Qana staged?

[jswranch]

[quote]Lebanese rescue teams did not start evacuating the building until the morning and only after the camera crews came. The absence of a real rescue effort was explained by saying that equipment was lacking. There were no scenes of live or injured people being extracted.
There was little blood, CNN's Wedeman noted: all the victims, he concluded, appeared to have died while as they were sleeping -- sleeping, apparently, through thunderous Israeli air attacks. Rescue workers equipped with cameras were removing the bodies from the same opening in the collapsed structure. Journalists were not allowed near the collapsed building.

Rescue workers filmed as they went carried the victims on the stretchers, occasionally flipping up the blankets so that cameras could show the faces and bodies of the dead.

But Israelis steeled to scenes of carnage from Palestinian suicide bombings and Hezbollah rocket attack could not help but notice that these victims did not look like our victims. Their faces were ashen gray. While medical examination clearly is called for to arrive at a definitive dating and cause of their deaths, they do not appear to have died hours before. The bodies looked like they had been dead for days.

Viewers can judge for themselves. But the accumulating evidence suggests another explanation for what happened at Kana. The scenario would be a setup in which the time between the initial Israeli bombing near the building and morning reports of its collapse would have been used to "plant" bodies killed in previous fighting -- reports in previous days indicated that nearby Tyre was used as a temporary morgue -- place them in the basement, and then engineer a "controlled demolition" to fake another Israeli attack.

The well-documented use by Palestinians of this kind of faked footage -- from the alleged shooting of Mohammed Dura in Gaza, scenes from Jenin of "dead" victims falling off gurneys and then climbing back on -- have merited the creation of a new film genre called "Palliwood."

There is increasing evidence that the Kana sequel is another episode in this genre, a variety which might be called Hezbollywood. The Hezbollah have evidently learned their craft well. [/quote]




others:
[url="http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/07/30/qana-bombing-building-collapsed-eight-hours-after-attack/"]http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/0...s-after-attack/[/url]

[url="http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/188571.php"]http://confederateyankee.mu.nu/archives/188571.php[/url]

[url="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/218vnicq.asp"]http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Publ...01/218vnicq.asp[/url]

[stephen]

[size=4][b]News agencies stand by Lebanon photos[/b] [/size]

[b]By DAVID BAUDER, Associated Press Writer [/b]

Tue Aug 1, 4:26 PM ET

NEW YORK - Three news agencies on Tuesday rejected challenges to the veracity of photographs of bodies taken in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, strongly denying that the images were staged.

Photographers from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse all covered rescue operations Sunday in Qana, where 56 Lebanese were killed. Many of their photos depicted rescue workers carrying dead children.

A British Web site, the EU Referendum blog, built an argument that chicanery may have been involved by citing time stamps that went with captions of the photographs.

For example, the Web site draws attention to a photo by AP's Lefteris Pitarakis time stamped 7:21 a.m., showing a dead girl in an ambulance. Another picture, stamped 10:25 a.m. and taken by AP's Mohammed Zaatari, shows the same girl being loaded onto the ambulance. In a third, by AP photographer Nasser Nasser and stamped 10:44 a.m., a rescue worker carries the girl with no ambulance nearby.

The site suggests these events were staged for effect, a criticism echoed by talk show host Rush Limbaugh when he directed listeners to the blog on Monday.

"These photographers are obviously willing to participate in propaganda," Limbaugh said. "They know exactly what's being done, all these photos, bringing the bodies out of the rubble, posing them for the cameras, it's all staged. Every bit of it is staged and the still photographers know it."

The AP said information from its photo editors showed the events were not staged, and that the time stamps could be misleading for several reasons, including that web sites can use such stamps to show when pictures are posted, not taken. An AFP executive said he was stunned to be questioned about it. Reuters, in a statement, said it categorically rejects any such suggestion.

"It's hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy," said Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor.

Carroll said in addition to personally speaking with photo editors, "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described."

Photographers are experienced in recognizing when someone is trying to stage something for their benefit, she said.

"Do you really think these people would risk their lives under Israeli shelling to set up a digging ceremony for dead Lebanese kids?" asked Patrick Baz, Mideast photo director for AFP. "I'm totally stunned by first the question, and I can't imagine that somebody would think something like that would have happened."

The AP had three different photographers there who weren't always aware of what the others were doing, and filed their images to editors separately, said Santiago Lyon, director of photography.

There are also several reasons not to draw conclusions from time stamps, Lyon said. Following a news event like this, the AP does not distribute pictures sequentially; photos are moved based on news value and how quickly they are available for an editor to transmit.

The AP indicates to its members when they are sent on the wire, and member Web sites sometimes use a different time stamp to show when they are posted.

[url="http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_...zazkxBHNlYwN0bQ"]http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060801/ap_on_...zazkxBHNlYwN0bQ[/url]

[KnightofChrist]

From EU Referendum

[quote]
It seems to me that the MSM is about as accurate and incisive in its critiques of this blog as it is in reporting the news.

It starts with the AP "rebuttal" which homes in on the "date stamp" issue, but addresses none of the other points raised and then, curiously, does not actually say that the timing attributed to the photographs were wrong.

Several readers have written to me, however, saying look at the shadows, some offering their own analyses, which are very plausible. If you look particularly at the "Green Helmet" sequences which I have posted, there definitely seem to be indications that the shows are longer on some shots than others, suggesting a longer time-frame than the context would indicate.

The photographs are up and posted for all to see and from which to draw their own conclusions. You do not want any more gruesome pictures from me, so I have posted a picture of one of those vile, blood-thirsty Israeli soldiers that so many have written to tell me about.

As to the MSM, second into the fray was Roy Greenslade of The Guardian, who plays the typical left-wing trick of dismissing me as a "right winger" and there fore not worth listening to. He also puts us down as "churning out anti-EU rants", which means he cannot have read this sequence. But then, stereotyping is so much easier when you ignore the facts.

And into that frame comes Jefferson Morely at the Washington Post, who rushes to brand me as a conspiracy theorist, that being his comfort blanket which allows him to ignore the central message of the sequence of posts we have been running.

Morely's great claim to fame is that I have branded "Green Helmet" as a Hezbollah official, without a shred of evidence, going only on "gut instinct". What Morely does not want to address though is that this man is clearly more than a "rescue workers" which the media so decorously brand him. He behaviour on site, and the reaction of others to him – as well as the media – clearly demonstrate him to be in a position of authority. Yet none of the British or US media want to name him, or describe his function. Why is that I wonder.

Perhaps, Morely, like many of his colleagues, want to admit that there is plenty of evidence (see here and here) that Hezbollah actually control media access and proceedings at disaster sites in Lebanon. If they did, in the context of "Green Helmet" being demonstrably "in charge" at the Qana site, the likes of Morely might have to admit that my "gut feeling" was not too wide of the mark.

But the real issue that Morely avoids is that my postings are primarily directed at the conduct of the media. He writes that North says he is just trying to "raise questions", which he kindly agrees is "certainly a legitimate goal". But he doesn't answer any of mine. Instead, he asks his own: "What is it about the photos from Qana that made Israel's supporters prefer fantasy to fact?"

Well, Mr Morely, in return, another question. "What is it about the photos from Qana that make you so confident – apparently – that they were all an absolutely genuine record of the events during the rescue efforts?"

It is unlikely, however, that Mr Morely will answer my question. In truth, he and the others are not really interested in an obscure blog written in a back street of Bradford. What really worries him is Rush Limbaugh and all the other "right wing" sites that have really put this issue on the map.

So, until we get some answers, we will continue what we have been doing… asking questions.[/quote]

For more on this continuing story go to [url="http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/"]The EU Referendum.[/url]

Also...

[url="http://www.phatmass.com/phorum/index.php?showtopic=55473&st=75#"]CNN's Robertson Now Admits: Hezbollah 'Had Control' of His Anti-Israel Piece & CNN's Anderson Cooper Exposes Hezbollah's Media Manipulations[/url]



[quote][size=4]Hezbollah reports becoming less and less believable[/size]

By Yoav Stern

If Hezbollah-run media are to be believed, then 35 Israel Defense Forces soldiers were killed or wounded in Aita Shaab, militants downed an Israeli helicopter and destroyed a house in which IDF soldiers were hiding, and IDF troops are always hit in the back because they are running away.

All these statements are baseless because - despite the impression Hezbollah has made for straight talk - credibility is not its strong suit.

Hezbollah's reports have become less and less believable in recent days. On Monday, Al-Manar television - the central component of Hezbollah's well-oiled media empire - reported that the organization had destroyed an Israeli ship off the coast of Tyre, which had some 50 sailors aboard - a charge the IDF dismissed completely.

It's not clear what incident, if any, the report was referring to, and the Arab world has been asking questions. Al-Arabiya television asked Mahmoud Kamati, a member of the Hezbollah political bureau, about the Hezbollah claim and he repeated that an Israeli ship had been hit, but said no pictures were broadcast because visibility was poor.

Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, is a superb tool for the propaganda machine. Nasrallah, 46, is one of the most impressive speakers in the entire Middle East. He is a virtuoso of the Arabic language, although he doesn't forget to spice his comments with a few words in the Lebanese dialect. It nearly always seems as though he is speaking about the most important matters in an offhand way, but he is really getting his listeners to follow his thought process.

"I sometimes take the tape of his comments and watch it, for pleasure," said a Haifa resident who has been forced to go down to the nearest bomb shelter every few hours over the last few weeks. "He is simply an excellent speaker."

Hezbollah's media empire - which includes the Al-Nur radio station and the Web site moqawama.net - has been an inseparable part of the psychological war. Sometimes, Hezbollah also transmits its messages through other media, such as the Iranian television station Al-Alam. The crown jewel of the empire, Al-Manar, is broadcast in Lebanon and throughout the Arab world, by satellite.

Al-Manar, all the time

At every stage of the fighting, Al-Manar was the station that broadcast Hezbollah's messages. Its role in the war began the morning of July 12, when Hezbollah abducted IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser. Al-Manar was the first station to report the kidnapping, about two hours after it took place. Since the fighting began, the pronouncements of Al-Manar have had a major influence on other media.

"Al-Manar has had an enormous impact on all the Arab press, and in effect on the Hebrew press as well," said Amir Levy from Satlink Communications, which monitors Arab-language media.

Although there were a few slight technical glitches in Al-Manar's broadcasting after its south Beirut offices were destroyed, overall it continued broadcasting normally and showcasing its high technical standards. "It is very high-quality work," said Levy.

"They always broadcast new clips, update the subtitles in real time, broadcast from the field via satellites. It's a very impressive broadcasting quality."[/quote]

[Lounge Daddy]

how is it ordinary bloggers noticed the obvious photoshopping and the msm photo-editors claimed to not see a thing... untill called on it?

strange days

[jswranch]

Ordinary boggers are catching lots of stories:

Pres. Bill and Monica

U of Colorado Dr. Churchill and his plagiarism

etc