Early reports: Israel struck a four-story building in the early morning hours; or, according to CNN's Ben Wedeman on July 30, the bomb hit "right next" to the building. Wedeman also reported that the building was supposed to have been the sturdiest in Qana, which is why the victims hid there!
The next day, CNN's Brent Sadler reports that the the locals (who certainly aren't trying to get Israel off the hook) told him that the building was not struck, but that a target 20 to 30 meters (65 to 100 feet) was hit, with the blast causing the building to collapse. And according to the July 31 Lebanon Star, the building was not a sturdy four-story apartment building, but a "half-finished," three-story house, which may explain why it collapsed. Also according to the Star, the refugees were not hiding in the basement, but on the ground floor, behind a pile of dirt and sand that they hoped would protect them.
The later reports seem more reliable, as the reporters in question actually seem to have done some investigation, and questioned locals. None of this changes the basic outlines of the story: Hezbollah is firing from civilian areas, Israel warns the residents to leave, some residents don't/can't leave, and get killed in an Israeli strike that collapses a building. But it does change some of the details. Conspiracy theorists relied on various discrepancies in the early reports to charge that Qana was a total Party of God setup. It turns out that many of these discrepancies were just sloppy reporting (besides the above, some media outlets gave an incorrect timeline of the building's collapse, and others accepted estimates of body counts as facts, even though they were not yet substantiated, and turned out to be wrong). The nearby pile of dirt and sand also explains how the victims could have easily been asphyxiated, ruining another element of the conspiracy theories (claiming that the lack of blood and bruises is evidence of sham). On the other side of things, if Sadler and the Star are right, it's wrong to speak of an Israeli "attack on an apartment building." An under-construction home is not an apartment building, (nor is it the most likely place to think refugees would be hiding, for those who claim that Israel intentionally "murdered" civilians), and if the bomb landed up to 100 feet away from the building, the actual target may have been an entirely different building, a nearby missile launcher, etc.
The lesson from all this is that it's a mistake to rely on initial journalistic accounts of an event, especially when the journalists in question don't speak the language, and haven't had the time to investigate in any event.
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:
In 1983 I served on a Navy ship that sailed back anfd forth across from Beirut. Sad thing that 23 years later it looks like nothings changed for the Lebanese.
That is certainly one lesson. The other is a lesson is that it's a mistake to presume a conspiracy where Occam's Razor would suggest laziness/the fog of war. (The third lesson is to not promote conspiracy as fact, or use conspiracies to make empircal claims -- a failing from which I exclude DB, of course.)
[...deleted]
[Editor: No, it's not. First, I make it clear that Cole is talking about a subgroup of Jews, not "the Jews." Second, Sharon is obviously a Jew. Third, I'd be surprised if Cole, or anybody else, would accuse a non-Jew in the American government of having greater loyalty to Sharon than to the U.S., or of thinking of American soliders as "other people's boys." And fourth, even if only, say, 80% of "Likudniks," "pro-Likud intellectuals," etc. in the government are Jews, if they were responsible for the war, that would still mean that Jews had a lot of responsibility for it.
But Cole threads quickly degenerate, and so this is the last comment on the subject.]
Finally, I want to call you out for a remark you made a while ago referring to the current Israeli government as "Center Left" -- please. Center, maybe "center right" but not center left.
[The largest party in the coalition is the centrist Kadima. The second largest is the moderate Left Labor party. Together, they control, as I recall, 49 of 61 seats. The right-wing parties--Likud, NRP, Lieberman--aren't in the government. I suppose Meretz thinks the coalition is "center right" from its perspective, but on an objective Israeli political scale, it's clearly center left.]
Or maybe the missles that Israel is using aren't as precise as we've been told. That isn't to say that they aren't 10x more precise than any of the artillary that Hezbollah has, but with even Israeli's complaining about the inability to get good intelligence its very possible that Israel isn't taking the amount of care that anyone assumes.
Also, it's amusing to see the amount of vitrol and focus from the right is directed at that professor from Wisconsin about his crazy 9/11 theories, when we obviously have our own conspiracy theorist here.
I'm sorry but this is really pathetic... [Editor: Please troll elswhere.]
Given that this comment is "non substantive," shouldn't you delete it entirely? Your inconsistency with respect to heavy-handed editing continues to mystify me.
Thank Allah that we have the esteemed Professor Bernstein to share this wisdom with us. Most of us learned that fact in high school when we read the school paper, or at least in our first job when we read a newspaper story about a transaction we were involved in.
It's a real shame that what used to be a site where interesting topics were discussed has devolved into a forum where frustrated former presidents of high school debate teams try to tell us why one of two groups that are killing each other is more morally justified than the other.
You are free to disagree, but in my view, someone who feels the need to so vehemently promulgate their position to the masses must somewhere in their little brain know that there is a flaw in their argument. The ability to lecture someone into submission does not make you right.
Oh, and by the way, I though you description of Cole as arrogant was tittilating. Not that you are wrong, but one more time, it is the pot calling the kettle black.
Blessed are the Trolls,
for They Up the hit Count.
Now what about the haaretz article from the other thread that said no missiles were fired the day of the Qana bombing?
My comment, which was completely free of "rants, invective, substantial and repeated exaggeration, and radical departures from the topic of the thread," (from comment policy below) criticized the deletion of parts of Greedy Clerks comment and pointed out that perhaps Prof. Bernstein was being too sensative about the responses to his strongly opinionated (and there's not problem with that) posts. I've been reading this site for years and frankly I resent being called a troll just for criticizing what seems to be a very capricious comment-deleting policy on the part of the present conspirator (but no others, as far as I can tell). Come on, Prof. Bernstein, you're a smart guy with very strong convictions. You know that many people will disagree with them. I personally like reading what you have to say or I wouldn't come to this site. But part of what I like about his site is hearing the many other sides to the arguments that come up on comments. Just calling me a troll for disagreeing with your deletion "policy" is intellectually dishonest. It's certainly your right, but it's really bad form.
Couldn't agree more. DB deleted one of my posts in a previous thread, labeling it "irate" when it was nothing of the kind. (He later removed the "irate" label but the post stayed deleted!) He then partially deleted some of my other posts, leaving little bits that he criticized. At one point he suggested I complain by e-mail, but of course his e-mail didn't work -- and then he deleted my post in which I noted THAT fact.
Absolutely infuriating, like debating a guy who can turn your mike off at will.
Draw your own conclusions about the reasons for this bizarre and capricious "editorial" activity. I have my own theory.
The ironic thing is I actually agree with most of DB's fundamental points about the conflict. I'd just rather have my comments left alone on a board that is supposed to be... dare I say it.... libertarian?
Thanks for the response. And personally don't think you're posting on the Mid-East too much. I'm not sure there could be such a thing. Now as for the housing bubble... :)
That won't really work though, since you've been monitoring and deleting here.
I assume it surprised exactly no one that comments were not permitted on the Cole post.
I really hate the Left-Right typification scheme, particularly when we are speaking of foreign nations. Just what characteristic(s) are you describing, and what is your standard of comparison?
DavidBernstein:
Not just bloggers, David. AS usual, pundits from across the board were quick to bake grand judgments based upon little more than speculation.
(Yeah, I know I shouldn't attribute the views of LGF commenters to conservatives en masse, but at least a subset of conservatives thinks that way...)
If in this case the only information available is from MSM reporters they will commment based upon what the reporters say.
To suggest they wait until full corroboration is available is silly. Corroboration from whom, Hezzbollah, the Red Cross, Lebanese officials. Information from each of these entities is in its own way questionable.
I should say that it is entirely possible that the ruckus by the bloggers is waht caused the Red Cross to revist the issue.
"More than four in five Americans (81%) said that Israel’s offensive in Lebanon was justified, but nearly half (44%) thought the Jewish state had “gone too far,” according to a Gallup poll, taken July 28-30. Another 10 percent thought that Israel’s actions were not justified. Thirty-seven percent believed that Israel was “justified in all military action taken” in Lebanon. Those percentages are approximately the same as the results from the same question asked in another Gallup poll, July 21-23. In the previous poll, 83 percent thought the offensive was justified, though 50 percent thought Israel had “gone too far.” The proportion of those believing Israel was not justified was seven percent in the previous poll.
In Great Britain, six out of ten (63%) said Israel’s response to Hezbollah had been “inappropriate and disproportionate,” according to a Daily Telegraph/YouGov poll taken July 24-26. In Germany, three out of four (75%) considered Israel’s offensive to be “disproportionate,” a July 13-14 poll by the Forsa institute for Stern magazine found. Seventy percent of Germans view Israel as the aggressor, according to a poll published by Der Spiegel July 31."
They cut the baloney pretty thin around here, don't they?
Conspiracy theoriesNews, right or wrong, are sure entertaining:Sir green Helmet, Knight of Lebanon
The further adventures of Sir green Helmet
The 15 minutes of fame, Nasrallah style
Cartoons speak more than words...
Dirt slumps to its critical angle, which is more or less, depending on the make up of the grains.
If blown by a shock wave, it does not fly in chunks, but as individual grains which go further or not so far. The possibility that a pile of dirt could be, in effect, turned over whole and dumped on nearby people needs to be demonstrated.
BTW, isn't one of the complaints about this the fact that the bodies aren't dirty, either? Somebody posted the pic of Baylee Amon from the OKC bombing to show what a dead child looks like after one of these disasters. Big, big difference.
Under DB's view of the world, reporters should hold off reporting any information they can't immediately verify with scientific certainty. Holding them to a higher standard than Daubert is laughable and a disservice to the First Amendment.
Please, DB, if you are going to maintain one ounce of intellectual honesty, criticize the misstatements of the WTC deaths, as llamasex points out.
As the facts has shaken out over time, the conspiracy theory you've been pushing on what used to be a legal blog is of the same merit as that of Prof Kevin Barrett.
Unless of course the "facts" fit into pre-existing biases about who the good guys and bad guys are. But we all know that never happens, right?
(crickets)
"Dark People"!? You mean like the more than 50% of Israeli Jews who are of North African, Iraqi, Kurdish, Indian, etc. descent - not to mention the tens of thousands of (black) Israeli Jews who are Ethiopian.
As I like to tell my son, "I ain't White, I'm Jewish!"
Recent genetic research suggests that Jews who have lived widely apart over the last 1000+ years, whether in Europe, North Africa, Arabia, or wherever, tend to share common DNA "markers" that are very close to Kurdish and other middle-eastern populations (makes sense, since we're descended from Abraham, who our tradition says came from what is now Iraq.) Our DNA is most definitely NOT "European." Genetic scientists now know that features such as skin color, eye color, etc are literally "skin deep" develop over relatively short time spans, and are basically insignificant, genetically speaking.
So that makes me, and most certainly the majority of Israeli Jews, just as much "People of Color" as any Lebanese or Palestinian.
No, it's not a matter of thinking "dark people are subhuman." It's a matter of coming to grips with the effects of growing up in seriously disfunctional societies and inculcated with seriously skewed values.
The Media Bias meme is another can o' worms for a different, what-used-to-be less throughtful blog. I mean, if the analysis is going to start from an "they are out to get us" standpoint, there's no use in discussing it any further. No one can push someone off that notion no matter what facts are presented.
As I said on a different Bernstein post (when he was pushing the conspiracy theory more strongly), the fundamental tenet of journalism is based on the saying, "If you're mother tells you she loves you, check it out."
As the story has developed, the reporters are in fact checking out the facts on the ground. How do you think Bernstein got his goofy ideas? Aside from the feckless charges based (erroneously) on date stamps on photos, everything we've learned about the bombing has come from the reporters who have investigated the scene afterwards.
But from the moment of the bombing, and in the press of daily deadline pressure (particularly in wartime), reporters don't sit on stories until they can be proven with scientific certainty. No more so than the press sat on the 9/11 story when it had receieved estimates from official sources highly overstating the number of dead. Also no more so than they sat on the story that our military was capable of shooting down the hijacked planes, when in fact that whole claim by the military and the Bush administration was totally false (See http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/060801fege01)
What you (and Bernstein) have utterly failed to do is distinguish these very similar cases. Were you outraged by the fact that most every news organization in the world reported thousands more dead in the WTC than there actually were? Probably not b/c you, like Bernstein, start out with a bias as a reader. Moreover, who was to blame for the misstatement of the number of dead at the WTC? Bush and Giuliani? The NY Times? The official in charge of emergency response, or the messenger who reports what that official says? Or should the media have refused to report a number?
"A lot died in WTC bombing," the headlines could have read.
I used to be a reporter. Were I in Lebanon right now, I would never turn down an opportunity for access to Hezbollah. It's news whether you (or Bernstein) like it.
What's my bias? Who do you think I think are the good and bad guys?
You're wrong. I think Israel is the good guy. I totally support everything it's doing to defend itself. I hope it continues the bombing until Hezbollah is destroyed.
Am I credible?
"THE official death toll for the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre in New York has dropped to below 3500, thanks to the return of more and more residents to the area, city officials said yesterday.
"'People are coming back to Battery Park City,' the main residential area near the ruined Twin Towers, deputy police commissioner Thomas Antenen said.
"'This is an evolving process,' he said. 'As we continued to cull through this [with] old-fashioned police work, we found people who didn't know they were on the missing list.'"
OMG! How could the media, which presumably reported the greater-than 3500 number previously have gotten away with this?!?! Where was Bernstein when we needed him?!?!
Are you credible? Not very.