesmay.com/archives/000374.html

posted December 05, 2006 01:18 AM            

This is a picture of the ambulance Israel was accused of attacking.

Note the perfectly circular hole in the top and right at the center of the cross.

Same ambulance and note the unpainted circle around the supposed hole the supposed missile made going in. Note also the screw holes spaced around the unpainted area of the hole. Obviously this hole was not made by a missile but by the removal of the red flashing light fixture from the top of the ambulance. Yet, western reporters swallowed the hoax whole and lapped up the propaganda like mother's milk. Any idiot could plainly see no missile, Israeli or otherwise struck the ambulance. But it did fit the main stream media's agenda to portray it that way.

posted December 05, 2006 04:31 PM            

quote:

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. BlueRoamer

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That's the most intelligent thing you've said here Blue.