Remember the AP's Kathleen Carroll's response to questions regarding whether AP photos taken at Qana were staged? "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." Via EU Referendum, here is a group of these competitive journalists, all struggling to outcompete each other by investigating what happened at Qana: how many dead and wounded? why are none of the reported victims men? did the Party of God (Hezbollah) fire missiles from the building that collapsed or from the close vicinity? use that building or one nearby as a headquarters or a hiding place? were there overt signs of civilian habitation that Israel should have been aware of?
Oops. Actually, these "competitive journalists" all appear to be standing at about the same spot near some especially stark rubble (from what appears, if you look at other photos, to be from an entirely different building) waiting, as EU comments "for the next photo-opportunity to be presented to them." EU also provides a great deal more seemingly damning context that suggests staging, and I'd be interested to see a response from the news wires.
Meanwhile, remember Israel's attack on a "hospital" in Baalbeck Tuesday night? That's how I heard it reported in several newscasts. You may have missed this paragraph in the Washington Post (hat tip to EyeonthePost):
Halutz said the hospital building was being used as a Hezbollah logistics base and storage site for weapons. Hezbollah fighters prohibited reporters from approaching the hospital, which they said had been emptied of patients at the beginning of the war. Local officials said a number of Hezbollah fighters and guards were inside.
Hmm, a "hospital" with no patients? And with Party of God terrorists inside instead? And that reporters aren't allowed to approach?
Meanwhile, here is a report by an AP employee, who reported the Party of God's lies about the "hospital raid" without any qualifications. Does it not occur to reporters that a totalitarian terrorist movement that keeps a very tight leash on reporters in the territory it controls may lie to them occasionally? And if you think that sloppy (at best) reporting has no effect on how the conflict is perceived, note the first comment under this article, by an equally credulous reader: "I guess it goes with a true democracy's right to self-defense to attack hospitals. I am sure that there must have been a rocket launcher parked in the operating room of that hospital. No way Israel, being a model democracy, would attack a hospital over 100 km from its border unless its citizens were being threatened by patients in their hospital gowns!"
UPDATE: In the comments below, VC readers Fisk and destroy a column by one Tom Clonan, circulating around Leftist Internet news services, that makes wild claims about Party of God missiles and alleged Israeli intentions to purposely kill civilians. One additional point: What are Clonan's qualifications to make broad pronouncements on military hardware in Lebanon, and Israel's military strategy? "Dr. Tom Clonan, a retired (Irish) Army captain, lectures in the political economy of communications in the Institute of Technology, Tallaght." Three of his years in the army were spent as a press officer. His PhD thesis is on the roles and status assigned female personnel in the Defence Forces. You know the pro-terrorist side is getting desperate when they need to trot out stuff like this. Next up: a home economics teacher reveals that Israel is poisoning Lebanese muffins.
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:
Here's a tip to screening 'reporting': If a story from the middle east only refers to a party as Abu (fill-in-the-blank), you should grant it no veracity at all. Abu Mohammed simply means "father of Mohammed". If you have four children, you can, without lying, call yourself four different names, and be pretty much anonymous. See "green helmet" discussions for an example.
Hizbullah rockets cannot be fired from buildings
31/07/2006 | The Irish Times
Tom Clonan
Hizbullah has fired almost 2,000 missiles into Israel over the last fortnight, killing more than 50 Israelis and forcing almost one million into air raid shelters.
Despite this provocation, however, Israel's response has been sharply criticised as "disproportionate" in many quarters. In the aftermath of the deaths of dozens of innocent Lebanese women and children at Qana yesterday, even the US has urged the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to modify their responses to Hizbullah's attacks.
IDF spokespeople are maintaining that Hizbullah had been mounting missile attacks on Israeli territory from Qana in recent days. The IDF has claimed it targeted the three-storey house in Qana at 1.30am local time in the belief it contained a Hizbullah "asset".
Any investigation into the targeting of this house will have to consider precisely what kind of Hizbullah "asset" could possibly have been hidden in a modest, low-rise building among the narrow streets of a village such as Qana.
The type of missiles being fired by Hizbullah at Israeli cities cannot be fired from within houses, mosques, hospitals or even UN facilities as has been suggested by the IDF. Due to the massive "back-blast" caused by the rocket launchers of these missiles, they can only be fired from open ground. To fire them from within a building would result in the instant death of the missile crew and probable destruction of the missile before launch. Most of the missiles are truck-mounted and are fired - on open ground - from the backs of flat-bedded trucks or larger four-wheel-drive vehicles.
When fired, these missiles generate an enormous flare of light, heat and sound energy - a heat and light signature which is readily detected by IDF target-acquisition systems. Accurate retaliatory fire can be directed at Hizbullah launch sites by IDF aircraft and ground artillery in seconds. Such a reaction would be considered by international military norms to be proportionate and within the general "rules of engagement".
In these circumstances, having fired their missiles, Hizbullah tends to disperse as rapidly as possible. It is unlikely that a flat-bedded truck with a multilaunch rocket-system mounted on it could be easily and rapidly hidden in a village as small as Qana. Nor is it likely that such a truck-mounted weapon or four-wheel-drive vehicle could easily be hidden in a house such as the one targeted by the IDF yesterday.
The pattern and circumstances of the attack are sinister. With no telltale scorch marks from a Hizbullah missile launch visible near the destroyed house, and with no Hizbullah fighters among the dead and injured, the question remains as to what kind of "asset" the IDF could credibly allege to have been contained within the building.
The timing of the attack, taking place as it did during a period of relative calm and not in the immediate aftermath of a Hizbullah missile launch, speaks of a punitive strike designed simply to kill members of the Shia community from which Hizbullah is drawn and receives its moral support. The targeting of unarmed Shia women and children would represent a deliberate targeting of innocent civilians for retaliatory or punitive purposes, and may well constitute a war crime.
Tom Clonan is The Irish Times security analyst.
Any credibility Clonan might have is lost when he suggests that Israel was intentionally trying to kill Shia. If so, why did Israel drop leaflets warning civilians to leave, and even leave text messages on their cell phones? And why did the 4th mightiest air force in the world only kill 28 people, not hundreds? The idea that Israel is purposely trying to kill civilians speaks to the psychological dementia that Lindgren references. Let's assume it's correct that around 900 Lebanese civilians have died during the war. Now let's think about how many civilians Israel could have killed in one day with the firepower it has if it wanted to. Tens of thousands. You'd have to have some sort of psychosis to believe that Israel is deliberately trying to kill civilians.
I am assuming that the people with the real responsibility to add context are the editors back in the good ol USA or good ol Europe. Those are they folks who have the agenda (excuse me, balance). Not the poor sap in the field.
Now one could argue that even if not currently firing, it is defensive on Israel's part to destroy the guns that might be fired later. What hurts this justification is that no such guns were in the rubble of Qana. Just the bodies of women and children.
Nonsense. Utter.
1. Many of the Kayusha's are small (122 mm in diameter) and are only a few feet long. This rocket makes up a large part of the Hezbollah inventory.
2. These rockets don't require large launchers, they can be set up and fired from makeshit launchers (e.g. wooden boards).
3. Contra Tom Clonan, these rockets can easily be fired from within buildings containing decent sized rooms with windows and/or doors. I contacted my father who is an aeronautical engineer for the airforce. He has decades of experience designing rockets and missiles.
3(A)Its called remote firing. Almost every type of rocket launchers system involves firing from at least a few feet away if not more. Its very simple and widely used - a few wires (of whatever length required) connectd to the launch control device. Almost every rocket system designed uses this.
3(B) All rockets do contain backblasts, but smaller rockets can be fired from rooms just as long as no one is in the room during the firing. There merely have to sit down the hall and they can fire away.
These points are all indisuptably true. The fact that this "Security analyist" can't get even these basic facts rights, destroys his credibility. If he is wrong about this, he isn't a trustworthy source for other information.
Tom Conan doesn't bother to make such distinctions - in fact he categorically denies that any rockets can be used from such locations. He is either A) purposefully lying or B) ignorant.
His claim that Israelis killed Palestinian children "for sport" has never been substantiated by a reliable source. The most famous alledged incident of child killing has been proven a hoax.
truthdig.com/report/item/ 20060714_chris_hedges_mutually_assured_destruction/
In addition to his criticism of Israel, he refers to "the escalating repression by the American occupiers in Iraq" which he says is "under the boot" of America.
He also says, "We cannot ascribe equal amounts of moral blame to all sides" because "America is the oppressor in Iraq. And there can be no hope for a peaceful resolution to these conflicts until Iraqis are freed from American occupation."
There is more, regarding both Israel and the United States, but I think the point is clear that Hedges has a rather extreme ideological perspective.
Speaking is peddling similar hoaxes.
The photo with which Mr. Bernstein seeks to make hay does no
such thing by itself. What's the context?
What it looks like is a group of journalists/photographers being herded around the site of a bombing. That may be the case in fact.
That, however, does not mean that:
Perhaps all these things are true in this instance. The photo being brought into evidence doesn't even come close to substantiating that, however.
Did any return? Did they conduct other interviews to ascertain what was what? Did they report counterclaims? Were there other journalists who covered this story without the presence of guides?
Without full context, the photo is barely more than a tourist snapshot.
The picture shown above is (supposedly) of journalists milling around an event-site. The argument is, that we should conclude from this picture, that photojournalists are not competitive, and are therefore more likely to participate in some grand conspiracy to report a story along the lines that a bunch of terrorists would like to have it told.
The sheer inanity and mind-numbing stupidity of such an argument - or claim that any such conclusion could be drawn from the "evidence" of such a picture, leads one to the obvious conclusion that the author of this piece should be acknowledged to have ZERO credibility.
I've no doubt whatsoever that Hezbollah lies, twists, uses every tool in the propaganda toolchest to make its points.
This post, however, does not provide the proof of that, nor even make a very good case for it.
Also, to the best of my knowledge, the "Katyushas" fired from Lebanon are BM-21 rockets, not BM-13. Globalsecurity says that the Katyusha now refers primarily to the 122mm rocket - the BM-21. The BM-13 was 132mm. The quoted ranges are also too long for BM-13 rockets.