"Green Helmet" is moniker EU Referendum has given to the mystery man who appears in the most famous photo to come out of Qana, of a grieving man identified as a rescue worker holding up the body of a dead baby. He was also photographed holding up a dead baby for the cameras in 1996 in Qana dressed in fatigues, and mysteriously in Sreefa the day after the Qana incident (when rescue workers were still sifting through the rubble at Qana) [you can see the photos here--warning, disturbing images]. Oddly, he was also photographed in Qana holding a dead child while in full rescue worker gear in one picture, and in another holding the same child dressed just in a t-shirt, sans flak jacket, flourescent jacket, radio and helmet.
The AP interviewed a rescue worker identified as Abu Shadi Jradi at the scene, who claimed that the bodies of at least 27 children were pulled from the wreckage (even though only 28 bodies total were ultimately found, according to the Red Cross). This may or may not be the same person.
"Green Helmet" is identified in this Arabic news video as one "Abdel Qader" (I have this from two Arabic speakers). He says in the video that fifteen bodies have been pulled from the wreckage, and he estimates that there were 210 total victims. (My Arabic-speaking sources had trouble understanding much of the rest of the dialogue, as Mr. Qader is speaking extremely quickly and crying). Who is Abdel Qader? Is he the same fellow as Abu Shadi Jadri? Is he just a beleaguered relief worker? A Party of God propaganda agent? Both?
UPDATE: IsraelInsider makes the case that Qader and Jadri are the same person, and that perhaps he is in charge of the hospital morgue in Tyre. This could provide an innocent, or sinister, explanation, for some of what occured; IsraelInsider prefer sinister. If Qader lied about the 27 bodies, that's some evidence for sinister. But it's also possible that he said something like "at least 27 casualties" (which is how many there turned out to be) and the reporter wrote down, or remembered, "27 child casualties".
Related Posts (on one page):
- Those Resolute, Incorruptable Journalists?:
- More Lebanon Media Notes:
- More Media news from the Israel-Party of God War:
- More on the Media and Lebanon:
- Some More Details About Qana:
- Revealing CNN Transcript:
- Mystery Deepens--Who is "Green Helmet'?:
- That Was Quick:
- More on Qana and the Question of Staged Photos:
Your comment is so prejidicial that it makes me boil. Hamas and Hezbollah have both earned their reputation as the killers of Isreali children and they are proud of that fact.
But to address your real point - They are liars. As such, you can't trust anything you see from them. Those children could have been dead for several days from a variety of different locations and brought to this one point to stage a press event.
It drives me bananas that the media is afraid of reporting good stories about the US and Isreali war efforts because they are so afraid of propaganda, but fall for the propaganda ploys of the terrorists hook line and sinker every time.
When confronted with evidence that the terrorists conned them again, they ignore it, move on to the next story and the apoligists come out of the woodwork and say things like 'but Isreal/US killed children'.
Take your blinders off Lefty.
/rant off
Sorry EV. Couldn't help myself.
Most significantly every person who denies immigrant families entry to their country is killing children as we.
Utimately the, 'but you killed kids' line is a bunch of BS. We all make deciscions that cost children lives. Children's lives are no different than other lives and must be considered in cost benefit calculations. If killing these kids brings brings a greater reduction in suffering than it causes then I'm all for it.
Sure I'm not convinced it does so in this case but the people taking the actions likely are making them no worse than military planners in WWII who choose to bomb german/japanese cities (they were probably right) or people who oppose increased immigration (thus allowing the kids stuck in worse countries to die).
It's already obvious that hizbollah used the Qana building, so they were using human shields again and are responsible.
Monsters.
Thanks for pointing out this obvious propoganda worker. He posed for a dozen pictures, even changed his outfit and picked the kid up to pose for more pictures over an unkown timespan... while he is supposedly searching the rubble for survivors?
I'm honestly curious, because even though my country is involved in a war the fact that Saddam was a bad guy doesn't make me feel any better about the deaths of all the Iraqi (and American) boys and girls. But my country had the option of peace, while obviously Israel's only choice is to kill.
And if we let everyone come into the states and give them maximal aid, then we will quickly lose our ability to help anyone. We actually help many more people by being prosperous enough to protect the world against tyranny (such as the USSR).
I don't think you realize that every choice has a consequence, and ranking each choice based on how good it makes you feel is very selfish (but not murder).
When Eason Jordan (the head of CNN who wrote an op-ed about how he suppressed the news of Saddam Hussein's crimes against humanity) lied, we had no way of knowing. When Walter Duranty wrote about the glory of communism amidst the deaths of the Ukraine, we accepted it as truth. Well times are 'a changing liberals. You've lost all your credibility, and hopefully when Bill Keller and the other jihad-supporting leftists at the New York Times are indicted for treason you will lose your freedom as well.
Unfortunately, you seem to be drawing out the dredges of the internet.
Several points should be made.
1. Civilians are dying.
2. It is in Israel's (and its supporters) interest to downplay them.
3. It is in Hezbollah (and its supporters) interest to maximize them.
4. The press notoriously A) gets things wrong, B) can be deceived, and C) is sometimes complicit in deceitful reporting (see Pallywood).
No one is denying that civilians are dying. Nevertheless, that does not mean that every alleged death or outrage propogated by Hezbollah or the media is true. The media is hardly a neutral arbitar. Even if neutral they can be deceived or make mistakes. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable for supporters of one side to question the accuracy of reports. Just because some deaths occur, it doesn't mean that every death alleged occured. Being skeptical of some claims does not deny the truth that civilians are dying. We merely seek to divine a more accurate understanding of what is going on.
Do you really think that the people who have died in liberating Iraq are greater in number than those that would have died had we done nothing? That's probably what you would have said had we rescued Iraq in 1991... And you would have been quite wrong.
You are disgrace to your own side. Please bother making coherent arguments. You said, "
But my country had the option of peace, while obviously Israel's only choice is to kill."
- What sort of nonsense is that?
Liberals believe that dark people are subhuman and should not be help to human standards.
All kidding aside, and leaving aside questions of whether the photos at Qana were faked (for whatever definition of faked you want to use), I'm not sure why it should be surprising that a man who was railing against perceived unjustified attacks by Israel in 1996 is still doing it in 2006.
Murder implies intent. Unlike Hizbollah, the IDF do not specifically target children. The fact that children get killed while tragic, does not mean it's murder. If, as some reports indicate, Hizbollah forced families to stay in Qana and other towns or made it too difficult to escape, then they are the actual killers of the children, as they know their actions will draw fire likely resulting in civilian deaths.
So, your entire "question" is loaded from the outset and more than a little disingenuous.
For me, what is ultimately lost in the exchanges by partisans and finger pointing on each side is the following question for those anti-invasion partisans "What should Israel have done instead of take its current actions in Lebanon?" I really would like to hear a serious response because I can't think of a better alternative.
Guys, c'mere a second. There's something you should know.
"Hezbollah has been manipulating the media coverage of the children killed at Qana" isn't a particularly effective line of argument. And "Hezbollah has been claiming that the bodies of children killed in other Israeli airstrikes are actually those of children killed at Qana" isn't much better.
Israeli airstrikes are killing children. Some folks here think that's justifiable, some think it isn't. But the "is too" side isn't likely to win over the "is not" side by concocting elaborate arguments about the propaganda uses to which those dead children's bodies have been put.
You think people should be more sympathetic to the Israeli side in this. I get that. But here's what you apparently don't get: Photographs of dead Lebanese children don't make people more sympathetic to Israel.
You said, "But here's what you apparently don't get: Photographs of dead Lebanese children don't make people more sympathetic to Israel."
- You couldn't be more wrong. That's probably the one thing everyone agrees on. If we didn't get that we wouldn't be arguing over the subjects that we are.
Liberals believe that dark people are subhuman and should not be help to human standards.
It's amazing how swiftly Prof. Bernstein moves to moderate comments from those critical of his position, yet ridiculous screeds like this go untouched, despite the exhortation of the comment policy to "avoid rants, invective, substantial and repeated exaggeration." Not that I think it's a bad thing to give people the chance to see far-right extremists for what they are.
Actually, if I recall correctly (although it's been some years), murder at common law is a general intent crime (a crime of malice), which means that the intent to drop a bomb with a reckless disregard for whether it kills a kid is murder.
Furthermore, if I shoot at you, intending to kill you and thinking you're person A, I'm guilty of murder even if you turn out to be person B.
HLS:
I don't know, what sort of nonsense is it? And why is it nonsense?
Dustin may have inartfully phrased it. But, there is some truth to the statement. Just look at Dag Hammarskjold, the second SG of the UN. His work in Africa as the UN SG perfectly illustrates Dustin's point.
You seem to establish a false choice only to use it to disparage Israel.
And if everyone understands that, why has David Bernstein posted links to photos of dead Lebanese children half a dozen times in the last four days? Even if he convinces me that Hezbollah manipulated the photographers (likely), even if he convinces me that the children in the photos didn't die at Qana (much less likely), he's still encouraging me to pore over photos of the corpses of children presumptively killed in Israeli airstrikes.
And looking at photos of the corpses of children killed in a country's airstrikes will never make me more sympathetic to that country.
I suspect I'm not alone in that.
I'm sorry, I just don't understand why I've angered you. I was just trying to be agreeable with the general sentiment by conceding that Israel had no choice but to kill at least some people in its struggle for security. Assuming the other side won't accept peace (which is probably true--if you killed my children, I would never accept peace either), I understand that the people who live in Israel have to do something about having rockets shot at them, and that something might entail killing some people.
If you're suggesting that maybe the best way for Israel to approach this would be to avoid killing folks...well let me think that one over.
Thank goodness we have individuals like Professor Bernstein to remind us how evil Arabs are, and how tragic it is when their deaths occur... on camera.
You "conced[ed]" that Israel had no choice in the same post where you called it murder. How are we to square that?
The raw footage, the evidence, is there for scrutiny too.
Thank You.
Well, it certainly matters to the news agencies. Their professionalism is being called into question. Does it tell us anything significant about the conflict itself? Unless there's real evidence that the Qana incident was itself staged, I don't see how.
Lefty, it's a pointless question, because there is a difference, morally and in law (IANAL but even I know that much) between "murder" and accidental homicide. The Israelis are exerting themselves mightily to avoid civilians; sadly they're not always successful. Hezbullah is exerting itself mightily to put innocents in harm's way; sadly, they're often successful.
Right: "reckless disregard". Given the efforts the IDf have been making to warn people out of the area, I don't think you can support a claim thjat they're acting with reckless disregard.
Palpable.
Beause your theory is specious.
It matters to the news agencies because the public prefers accuracy. The public prefers accuracy to be able to come to conclusions based on the best information available.
One clear implication of Hezbollah's concerted effort to stage photos is that it may shed light on their tactics. Knowing that Hezbollah makes great efforts to use dead civilians as a propaganda tool makes me more likely to believe (in combination with other evidence) that they purposefully conduct attacks from populated areas so that they can score in the propaganda battle as well. This in turn makes me even less likely to blame Lebanese civilian casualties on Israel.
That's why, personally, I think its worthwhile to know the extent of the Hezbollah propaganda efforts.
I understand your point now. Fair enough.
Refer to HLSbertarian's remark
If my three-year-old daughter was killed by a missile fired at my home, or at a building where we'd taken shelter, I'd want a photograph of her corpse to appear on the front page of every newspaper in the world --- both to bear witness to the fact that she had been killed, and to put pressure on her killers to stop.
If getting her picture on the wires meant allowing someone with media savvy to pose as a rescue worker and parade her body in front of the cameras, I'd allow that. If nobody else was available to parade her body in front of the cameras, I'd do it myself.
Does this suggest to you that I would be willing to have my daughter used as a human shield?
You'll get nowhere with me by drawing my attention again and again to the fact that Israel's attacks on Lebanon are resulting in the deaths of children. And you'll get nowhere with me by suggesting that efforts (even ethically questionable efforts) to publicize those deaths are evidence of depravity.
Nice strawman. The issue is why does this (maybe) rescue worker seem to have stopped his work for a substantial period to hold a body in front of various journalists?
"Rescue" typically involves saving live people in peril. If there were any such live people, Mr. Green Helmet was derelict - notwithstanding date stamps, he at least wasted a lot of time to change gear/clothes and resume carrying a body in front of other cameras. I've held certifications in S&R (admittedly not in Collapsed Structures), so I feel qualified to judge his performance in that regard. The fact that he's recovered children's bodies before argues that he'd be more likely to control his emotions and get on with helping the possible survivors instead of improperly focusing on one lost soul, no matter how innocent.
So he's either egregiously derelict or a fake. Since he's apparently held the job for 10 years, I'll go with fake until someone expounds on the Lebanon/Hezbolla labor law that would protect such an incompetent.
Yes that is THE issue isn't it.
All those dead bodies and the onoing carnage is just an amusing backdrop against which people can paint their charming conspiracy theories.
Do go on.
To be clear, I wasn't trying to assign any blame to the civilians who would like to publicize their loved ones' deaths. I agree with you that their efforts to publicize these deaths aren't "evidence of depravity."
However, Hezbollah's efforts to publicize civilian deaths, if these efforts distort the truth, might be evidence of Hezbollah's depravity.
It's possible that Hezbollah's military wing and its propaganda machine operate completely independently, but given other evidence of Hezbollah's tactics its unlikely. Thus, evidence of Hezbollah's propaganda efforts, when paired with evidence of their intentional operations among civilians, becomes evidence of Hezbollah's depravity. It can support the inference that Hezbollah makes tactical decisions partly to feed its propaganda machine.
I don't see how. If I assume, for the sake of argument, that Hezbollah is not depraved, then I would interpret their attempts to publicize the deaths of children as, perhaps, part of an effort to prevent such deaths from happening in the future. In such a situation I would also be inclined to excuse a certain amount of distortion.
So no, an effort to publicize civilian deaths, even one that involves the manipulation of the media, does not in and of itself constitute evidence of depravity.
When the group vigorously publicizing the deaths is also operating from civilial neighborhoods and doing nothing to minimize the civilian impact, I think a pretty fair inference of depravity can be made.
Like I said, if you can completely separate Hezbollah's military ops from their PR ops, then you can say that on the staging photos issue they're only guilty of lying to get their point across more forcefully. (Still not a good thing).
If, like me, you cannot believe that the two are separate, then Hezbollah's disinformation efforts look more like part of a PR strategy tha includes putting their own civilians at risk intentionally. And that's depravity.
Innocent people die. If you're really outraged, the IDF and Hezb are hiring, though you might have more impact if you went to med school instead.
But again, the publicity campaign is not evidence of depravity. It may provide evidence of their strategy, but that's a different matter. In order to see depravity in the publicity campaign you have to be first convinced of the depravity of the organization. And if you're already convinced of the depravity of the organization, then you don't need the publicity campaign to prove it.
There is, I think, underlying all this, an assumption that Israel's critics don't understand --- or refuse to believe --- how horrible Hezbollah is, and that if those critics could be made to see the true Hezbollah, they'd stop criticizing Israel.
That may be a valid assumption in some circles, but it strikes me as an odd assessment of the Volokh Conspiracy's readership.
Charlie:
Which one is specious? My "theory" that America had a choice not to go to war, or my "theory" that Israel now has no choice to kill at least some people?
Is it impossible to admit that Israel might be wrong, and that the deaths on both sides might be awful? I find it hard to believe people love Israel more than I love America, but I am baffled by DB's apparently unthinking support for every (militaristic) move Israel makes. I simply fail to grasp the motive or, frankly, why he finds it so interesting to demonize Israel's opponents. Thus the question. Really, it was just a question.
**(We could argue about whether dropping bombs when you're aware that people are still there despite having been warned to leave constitutes "murder," but the result likely depends on your jurisdiction. After all, HZB has been warning Jews to leave Israel for years, but each rocket attack still constitutes murder because HZB should be aware that no one has gone anywhere).
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one. I think we're starting to repeat ourselves.
How about this: It is "depraved" to lie with the goal of making it appear that Israel is conducting itself less morally than it is and that Hezbollah is conducting itself more morally than it is?
I believe that there is a huge moral disparity between Israel's tactics and Hezbollah's. Hezbollah using their limited resources to lie about this disparity (instead of using them to, I don't know, minimize civilian casualties) is depraved in itself as far as I'm concerned.
Ya, oh well, innocent people die, right. No news there - move along.
But, some people engaged in war try to spin media coverage like green helmet (maybe) did. Stop the effin' presses, now that is something new and disturbing. Lets take some time and really examine the implication of this shiny new development.
And you probably don't even realize the how inane it is to suggest that joining one of the two warring sides would somehow cure my "outrage".
Well, let's back up a step.
What kind of lie are you talking about now? If we're talking about "staging photos" --- having a guy pretend to pull the same kid out of the rubble three or four times to make sure that all the photogs get the shot --- then I don't think that lie has the goal, or the effect, of "making it appear that Israel is conducting itself less morally than it is." The goal there is to publicize the fact that an Israeli missile caused the death of that child at that place --- if an Israeli missile did in fact cause the death of that child at that place, then Israel can't really claimed to have been libeled by the photo, staged or not.
If you're talking specifically about a more egregious kind of lie,rather than the "Green Helmet" claims that prompted this thread, then I might agree with you.
It seems clear that you want to judge the action of staging the photographs, if that was done, only in itself, outside of the context of Hezbollah's larger efforts. And you either ignore that larger context or refuse it entry to the debate. Within the narrow context you're willing to entertain, you have a point, though I don't see how it's a useful one.
Ultimately, in the moral calculus, I am not sure how you can ignore Hezbollah's actions, hiding behind civilians and firing from their midst, in the expectation that the civilians will be killed in the crosfire and not the combatants.
Lefty --
If I shoot at you while hiding behind a hostage, and you fire back killing the hostage, I'm not sure any legal tradition would call that murder on your part. While "murder" has strong emotional connotations you might sympathize with in this case, I don't see that you can make either a moral or legal case for it.
As for me, I look on this whole affair with terrible sadness. Hezbollah apparently, with Iran and Syria's backing, expected to use this whole affair to strengthen their position in the Lebanese political establishment and prevent Lebanon's liberal and democratic turn. They have to be defeated. I'm not sure Israel can do it, but perhaps they can weaken their military arm enough that other forces, multi-national and Lebanese, can contain them and ultimately eliminate them.
And many civilians and innocents will die, and many more will have their lives torn apart. This is why war sucks and is an evil, even when there is no reasonable alternative.
I personally would have prefered if Israel, instead of unilaterally withdrawing under Barak, had insisted that UN resolution 1559 had been fully implemented as a condition. Instead, they gave Hezbollah a propaganda victory and room to upgrade their military arsenal and positioning, and more or less ensured they would have to return.
I would like to see a more permanent solution come out of the current situation.
Those with some legal training on the list will know that murder is "the unlawful killing of a human being with malice". They will also know that almost all killings in war are lawful. Thus they may be killings or homicide but probably not murder. Deliberate attacks on civilians qua civilians are war crimes as is the using of civilians as human shields. I note that the Allies (+ the Commies) killed more than a million enemy civilians in WWII w/out any murder convictions to their discredit.
I'm glad that the commies on this list have gotten so sensitive to civilian deaths in their old ages. I trust that their concerns will now extend to victims of taxation, land siezure, health codes, compulsory education laws, and gun control laws such that they will no longer coutenance the use of deadly force to enforce those laws.
Whoa - someone who still uses "commies" as an insult.
That is so, like, 1972, dude.
What makes you think that particular child was killed in any Israeli airstrike at all? The frozen babies that Saddam used to parade every month were just random babies that happened to have died, regardless of cause. I mean, sure it's possible that there were actually dead babies in the building in Qana, and if so it would make sense for HizbAllah to use one of them for its show instead of importing one from elsewhere, but we have no way of knowing that.
And while I'm commenting, I keep seeing the testimony of "residents" and "survivors" discussed as if it were automatically reliable. How does anyone know whether these people interviewed are actually residents or survivors? We've only got their word, and going on experience there is no reason whatsoever to trust any witness produced by the Arabs, about anything. There needs to be reason to believe them -- corroborating evidence, or internal evidence such as speech against interest, etc.
Whereas Israeli government and IDF statements, and statements by Israeli bystanders, should be presumed to be true, because they have no record of lying, though they are occasionally mistaken.
Nor can I. I also am waiting to see somebody answer this same question.
I hold these truths to be pretty much self evident:
The Israelis have a right to defend themselves. If they do not do so, their enemies will wipe them off the face of the map. That, in fact, is their enemies' stated goal.
Defending Israel against militants who (a) hope to exterminate all Israelis, (b) observe absolutely no bounds in the process, and (c) conceal themselves among innocent civilians is necessarily a terrible and destructive activity that inevitably results in the horrible deaths of innocent civilians.
But what else, exactly, are the Israelis supposed to do?
Actually, yes it does suggest to me that, unintentionally, you are willing to have your daughter used as a human shield. If you reinforce the propaganda value of using human shields or tactics which deliberately endanger civilians, as Hizb'allah does, you will encourage further use of such tactics in the future, and therefore will be an accomplice of sorts in the future deaths of innocents. I want to vomit as I read this and think of my own daughter. Have her broken body paraded around for newspaper pictures? Disgusting. I've noticed one difference between the Israelis and the Arabs is that the Israelis don't whore their wounded and dead for PR value.
If you don't believe that Hizb'allah deliberatly use tactics that endanger true civilians, here are a few links:
Major Paeta Hess-von Kruedener, Canadian UNIFIL Observer, killed 26 July 06- it's in mil-speak, so read between the lines.
UNIFIL observers attacked twice- by hizb'allah.
"Photos that damn Hezbollah"
This includes UN humanitarian relief head, Jan Egeland saying "Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending in among women and children"
"I heard they were making statements that they were proud of losing fewer armed men than civilians.
It's hard to see how they could be proud of such a situation."
There's lots more damning evidence out there if you want to look for it, but that's a start.
Were it, God forbid, my son or daughter that were killed by an Israeli missle, I'd be screaming for the heads of the Hizb'allah animals that caused her death by use of terrorist tactics, not the Israelis.