Who's kidding who?

Today Brent Bozell excoriates Reuters & the MSM over the "Reutergate" scandal.

One of the famous photos from the war was a 1968 Eddie Adams photo for the Associated Press showing a general shooting a Viet Cong fighter in the head with a pistol on a Saigon street. That picture became the left's rally poster for American withdrawal from Vietnam. Adams won the Pulitzer in 1969 for his Vietnam photos, but he regretted the unintended consequences to his dying day. As he wrote in Time magazine,

"The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths."

Now photographers are going beyond half-truth, to manipulating images that aren't at all real.

Bozell notes that this is the same Reuters that refused to describe the 9/11 attackers as "terrorists", because "(they said the word "adds little" to the story)". Yet Reuters didn't take any real action until the second example of photo fraud by Adnan Hajj was exposed. Then they pulled all of his photos from their Internet archive. Although Reuters claimed that had "zero tolerance" for altered photographs they passed the buck & offered shifting stories as to why these pictures made it past their layers of editors.

In a statement, Reuters claimed the two altered photos were among 43 Hajj had filed "directly to the Global Pictures Desk since the start of the conflict on July 12 rather than through an editor in Beirut." But the New York Times reported a senior Reuters editor claiming it was not a mistake made at the top. "On Saturday, we published 2,000 photos," Paul Holmes said. "It was handled by someone on a very busy day at a more junior level than we would wish for in ideal circumstances." These shifting stands do not excuse how even photographic amateurs could quickly deduce that the phony-smoke picture was about as believable as a $3 bill -- and then caught a second doctored photo.

Bozell thoroughly destroys Reuters pathetic excuses & their credibility (my emphasis);

There was clearly an agenda here. A look at Adnan Hajj's pictures from Lebanon (and the captions written for them) packed an obvious emotional punch against Israeli aggression. This is ironic, considering the official Reuters distaste for "emotive terms" like terrorism:

"Some Reuters coverage, including pictures and video, is of wars or conflicts during which all sides are actively promoting their positions and arguments. We are committed to reporting the facts and in all situations avoid the use of emotive terms."

But they're obviously committed to very emotive photographs of dead babies, as Hajj took in the controversial bombing of civilians in a Qana apartment complex.

Perhaps the phoniest part of what the bloggers call "Reutergate" is the Reuters declaration that they are the perfect picture of objectivity.

"We do not take sides and attempt to reflect in our stories, pictures and video the views of all sides. We are not in the business of glorifying one side or another or of disseminating propaganda. Reuters journalists do not offer their own opinions or views."

Anyone who has read Reuters in recent years can see the comedy in that statement. One 2002 photo caption lamented: "Human rights around the world have been a casualty of the U.S. 'war on terror' since September 11." In 2003, the day before Baghdad fell, Reuters reporter Greg Frost casually compared Saddam's withdrawing guerrilla forces to colonial soldiers in the American Revolution. Within days of Saddam's capture that December, Reuters began a dispatch with this supposedly non-opinionated sentence: "Joy at the capture of Saddam Hussein gave way to resentment toward Washington Monday as Iraqis confronted afresh the bloodshed, shortages and soaring prices of life under U.S. occupation."

So when the major media tell you that they would never manipulate a word or a picture to press their own political agenda, it's always best to check the fine print -- and the fine pixels of newfangled digital photography.

Well said Brent.

The Reuters Photo Scandal

Zombie has posted "The Reuters Photo Scandal: A Taxonomy of Fraud" In it Zombie lists four different types of photo fraud followed by a comprehensive overview of each type of photo fraud committed by Reuters.

The recent discovery that the Reuters news agency released a digitally manipulated photograph as an authentic image of the bombing in Beirut has drawn attention to the important topic of bias in the media. But lost in the frenzy over one particular image is an even more devastating fact: that over the last week Reuters has been caught red-handed in an astonishing variety of journalistic frauds in the photo coverage of the war in Lebanon.

This page serves as an overview of the various types of hoaxes, lies and other deceptions perpetrated by Reuters in recent days, since the details of the scandal are getting overwhelmed by a torrent of shallow mainstream media coverage that can easily confuse or mislead the viewer. Almost all of the investigative work has been done by cutting-edge blogs, but the proliferation of exposés might overwhelm the casual Web-surfer, who might be getting the various related scandals mixed up. In this essay I hope to straighten it all out.

It's important to understand that there is not just a single fraudulent Reuters photograph, nor even only one kind of fraudulent photograph. There are in fact dozens of photographs whose authenticity has been questioned, and they fall into four distinct categories.

The four types of photographic fraud perpetrated by Reuters photographers and editors are:

1. Digitally manipulating images after the photographs have been taken.

2. Photographing scenes staged by Hezbollah and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events.

3. Photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring.

4. Giving false or misleading captions to otherwise real photos that were taken at a different time or place.

Zombie did a top notch job. So what are you still doing here? Click on the link & go see it for yourself.

Fake but inaccurate indeed

The countless instances of fake, staged & otherwise completely inaccurate "news" perpetrated by the MSM are mind boggling. These are the points they want to make;

1) War is so bad it is to be avoided at all costs - It's so bad we had to make stuff up to get our point across,

2) US & Israeli military are Eeeeevil - They commit "war crimes" & "intentionally target" innocent women & children (and journalists too) - Just look at all of our fake, staged & otherwise phoney photos & film clips we inundate you with 24/7,

3) The terrorists.... uh... 'er.... I mean these "freedom fighters" are "victims" of our wanton aggression - See we cooked up these fake photos to prove it,

4) Our "failed" foreign policies, the "occupation" in Iraq & wanton "torture" of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay are creating more terrorists.... uh... 'er... "militants" - Well, OK, we made all of that up too. Hey! Look at these photoshopped pictures!

Makes you wonder doesn't it? If things were as bad as they tell us they would have countless genuine photos & film clips to make their case with, right? So why is the conservative blogosphere exposing these frauds in large numbers?

Rather than read all about them, check out this edition of "Vent" with Michelle Malkin. It's an original, daily video newscast that rarely fails to inform & entertain.

Uh huh. It's that bad.

Snark, snark... Who's there?

The anti-war left, that's who. The following is shamelessly stolen from Cliff May at The Corner.

Let's See a Show of Hands this Morning

Who is for aggressive and secret initiatives to monitor terrorist groups and suspects, trace their finances, interrogate captured combatants thoroughly and detain combatants as long as necessary?

Wow, quite a lot of hands today - even in Connecticut. Thank you.

And who is for prohibiting all the above, and revealing as much as possible about what intelligence and covert initiatives we have underway, because the public (and, oh, yes, our enemies, too) have a right to know?

Ned Lamont, thank you. Mr. Sulzberger and Mr. Keller, thank you, as well. The gentlemen and gentlewomen from the ACLU, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Gov. Dean, Mr. Moore, Ms. Sheehan, Mr. Baldwin — loved you on Saturday Night Live! — thank you all so much.

Talk about a stark difference

Jonah Goldberg over at the Corner notes as damning an admission as one could expect from a MSM journalist;

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Well, you know, you have to be very careful. Obviously, both sides in this conflict want their stories out. Israel, you know, provides public spokespeople very readily. If you're dealing with the Israeli military, they don't want you, you know, wandering around their artillery fields like where we are now, or wandering around their positions. So they often have press people who will actually sort of help you if you need interviews and the like.

While on the Hezbollah side, it's really interesting — I was in Beirut, and they took me on this sort of guided tour of the Hezbollah- controlled territories in southern Lebanon that were heavily bombed. They are much cruder, obviously. They don't have the experience in this kind of thing. But they clearly want the story of civilian casualties out. That is their — what they're heavily pushing, to the point where on this tour I was on, they were just making stuff up. They had six ambulances lined up in a row and said, OK, you know, they brought reporters there, they said you can talk to the ambulance drivers. And then one by one, they told the ambulances to turn on their sirens and to zoom off, and people taking that picture would be reporting, I guess, the idea that these ambulances were zooming off to treat civilian casualties, when in fact, these ambulances were literally going back and forth down the street just for people to take pictures of them.

What the?!?!

You know it's bad enough that tens of millions of leftists live in an alternate reality. But why do they feel it's necessary to raise our youth in an artificial environment that will leave them wholly unprepared to deal with the real world.

Penny Grossman cringes each time a student mentions a birthday party during class at her Boston, Massachusetts-area preschool. The rule there, and at a growing number of America's schools, is that parties and play-dates shouldn't be discussed unless every child in the room is invited.

Gone are the days when a kindergartner dropped a handful of party invites in the classroom cubbyholes of their closest buddies. Today, if anyone is excluded the invitations can't be handed out at school.

The idea that protecting kids from rejection is crucial to safeguarding their self-esteem has gained momentum in recent years....

Puhlease! Will someone tell the leftists that rule our schools to buy a clue! This isn't the only misguided method employed by these people for "safeguarding" the "self-esteem" of our nation's youth. Do I really have to spell it out for them? What are these cocooned children raised in a world of make believe going to do when they graduate & venture out into the real world? There will be no more rules & alternate realities for "safeguarding" their "self-esteem" from the cold harsh reality of the real world.

Take Valentine's Day: At some schools, a second-grader can't offer paper valentines or heart-shaped candies to a short list of pals and secret crushes anymore. They give cards to everyone or no one at all.

Or sports: In many towns, scorekeeping no longer happens at soccer or softball games played by kids under 8 or 9. Win or lose, every player in the league gets a trophy at the season's end.

These children will grow into young adults without having learned how to deal with disappointment, rejection, schoolyard bullies, competition, etc. What makes these elitist decision makers think that these children will be remotely prepared to deal with the same issues as adults when they have never had to deal with it their entire lives?

At least they quote someone with half a clue, but she blames the parents, or that is how the Associated Pravda journalist spins it. Note how the expert's POV is in "quotes" & the rporter's POV isn't;

"Self-esteem comes from those feelings you have about yourself for a job well done, for when you have achieved something," says Dr. Georgette Constantinou, administrative director of pediatric psychiatry at Akron Children's Hospital in Ohio. "It's not something you pour into your children."

She feels that many parents aren't equipping their kids to manage basic challenges.

"How do you expect them to handle life's big bumps if they haven't experienced the little ones?" she asks.

The AP reporter goes on to directly blame parents rather than elitist schools officials & those leftist activists who force their PC world views on almost every organization where children gather. They are the people impose these insidious rules in our schools & elsewhere whether or not parents agree with them. Instead we are told by this reporter it's all the parents fault;

No one disagrees that disappointment is real: There are contests we all lose, parties we're excluded from. But what motivates so many parents to postpone that reality until their children reach the age of 10 or beyond?

For one thing, kids' lives are so tightly scheduled today that we're enrolling smaller and smaller children in organized activities. It may be true that 6-year-olds aren't ready to handle losing a T-Ball championship; a generation ago, 6-year-olds wouldn't have even been playing team sports.

Parents may also be reacting to their own economic and career stress by trying to protect their kids from it.

In what alternate universe did this occur? There may be more organized activities today, but there were plenty around more than 2 generations ago too.

Little league has been available for children under age 10 as long as I can remember. Back then you had to have some minimum level of competence or you didn't play. And if you made a team, you had to face stiff competition. And your own teammates would get on your case if you screwed up & cost your team the game.

What about the Boy Scouts & Girl Scouts? Didn't their policies force little children to earn their badges based on personal performance? They didn't hand out badges to every kid even if they failed to accomplish all of the required steps to earn them.

In my town, there were Jr Bowling Leagues with real competition. There were league championships with real trophies. And there were trophies for the best bowlers. Losers got to go to the luncheon where the winners received the trophies.

It's the policies that have changed & these changes have not been imposed by all parents or even most of them. It's elitist & activist leftists who have forced these changes for the most part. Most parents have little or no say in these decisions. Instead, this reporter is blaming the parents for all of this. He/she even sneaks in a quote from the expert that makes it appear the expert agrees with the spin the AP reporter took in the next paragraph;

"This group is balancing things that previous generations haven't had to balance," says Constantinou. "The number of women in the work force is phenomenal, probably the largest since the war years, so you have a lot more stressed parents."

Note how the expert's comments don't exactly jive with the AP reporters comments I just quoted above. Again, if you simply read the "quotes" from the Constantinou, they don't say anything that directly supports the AP reporters claims that parents are directly to blame. The expert is talking about the harm that ensues when children are protected from facing reality from any source. This last quote from Constantinou seems to be more about working parents being forced to rely on schools & organized after school programs to have their children under their care more than in the past.

Ah, but Associated Pravda wouldn't intentionally mislead you, now would they? Well, here at the tail end of this article, the AP reporter lets a little contrary evidence seep in;

Busy parents turn to schools and other care-givers for help, says Mike Sanchez, co-owner of Camp Innovation, a Houston, Texas-area day camp. It does offer competitive games, but also gives each camper an award each week.

"I tell counselors, always find something specific about the kids," Sanchez says. "It helps with parents who say they may not be cleaning at home or working well with a brother or sister. We work on it, and then give them an award for best spirit of the week, best cleaner of the week."

Those are his rules & methodologies, not something the parents insisted upon.

There isn't a single quote in this article from a parent who insists on "safeguarding" the "self-esteem" of their children. These "busy" parents actually actually want their children to face reality & become more responsible. If anything, once you get past the reporters dishonest spin, this article shows that working parents are at the mercy of our schools & programs where their children spend so much of their time.

Buried at the bottom we find quotes from "critics" of these insidious policies;

Critics of the trend worry about a generation of kids who haven't experienced rejection or failure -- especially compared with countries such as China and Japan, where a focus on competition defines the lives of many children.

Learning to compete, says Nichols, is vital. "It sets them up for real life things like a job," she says. "It helps people develop their skills."

Perish the thought! Why would anyone want our nations youth prepared "for real life things like a job" & "develop their skills" so they can successfully compete in the real world? Apparently this journalist doesn't. And he/she is obviously not alone.

OUCH!

Say what you will about Ann Coulter. The leftists pretend it's her "hate speech" as if libs are wholly incapable of any such thing or that they denounce real hate speech when it comes from a fellow leftist. I think they hate Ann Coulter because she is capable of cutting through the BS & calling a spade a spade. In other words, it's things like this in reference to Joe Lieberman's defeat to vehemently anti-war candidate Joe Lamont;

I suppose we'll have to wait yet another election cycle for all those "Scoop Jackson Democrats" to come roaring back in and give us a Democratic Party that does not consistently root against America....

... In Tuesday's primary, Connecticut Democrats dumped Joe Lieberman, an 18-year incumbent, because he supports the war on terrorism. This is the same Joe Lieberman who voted against all the Bush tax cuts, against banning same-sex marriage, against banning partial-birth abortion, against the confirmation of Judge Alito, against drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and in favor of the Kyoto accords. Oh yes, this was also the same Joe Lieberman who was the Democrats' own vice presidential candidate six years ago.

Despite all this, Connecticut Democrats preferred stalwart anti-war candidate Ned Lamont....

So how anti-war has the left become? Coulter points out that the left is even against fighting the GWOT;

... That's why Hillary Clinton has anti-war protestors howling at her public events. That's why she has drawn an anti-war primary opponent, Jonathan Tasini, who appears to believe that Israel is a terrorist state....

... The Democrats can hold it in for a few years, but eventually the McGovernite face of the Democratic Party reappears....

And the left isn't just anti-war. They don't even like the good ole' USA;

To give you a snapshot of today's Democratic Party, in 2004, pollster Scott Rasmussen asked likely voters if they believed America was generally a fair and decent country and whether they believed the world would be a better place if more countries were like America.

Republicans agreed that America is generally fair and decent, 83 percent to 7 percent. Eighty-one percent agreed that the world would be a better place if more countries were like the United States.

By contrast, Democrats were nearly split, with only 46 percent agreeing that America is generally a fair and decent country, and with 37 percent saying America is not a generally fair and decent country. Only 48 percent of Democrats said they thought that the world would be a better place if more countries were like the United States.

Democrats constantly complain that the nation has never been so divided, but consider that half of them think the statement that America is a good country is a divisive remark.

So remember: When you vote Democratic, you're saying NO to mindless patriotism. This country isn't so great!

Sure, Coulter can be quite harsh with over the top rhetoric. I cringe at some of her more than intemperate rhetoric. But one thing you can count on. Leftists everywhere are loathe to debate the real issues Coulter discusses. It's safe to say, the reason is they too know it's a losing proposition because Ann Coulter has their number. That's why all you hear from them is Coulter & "hate speech".

Want a laugh?

Associated Pravda'a (AKA Associated Press) mission statement read's:

"AP's mission is to be the essential global news network, providing distinctive news services of the highest quality, reliability and objectivity with reports that are accurate, balanced and informed."

Lisa Fabrizio at the American Spectator puts that lie to rest today;

[L]ike many of its contributing entities, it is a mere shell of its formerly unbiased self. As chronicled by many in the blogosphere, AP reporters and correspondents are often anything but disinterested journalists. The AP's latest op-ed piece masquerading as a news story shouts, "Half of U.S. Still Believes Iraq Had WMD."

The piece cites a recent Harris Poll that was more accurately titled, "Belief that Iraq Had Weapons of Mass Destruction Has Increased Substantially." Among other things, the poll claims that 50 percent of Americans believe that Iraq had WMDs, as opposed to last year when only 36 per cent answered affirmatively. How this translates into the AP using the word "still" in its headline is known only to it. A less ethically challenged blurb would have read, "More in U.S. Believe Iraq Had WMD," but the AP never lets ethics get in the way of a good Bush-bash....

...Yet, despite repeated instances of media lies, misrepresentations and even forgery, the AP's Charles J. Hanley has the chutzpah to opine that the reason half of America believes that Iraq had the WMDs is

"a drumbeat of voices from talk radio to die-hard bloggers to the Oval Office, a surprise headline here or there, a rallying around a partisan flag, and a growing need for people, in their own minds, to justify the war in Iraq."

The seething condescension in the above statement is matched only by the breathtaking arrogance it took to publish it in a supposedly fact-based story. The bulk of the article quotes authors of books such as Hoodwinked: The Documents That Reveal How Bush Sold Us a War, but dismisses as "uncorroborated hearsay" a book by Iraqi general, Georges Sada, which claims that Saddam shipped WMDs to Syria before the war.

Lisa provides a few more examples & includes a quote from Hillary Clinton on the floor of the Senate in October 2002 showing that many Democrats, even those in leadership positions were convinced Saddam had WMD's. Somehow the allegedly "objective" AP & their peers in the MSM have conveniently forgotten all of those damning facts. That's critical element in identifying a top flight "newz" organiztaion, right?

Lisa sees right through the haze;

Whatever the reason, the media in general and the Associated Press specifically seem disturbed that, despite their best efforts, more and more Americans are wending their way around them to the truth.

Is Adnan Hajj a Twin?

Rusty Shackleford of the Jawa Report has a comprehensive analysis of the now disgraced al-Reuters photoshopping photographer. It seems that Adnan Hajj has a twin of sorts who seems to have magically appeared on the scene this July, right about the time that Mr. Hajj career was about to crash & burn.

Hey, don't take my word for it. Go to Rusty's post. Read it all, Click on the links. Me thinks Rusty is on to something.

30% of Americans can't remember

What year did 9/11 happen? Well, 30% of us have already forgotten.

I guess that the MSM's decision to basically do a blackout of images of that fateful day has helped memories to fade. Why stir up emotions of sorrow, anger, patriotism & the like when the MSM has more important things to do like smear, sneer & slander our President, right?

Oh come on! Do I really have to tell you? It was 9/11/01.

The truth according to Hezbollah

Through a glass, darkly


Hat Tip to Power Line & The Age

The ubiquitous "Green Helmet" dude

"Green Helmet" dude continues to show up at center "stage" if you get my drift.

'All the world's a stage' & again in 'Green Helmet goes under cover'

Hat tip to EU Referendum

As the last normal Democrat exits "center" stage ...

Ned Lamont enters stage left

There is one way in which it is bad news: It confirms the rising power of the pacifist (or, to my way of thinking, anti-American) component of the Democratic Party. In the long run, this is ominous. The country would be safer if both of its parties thought that aggressively defending it was a good idea. That the predominant thinking in one of the parties holds otherwise augers poorly for the rest of us.

(Hat Tip to Power Line)

Progress in Iraq?

The guys at Power Line cover it. Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to do likewise.

"Don't Start Wars You Can't Finish"

Captain Ed delivers a smackdown to Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora & the Washington Post which unquestioningly gave a voice to Hezbollah's terrorist propaganda.

Siniora doesn't advance the cause of peace with this effort: he advances the use of terrorism. He wants the world to grant Hezbollah all of the goals it failed to achieve with its act of war against Israel. Siniora also wants us to feel anger that Israel defends itself rather than give in to extortion and acquiesce to a double standard that would render it unable to ever respond to Hezbollah's attacks. Siniora wants to endorse the tactics of using civilians as human shields and hostages to terrorist operations. After 9/11, we're just not that naive any more.

Read it all here.

"The Reuterization of war journalism goes far beyond Reuters"

As usual, Michelle Malkin sums up the situation spot on.

Watch now for braying, rationalizing and messenger-shooting from the journalistic elite. You will hear them complain about the bloodthirsty blog mob. You will see MSM editors rally around Reuters and dismiss this debacle as a lone event. Adnan Hajj, the new international Jayson Blair/Mike Barnicle/Janet Cooke/Mary Mapes/Walter Duranty, will end up with a book contract and a job at Al Jazeera. Media veterans will hope that their professional apathy will snuff out probing questions like baking soda on a pan fire. After all, it's "old news" already.

In a sense, they are right. Whether from sloppiness, laziness, incompetence or ideological bias, American journalists have played dupes or worse to jihadi propagandists for decades. Just a few weeks ago, a New York Times photography editor raved over her photographer Joao Silva's image of an al-Sadr army sniper posing in a window firing at U.S. troops. "Incredible courage," she panted. It's not clear whether she was talking about the photographer or the terrorist. The Associated Press has failed to respond to my repeated questions about one of its Iraqi stringers, Bilal Hussein, who was detained by the U.S. military in April after being captured in a Ramadi building with a cache of weapons, according to my sources. Hussein was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photography team.

From the fake "massacre" in Jenin, to the false accusations against Israel in the shooting of Palestinian boy Mohammed al-Dura, to the dissemination of "Pallywood" terrorist video productions, to the false labeling of executed Shiite fishermen in a Haditha sports stadium as victims of U.S. Marines, the Reuterization of war journalism goes far beyond Reuters.

Reuters can kill a few pictures, but it does not kill persistent doubts about the American media's ability to cover this war through anything but a distorted lens. The blogosphere can help clear the bogus smoke. Only the Old Media itself can stamp out the toxic fire.

Dan Rather & Mary Mapes must be glad. We now have a plethora of "Fake but Accurate" frauds to expose. Maybe we'll forget about their contribution(s) to journalistic malpractice which libs still refer to as "speaking truth to power". Ya right!

Is this why the left fawns over Castro?

Seriously, what leftist wouldn't want to do time in one of Castro's detention camps to advance the cause of Communism? (Hat tip to Robert Cox)

I was a full professor at the University of Havana. By 1968, I had enough of Castro’s system and decided to leave Cuba....

... At a compulsory meeting of faculty and students, I was denounced as a traitor and expelled.

I was kept in limbo — unable to leave, unable to work — for two years.

Then, in 1971, security forces came to my house. I was charged with ‘vagrancy’ and taken at gunpoint to a forced labor camp 50 miles outside of Havana.

For six weeks, my wife and children had no idea what had become of me.

I was made to work in the fields from dawn to dusk. We had little food and what we had was disgusting.

I stole potatoes and corn from the fields and ate them raw.

I ate grass and plant leaves for fiber and vitamins....

... Fifty men shared one open water pipe for drinking water and bathing.

One open hole was the toilet. We were so desperate to get the filth off us that we bathed in irrigation ditches.

One of the jobs at the camp was to put parathion on crops.

I knew parathion, an insecticide, entered the bloodstream through the skin, mouth and nose causing poisoning, blackouts, and death.

We were made to spread the parathion with our bare hands, breathing in the powder as we worked.

Every day the guards pointed guns in my face, hit me and shouted “traitor,” “vermin” and “parasite.”...

... I went from 180 pounds to 142 by the time I left Cuba.

I later learned that a woman from the government wanted to live in my house.

Maybe that was the reason. When I left, she moved into my house.”...

Tell it like it is Ralph

From Ralph Peters in today's New York Post opinion section;

I see what I do because the Israeli Defense Forces have made no effort to hide this war away. Although I'm bunking in a building full of soldiers, I have no minder telling me what message I'm supposed to carry away, what I'm "really" seeing. Despite the lies in all too much of the media, the Israelis are struggling to fight a moral war - against enemies who know no morality, fanatics who trot out the same dead baby repeatedly for sensation-hungry cameras....

...What's striking is that every Israeli round is aimed at a military target. Even though the intensity of the firing increased today, as the IDF intensify the offensive, there's no wanton destruction - just the ugly necessity of war.

But Hezbollah's rockets aren't aimed. They're merely pointed. In the general direction of Israeli cities and towns. Simply put, the Katyushas are terror weapons. That difference sums up this war for any decent human being.

Libspeak, the Language of Euphemism

Fred Barnes has an excellent article in the online Weekly Standard today.

... The questioner had used a word--"revenues"--drawn from the growing lexicon of liberalism. It is a language quite common now in Washington and in liberal political circles, and it's designed to substitute softer or neutral words for harsher ones with political implications. It is a language of euphemism and, at times, deception....

It only gets better from there.

... One liberal word hasn't taken off yet. It's "lies," as in supposed untruths told by President Bush. One Bush "lie" was his saying that weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq. Bush thought it was true, but it turned out not to be. Does that make it a lie? Another Bush statement labeled a "lie" was his claim in his 2000 campaign to be "a uniter, not a divider." He believed that, too. So was it a lie? Liberals have failed to persuade very many of that....

Read it all here.

They Distort, We Deride

It's amazing how much of this photo fraud the right side of the blogosphere is exposing. I could spend the next few days updating on the latest examples. Below is just one of the many egregious examples to chose from.

Gateway Pundit nails the New York Times in what appears to be an obvious photo fraud. A July 27, 2006 photo essay with the headline, "Turmoil in the Mideast", by Tyler Hicks intended to show the death & destruction caused by Israel in their conflict with the ruthless Hezbollah terrorists who committed an act of war when they crossed Israel's border, killing 8 soldiers, kidnapping 2. These Hezbollah terrorists also have shot more than a thousand missiles toward Israeli civilian population centers, slaughtering countless innocent women & children (my choice of words - you don't think the NYT would put it that way do you? Get a grip!).

I simply can't do justice to the excellent sleuthing done by the good folks at Gateway Pundit. You really need to follow the link there & read it yourself. Suffice it to say that the journalist, photographer & the many layers of top notch editors & fact checkers at the NYT allowed what clearly seems to be an obvious fraud to foisted on the public.

So tell me, if Israel & the US military are so Eeeeevil, why does anyone need to engage in journalistic malpractice, photo fraud & worse to get their point across?

A Pattern Develops

Not that anyone who's paid attention would be surprised. The blogosphere is all over the MSM & their fraudulent photo's designed to intentionally mislead the rest of us that the US & Israel are the real Eeeevil ones. Here's one more example.

JAMES TARANTO from Best of the Web nails Associated Pravda, er, Press.

Below is Associated Press's Lefteris Pitarakis July 30, 2006 photo.



The caption reads:

"Bodies of Lebanese residents of the southern village of Qana near the port city of Tyre, Lebanon, are laid covered after they were removed from under the rubble of a demolished building, background, that was struck by Israeli war plane missiles Sunday, July 30, 2006. At least 50 people, including scores of children, were killed Sunday in an Israeli air strike on this southern Lebanon village--the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting."

Ah, but look a little closer.



Can you say journalistic malpractice?

Why apologize?

Good grief!

Bombing of Funeral: False Reporting by Reuters

16:43 Aug 08, '06

(IsraelNN.com) The day after it was revealed that a Reuters News Agency doctored photographs to show an anti-Israel bias, the news service incorrectly reported Tuesday afternoon that the IDF bombed a funeral procession in Lebanon.

Reuters has corrected without apology its earlier story that the IDF strafed a funeral procession and updated the report to state that the bombs struck a village at the same time the funeral was taking place, adding that "the air strike was not in the immediate vicinity of the funeral."

What are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?

You know this stuff is getting to be a bit too much for me.

Yikes! Rant warning!

If Israel really was slaughtering "innocent civilians" in the numbers the MSM & Hezbollah claim, there'd be a truckload of indisputable graphic, video evidence. The MSM would air just enough of it to make sure there was no doubt in anyone's mind of the so-called horrors Israel was causing to thousands of "innocent civilians". And there would be massive amounts of video & photos available on the internet. Leftists with BDS, the anti-war crowd & human rights activists everywhere using it to claim "massive war crimes", ET AL., Right?

But there isn't, is there?

Instead there are thousands of clips & photos that to the casual viewer appear to be of dramatic rescue efforts with many, many dead & injured being rushed off to hospitals & morgues. However, ever since Qana, & now the Reuters fiasco, I have been paying close attention to it when it's on my TV. And guess what? So much of this stuff appears to be staged it would be laughable if it weren't so damned scandalous.

For every clip or photo of an injured or dead person, there are literally dozens of clips of "victims" who do not have any visible injuries at all. No blood is visible anywhere. Most don't even have any torn clothes, dirt covered bodies, or any other sign they had just been blown up by a BOMB, hit by shrapnel or just got pulled from a collapsed building. Many of them look right into the camera & don't even bother to pretend to show the slightest bit of pain or anguish. Even the little children aren't crying or looking scared, with no trace of pain in their faces.

I've even seen a number of clips where these "victims" almost get dropped by their rescuers carrying them into the hospital or to the ambulance. These seriously injured "victims" show amazingly fantastic agility attempting to break their fall, again without showing the slightest bit of pain or anguish. I've seen clips of these "victims", apparently unaware they were being filmed, gawking around at their surroundings, their faces showing not a care in the world. Some actually sit up on their gurneys & look around. But the instant they see a camera pointed at them, they freeze for an instant, jaw agape, a shock flashes over their face, then their demeanor changes to comport to that of a "victim".

I've seen clips of people with several large gauze bandages on their bodies that are pristine white - not a hint of blood or a seeping wound. Even though much of their body is exposed for the camera, there are no visible cuts, scratches, bruises or even tiny scabs anywhere. These people were just blown up or pulled from a collapsed building? Amazing!

One clip was so bad I'm amazed they bothered to even air it. It was a little girl with multiple pristine gauze bandages & not one visible scratch, bruise or any type of wound to be seen anywhere. This girl basically stared at the camera with a bored look on her face for the entire segment. A nurse appeared to be fixing a bandage around her head. She pushed it a bit too hard & the bandage slipped off the little girl's forehead several inches above her hair line. There was no sign of a wound anywhere on her forehead or either of her ears. The nurse quickly pulled the bandage back down & held it in place until the camera cut away.

These clips & photos are supposed to be showing us the horrors of this war. And most of the stuff I'm describing was footage & photos from Lebanon on FoxNews.

Heck, even FoxNews' Johnathan Hunt is spinning hard for Hezbollah. I've seen at least a dozen reports from him in the last week. In every segment he breathlessly reports several "new" incidents where 10, 20 or more "innocent civilians" have been killed. There have been exactly ZERO Hezbollah injured or killed in any of Johnathan's reported "incidents". Not only that, but 100% of the casualties have been not just "innocent civilians", but they are all "women" & "children". Yes, you read that correctly. Every single "victim" has been a woman or a child per Johnathan.

Like most MSM reports of these incidents, Johnathan unquestioningly accepts every Hezbollah allegation at face value. Any modest disclaimers or caveats from him are given long after he reports the bloated death & injury totals as fact. Also there is very little (often no) video evidence to support the hysterical allegations even though Johnathan often claims to be reporting live or showing video from the site of the incident. There are people scurrying around giving the impression a rescue operation is under way, but there's little or no video of actual "victims". And even those who are supposed to be "victims" generally do not appear to have any visible injuries whatsoever. Of the few instances of visible injuries, none of them one has seemed to be remotely serious. I did not see one genuine serious injury or dead person in any of these reports. NOT ONE!

The worst I saw was one arm with a some blood on it. The thing is there was no obvious cut, let alone a gash. There was one child's face with several small scabs & one scrape that covered the tip of her nose. That's it! And these "victims" were just blown up by the Eeeeevil Israeli military?

Apparently it has yet to occur to Johnathan or FoxNews that there is something suspicious in this reporting. Johnathan's reports stick out like severed heads (it's far more obvious than a sore thumb) compared to all of the other FoxNews reporters over there. Now it's possible I have missed some of his reporting. I'm only aware of the reports I have personally seen, but I have had Fox on all day during the week since hostilities broke out in Lebanon.

And no, I'm not saying it's all being faked or that there aren't any real deaths or injuries. However, if the rhetoric we have been fed is real you'd think that we'd be seeing mostly genuine cases of deaths & injuries with very few that appear to be staged or exaggerated. I'd just like to know why am I seeing the exact opposite.

"Fake but Inaccurate"

Reuters is Toast. Their credibility is making the final circles around the drain as it heads down to the sewage treatment plant.

Now we have a case of the "massacre" that wasn't. Reuters was all over the story even getting quotes with specific information about this "massacre" from locals.

In Reuters initial reporting of the story we got this;

Lebanon's prime minister, choking back tears, demanded a "quick and decisive ceasefire" on Monday after an Israeli air raid that he said killed more than 40 civilians sheltering from fighting in a southern village.

However, AP noted this;

The Lebanese prime minister says only one person died in an Israeli air raid on the southern village of Houla, lowering the death toll from 40.

Kim Priestap at Wizbang notes;

So, does Reuters report this new information? At first. According to Dinocrat, Reuters mentioned that the prime minister revised the number down to one. However, in its most recent report, Reuters drops the reference to the airstrike all together and refiles it as if the prime minister said nothing about 40 dead civilians. The newest version still has the Lebanese PM "choking back tears" but this time about civilian suffering in general....

... So why didn't Reuters in its most recent filing just acknowledge that PM Siniora incorrectly reported the number of Lebanese killed instead of pretending like the prime minister never mentioned the attack? Is it that it just didn't make Israel look as bad so it wasn't worth mentioning anymore?

Dinocrat also asks how Reuters got the statements and reactions from the Houla residents which were published in its original report:

How then did Reuters get the reactions from the residents of that village, Houla, who said they feared that up to 60 people had been killed, and identified them as children and shepherds? Did they get that information from their Hezbollah handlers and allies? You may believe any story from Reuters / Hezbollah at your peril.

The liberal bias from the MSM just keeps getting worse. Now they're getting sloppy to boot. No matter how you slice this, Reuters seems to have multiple cases of journalistic malpractice on their hands. Don't hold your breath waiting for the MSM to do any real investigative reporting into these incidents from Reuters. Even though there are aspects to this story worthy of a Pulitzer, perhaps even a major motion picture they won't do it. It just might reveal too many dark secrets about the MSM they'd rather keep from being exposed.

Hell, the MSM is hardly reporting the incidents themselves. Qana has all but disappeared from the radar screen now that serious questions have been raised that it may have been staged & the death toll was dramatically revised downward. Now that at least two of Adnan Hajj's photo's have been found to be fraudulent, Reuters has pulled all 920 of his photo's from their files & that includes his photos from the now forgotten Qana incident.

They must be as dumb as they think we are. At least this blogger isn't fooled.

Reuters Photo Fraud Expands

John Hinderaker at Power Line sums it up well;

It is now obvious that this is a major scandal, and that Reuters has allowed itself to be used as a vehicle for publishing the crudest forms of Hezbollah propaganda.

Rusty Shackleford at The Jawa Report found this;

Another photo by Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj has been shown to be doctored. The photo, which proports to be of an Israeli F-16 firing missiles on Lebanon has been doctored to make the photo seem more sensational....

... The F-16 in the photo is not firing missiles, but is rather dropping... flares designed to be a decoy for surface to air missiles.

See the photos & how Rusty expose this fraud here.


A Power Line reader, Robert Opalecky sent in two other deceptive photos by Adnan Hajj that Reuters ran;

One is from July 24 of a bombed out area in Beirut, with a clearly identifiable building in a prominent part of the shot. The second is of the exact same area, same buildings, same condition, with a woman walking past "a building flattened during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs August 5, 2006."

Reuters ran this Hajj photo with the caption, "Journalists are shown by a Hizbollah guerrilla group the damage caused by Israeli attacks on a Hizbollah stronghold in southern Beirut, July 24 2006. (Adnan Hajj/Reuters)";


This Hajj photo ran August 5 with the caption, "A Lebanese woman looks at the sky as she walks past a building flattened during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs August 5, 2006. (Adnan Hajj/Reuters)"




Reuters has pulled all photots by Adnan Hajj. Adnan Hajj, bye the way submitted a number of photos of the Qana incident, which appears to have been staged as well.

Sheesh!

FoxNews reporter Johnathan Hunt is in Lebanon. His reporting is so obviously slanted pro-Hezbollah & anti-Israel that he should by waving a Hezbollah flag while delivering his reports. It's to the point now that I want to puke when he is given air time.

Just my 2¢ worth.

Rich Tucker gets it

Simply delivering a cease-fire won’t deliver peace. Peace isn’t the absence of fighting -- it’s what exists when people would rather co-exist than fight. Hezbollah wants to fight and kill non-Muslims, and especially Americans.

Unless we want to see the terrorist group succeed, we’d better get serious about stopping it. First we have to allow Israel to finish off Hezbollah. Then we can talk about a cease-fire and maybe even build peace with people who want it.

Read it the whole article here at Townhall.com.

Oliver North gets it

Why can't the experts in the MSM?

... "They" call themselves Hamas, al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Muslim Brotherhood, Jamaat-Islamiyah, the Mahdi Army or any of a dozen other names for violent terror groups operating with impunity around the world....

... Regardless of origin -- Sunni or Shia -- "they" share critical common ground. They all despise Judeo-Christian values, institutions and individuals and are committed to "ridding" Islamic lands of Western "occupation." They are all "non-state" entities -- claiming independence of any government -- but rely on support from radical Islamic entities awash in petro-dollars. All carry out attacks with ruthless brutality without regard for their victims. All regard Israel and America as abominations, share the aim of "liberating" Jerusalem and envision a caliphate that extends from Casablanca in the west to Indonesia in the east. This is "what they want."

Unfortunately, in this era of shallow, "sound-bite" journalism and drive-by "action" coverage, these objectives -- routinely specified in the writings, speeches and sermons of radical Islamic political leaders and clerics -- are widely ignored by the masters of our mainstream media or dismissed as the ranting of fanatics with few followers. The consequence is a woefully uninformed public -- and an electorate so ignorant of reality that western political leaders can promote simplistic solutions like this week's calls for an immediate cease-fire, intensive diplomacy and the introduction of an international peacekeeping force leading to a negotiated end to the strife.

This theme, repeated in today's newspapers, magazines, newscasts and political stump speeches, is a minor variation on the kind of thinking that succeeded so brilliantly with Adolf Hitler. He too had written and spoken widely of his aspirations for global domination and ethnic cleansing. Yet, even after he had re-armed and commenced fulfilling his twisted dreams of "purification" and expansion, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was able to proclaim "peace for our time," after returning from Munich in September 1938. Less than a year later, the Fuhrer plunged the world into a global conflagration. The willful ignorance of weak-willed democratic leaders bent on appeasing evil did not spare their populations then -- nor will it today.

Those leading the call for the Israelis to cease their aggression in Lebanon and start immediate talks leading to a broader Middle East peace -- all part of the lexicon today -- need a healthy dose of reality. There is no "Middle East Peace" to keep....

Read it all here.

Reuters admits Photo was a fraud

Captain Ed has done such a great job distilling the essence of this story that I'm going to shamelessly plagiarize one more blog entry from him. Let me add a hearty congratulations to Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs, Captain's Quarters & all the other conservative blogs that helped expose this blatant fraud.

Reuters 'Fesses Up

By Captain Ed on Media Watch
Captain's Quarters

In a refreshing change for a global media outlet, Reuters did not claim to have received the infamously doctored photograph of Beirut from Lucy Ramirez at a Texas rodeo, but instead admitted that the image had been manufactured. They have also started disciplinary procedures against Adnan Hajj, the hack that has generated other questionable war-scene photography:

A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.

In the message, Reuters said that "photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience."

Reuters' head of PR Moira Whittle said in response: "Reuters has suspended a photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to a photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings following an air strike on Beirut. Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures."

Ynet News credits the blogger who first scored the kill on this photograph: Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs. Ace o' Spades, Hot Air, and Left & Right get honorable mentions as well. They did a great job picking this one to pieces, and Charles can score a big takedown on this one. Now we would like to hear an explanation from the photography editors at al-Reuters why they didn't catch this prior to publication. After all, as the MSM continuously reminds us, they are the experts and have multiple levels of editorial control, blah blah blah.

Here's an image we'll want to save:

What else do you expect from the stinking liberal MSM?

Objectivity my arse!

The following is shamelessly plagiarized from the Captain's Quarters blog. Be sure to follow the links to LittleGreenFootballs (LGF) to read Charles Johnson's damning expose & see all the photographic proof he provides.

Al-Reuters Doctors War Photos In Lebanon

Posted by Captain Ed

Charles Johnson at LGF demolishes Reuters for publishing a laughably doctored photo of Beirut, attempting to make it look like the Israelis bombed the city indiscriminately. Readers do not need any particular expertise in photography or digital editing to spot this phony -- smoke patterns get exactly duplicated over and over again. Even buildings get duplicated in this amateurish attempt to manipulate images for political purposes. And guess who gets the credit for the photography? Adnan Hajj -- the same photographer who documented the Qana attack that now looks more and more to have been a phony story as well.

This isn't just one reporter and a producer going nuts at a network news division. This shows that Reuters has either complete incompetents as editors or that the entire British wire service has chosen one particular side in this war. Check all the links in Charles' post, and try to keep from laughing out loud at how utterly stupid Reuters considers its customers to be.

UPDATE: Here's the link to the photo itself. Take a read of what sports photographers think of this image.

What you won't hear in the MSM

The Times of London reproduced a transcript of an interview with Prime Minister Olmert. What he said is not something that you will hear discussed in the MSM.

Times: [T]here is a sense in the world, and you must be aware of it, of lack of "proportionality". Many people question how after two soldiers kidnapped and eight killed by Hezbollah we are now seeing upwards of 400 dead and rising in Lebanon. How can such an initial incident justify such a huge response from Israel?

Olmert: I think that you are missing a major part. The war started not only by killing eight Israeli soldiers and abducting two but by shooting Katyusha and other rockets on the northern cities of Israel on that same morning. Indiscriminately.

Now we know that for years Hezbollah - assisted by Iran - built an infrastructure of a very significant volume in the south part of Lebanon to be used against Israeli people. The most obvious, simple, way to describe it to the average British person is: can you imagine seven million British citizens sitting for 22 days in Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham in Newcastle, in Brighton and in other cities? Twenty two days in shelters because a terrorist organisation was shooting rockets and missiles on their heads? What would have been the British reaction to that? Do you know of a country that would have responded to such a brutal attack on its citizens softer than Israel did? Based on my knowledge of history no country in Europe would have responded in such a restrained manner as Israel did.

I don't want now to draw comparisons [but] one could ask the question what precisely did the European forces [do] in Kosovo 10 years ago. How many innocent civilians were killed in Kosovo 10 years ago? We can draw on and on these comparisons.

What are we talking about? More than a million Israelis are sitting 22 days in shelters because of the fear of terrorists. In every single case...that we kill an uninvolved civilian in Lebanon, we consider it as a failure for Israel. And you know how many Israelis raise their voices as a result of this? And they don't have to because we feel that we failed when we killed uninvolved people.

The difference between us and Hezbollah is that when we kill innocent people we consider it a failure, when they kill innocent people they consider it a success.

Tell me, who are they aiming at when they shoot already 2800 rockets on Haifa, Hanariya, Akko, Sefat, Afula and the rest of the places, if not to kill innocent people? So I'm sorry for every individual that was killed that was not involved.

And by the way, how do you really know that 400 innocent civilians were killed? How do you know who is innocent and who is not? Why? This is not an army. They don't wear uniforms that distinguish them from other civilians. We didn't attack any of the Christian quarters of Beirut. We didn't attack any of the Christian residential areas in any part of Lebanon. We attacked only those areas where they had the Katyusha launchers, where they had the missile launchers, where they had the command positions of Hezbollah, where they had the storage houses, the logistic centres and so on and so forth.

So the fact that people were killed there who were not dressed in uniforms doesn't mean that they were innocent civilians. There were Hezbollah people, they are the terrorists. Did you ever see terrorists dressed with military uniforms like we have in our army? No.

Hat Tip to the good folks at Power Line

Utterly Delusional

John Hinderaker at Power Line on the utterly delusional thinking at the UN & of appeasers everywhere with respect to dealing with Hizbollah.

What is the book in which people in sleighs, traveling across the Russian steppes, are beset by wolves, and begin to toss children overboard, one by one, in the hope that the wolves will be satiated or distracted? That is the image that comes to mind. Toss the terrorists a bit of land--ultimately, of course, Israel--and maybe they will be satisfied and leave the rest of us alone. It is an unedifying spectacle.

Insanity or 'Groundhog Day'

On August 1st, the Washington Post published an article by former President Jimmy Carter (subscription required - however the text can be found here) titled, "Stop the Band-Aid Treatment", with a subtitle, "We need policies for a real, lasting Middle East peace". It is chock full of the same old memes, moral equivalence & liberal pablum that we have heard since Jimmy Carter's debacle with the hostage taking in Iran in 1979.

Of course Jimmy has to repeat one of the memes that has become indispensable to all terrorist groups;

[I]t is inhumane and counterproductive to punish civilian populations in the illogical hope that somehow they will blame Hamas and Hezbollah for provoking the devastating response. The result instead has been that broad Arab and worldwide support has been rallied for these groups, while condemnation of both Israel and the United States has intensified.

Rather than blame Hezbollah for being directly responsible for the war crimes that lead to these civilian casualties, Carter lays blame for civilian deaths at Qana on the Israeli's. In typical lib fashion Carter exaggerated the number of casualties & dredged up the last time there were civilians killed in a similar incident there 10 years ago.

Hello Jimmy! Hezbollah can thank you & other liberal elites for making it possible for them to exploit local civilian populations. It's now one of the most important military tactics they have next to their acts of terrorism. It's a win-win situation for them. They know that Isreal will be unlikely to return fire when Hezbollah fires their rockets from civilian areas. They know they can store their weapons among them because Israel won't try to destroy them in civilian areas. They know their bunkers, offices & homes are safe when they are built among civilians. They even dress like civilians too. And when Israel does fire on those positions (after giving civilians multiple warnings) Hezbollah knows they can use it to have Israel condemned for "intentionally targeting" innocent civilians. And they can even count dead Hezbollah among the "innocent civilians" because they are dressed like civilians.

Why? Because liberal elites like you won't condemn Hezbollah for these war crimes. No, you won't even educate the public about these despicable tactics. And when Israel does take action you are a willing mouthpiece of Hezbollah propaganda, unquestioningly repeating their version of events as though it were fact.

Carter goes on to cite all the memes they've trotted out since 1979;

- The "cycle of violence", you know, where the terrorists kill & maim at will until Israel responds,

- Ignoring 'World opinion' that craves peace above all, despite the odious consequences it has caused by not properly addressing the underlying problems. That would be the 'world opinion' that Carter & his elite peers have fostered but does not reflect reality,

- Israel's "provocative “security barrier” that embarrasses Israel’s friends and that fails to bring safety or stability", you know, the security barrier that has done wonders protecting innocent civilians in Israel from terrorists wearing bomb laden waist belts,

- The violence will continue as long as "Israel is violating key U.N. resolutions", you know, the ones manufactured by numerous anti-Semitic bureaucrats that populate the UN, the same UN that can't even define the word terrorist, let alone label Hezbollah, Hamas, Al Qaeda as terrorist organizations or denounce Iran & Syria, ET AL, as terrorist sponsoring nations,

- Blame the US for the continuing violence,

- etc., etc...


So what does Carter suggest the Israel do? Bend over & take it as long as Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields?

Please don't tell me that Carter & elite libs everywhere have yet to figure out that their utterly failed policies have contributed mightily to creating the monster that terrorism is today.

Appeasement since Carter's Presidency has failed.

Diplomacy with them has failed.

Every "Peace Accord" or agreement has utterly failed.

Every UN Resolution has utterly failed.

Every cease fire has saved the terrorists from destruction so they can regroup, rearm & return to fight another day.

Playing the moral equivalence card has played right into their hands.

Portraying them as "victims" has played right into their hands.

Failing to educate the public about the true nature of the terrorists has played right into their hands.

Failing to have a peacekeeping force that can enforce UN Resolutions with force if necessary has played right into their hands.

In essence, everything that liberal elites have demanded we do has only served to embolden the terrorists to become even more depraved & evil.

So why does the MSM treat proven losers like Jimmy Carter as if they were legitimate power brokers & give them a prominent voice in the media where they will shape world opinion with these same utterly failed liberal views?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over & over again expecting a different outcome.

So why do I get the feeling that Jimmy Carter & his elite liberal peers are either insane or they're stuck in their own 'Groundhog Day'?

The Inclusive, Tolerant & Open Minded Left Shows its True Colors Again

The leftist website the Huffington Post was at it again showing us that BDS is but one of many hypocritical aspects of the left that does not jive with how they portray themselves to the public.

Compassionate? Inclusive? Tolerant? Open Minded? Ya right!

Michelle Malkin notes;

The netroots/nutroots are putting their proverbial eggs in the Ned Lamont basket. They are pulling out all the stops with ad hominen attacks on Sen. Joe Lieberman. Don Lambro looks at the uncivil war faced by pro-Iraq war Democrats. Ian Schwartz has the Lamont-Colbert video. Look at the Photoshop that unhinged Jane Hamsher has posted of Sen. Lieberman at the Huffington Post:


I am so sure the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP and the civil rights brigade will be protesting this disgusting use of blackface in political discourse. Oh, wait, never mind. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are campaigning against Lieberman, too.

Speaking of hypocrites, Hugh Hewitt points out that when Mel Gibson went round the bend Arianna huffed:

Taking a page from our president, I see the Gibson story as "a moment of opportunity," a chance for reasonable people to stand up and be counted. For the sane among us to identify, separate, and condemn the extremists, the fanatics, the fundamentalists, the bigots, the hate-mongers and say 'no more.' ...

For starters, the town's power players need to step up and publicly condemn Gibson's vile comments (in effect, saying in public what they are already saying in private conversations I and many others have had). I mean, it shouldn't be so hard to publicly denounce someone -- even an Oscar-winner -- for being a raging anti-Semite.

Hewitt noted that Arianna later congratulated those who blasted Gibson. His retort;

So I assume we will be hearing shortly from Arianna on Hamsher's tactics, as well as her call for Ned Lamont to disown Hamsher and others using such tactics?

Don't hold your breath Hugh. The BDS inflicted left can only "perceive" Eeeeevil when it comes from the right side of the isle.

Finally, Captain Ed sizes it up thusly;

They will do and say anything to destroy him, and this is about as low as it could get. Lieberman doesn't deserve this kind of treatment after his years of honorable public service. He's not my favorite by any means, but that doesn't mean he should have to suffer this kind of despicable treatment at the hands of his own party.

This is what the activist, radical Left have planned for America if they win control in November -- character assassinations and smear campaigns. If they enjoy doing this to Lieberman, imagine what they'll do to the rest of us.

Why We Might Lose (Part 4)

Vincent Fiore cuts to the chase out today in his article in Human Events Online today. In his piece, "The Liberal Strategy for Israel: Hunker Down and Die", Fiore discusses a Washington Post article by Richard Cohen.

As the war progresses in the Middle East and wave upon wave of rockets fired by Hezbollah kill Israeli civilians and military personal, the world hears from one of liberalism’s premiere statesmen, opinion writer Richard Cohen:

“The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake.”

Ahh, the self-importance and smugness of the chattering class! Cohen, whose column is showcased by the Washington Post and syndicated nationwide, continues by stating with mind-numbing clarity that Israel would do best by letting her enemies pummel her....

What Richard Cohen means in this penned flatulence that masquerades as serious commentary is that Israel should -- ahem -- bend over, grab the ankles, and just take it....

And regarding Israel’s sovereignty? According to Richard Cohen, Israel should not even exist.

Stupid Jewish state! How selfish is Israel to exercise the concept of self-defense, or even more perverse to some -- beltway op-ed writers particularly -- the very thought of self-preservation.

Then Fiore lets it all hang out;

When Americans read and hear what modern-day liberals like Richard Cohen have to say, you wonder if they are tempted to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of the guy, or slap a net over him.

These days, liberalism as practiced by Richard Cohen and the paper he writes for is not a political belief system inasmuch as it is a sickness of sorts. Symptomatic of the sickness is the basic perversion of the concepts right and wrong, and good and evil.

Liberals like Richard Cohen are not only wrong, but they are dangerously wrong. Cohen cannot even bring himself to condemn Hezbollah or Hamas. Instead, Cohen gives them a free pass, explaining that “zealots are not amenable to reason.” But condemn Israel for defending herself? Like bees to honey, it’s a certainty that liberals like Cohen will always blaze forth in doing so.

Zealots, Mr. Cohen? Do you mean the kind of zealotry that you and the left have carried out against a sitting president in a time of war? It is the zealotry of the absolute hatred of blind rage, or the willingness instantly to torpedo anything President Bush is for or supportive of, for the sake of revitalizing the left’s severe power outage in Washington.

Is that the zealotry you speak of, Mr. Cohen?

Further, I think it is breathlessly stunning how someone as positioned as Richard Cohen is can instill thought and opinion so radically different to anything other than the obvious truth: Israel has every right to defend itself, and utterly destroy Hezbollah and its patron states like Syria and Iran.

I guess when I think about it, the Washington Post has done its readers a great service. By running these thoughtless and hyperventilating pieces that pretend to be cogent and analytical thought by someone such as Cohen, the Post reminds us all regarding the stark differences between those invested in freedom and its future, and those who are invested in the status quo, and fear.

People like Richard Cohen are liberal simpletons, certainly. But people like Cohen are also dangerous, and should be labeled as such.

Finally, Richard Cohen and the Washington Post underline why America looks rightward politically these days. Cohen further illustrates the stark differences between the clear-eyed right that fight this war against terrorism, and the close-eyed left who would gladly watch America and her allies -- like Israel -- fall to terrorism if only to see themselves reseated within the corridors of power in Washington.

Don't hold back Mr. Fiore. Tell us how you really feel.

Why they Fight

The Weekly Standard's, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross has an excellent analysis of Mary Habeck's "Knowing the Enemy". It provides a window into the jihadist worldview.

[J]ihadist thinkers like Maududi and Qutb argue that if only God can be worshipped and obeyed, then only God's laws can have any significance or legitimacy. This provides them with justification not only for violently overturning social systems that aren't based on a "correct" understanding of Islam, but also for declaring fellow Muslims to be non-believers if they accept secular rule in place of the Islamic order that jihadists seek to impose.

The consequences of the view that only sharia law has legitimacy are far-reaching. For one thing, jihadists' unwillingness to accept secular rule places them on an inevitable collision course with the West. The jihadist thinker Fathi Yakan, for example, wrote of the need for jihad in response to "attacks from every materialistic ideology and system that threatens the existence of Islam as
a global paradigm of thought and system of life."

Not only do jihadists see this clash between Islam and the non-Muslim world as an integral part of God's plan, but many also seek to portray Islam's enemies as the aggressors.

Read it all here.

Why We Just Might Lose (Part 3)

How the Media Enable Terrorism

Rachel Neuwirth
The American Thinker
August 2nd, 2006

A major segment of the global media is behaving in a manner that makes terrorism and mass killings more likely rather than less likely. They enable and encourage terrorist slaughter of innocents by supplying providing a propaganda bonanza for the terrorist cause. Without the gain, there would be less incentive for the horrific behavior.

This is true now with Israeli defense measures against Hezbolla terrorism, and has been true for many years, especially during the long Arab-Israeli conflict. Not enough attention has been paid to media manipulation. It is long overdue that this be exposed and the media be confronted and held accountable.

The general public derives its perception of the wider reality beyond direct personal experience via the media. When the major media all sing a similar tune the public generally assumes it is being honestly informed. The internet and talk radio often challenge the major media, but not everyone has the time or interest to become well-informed on the many issues and sort things out, especially when the alternative media also present conflicting views of reality.

The major media can spin and color stories to suit their agenda. They can rile up the public over certain issues or hide vital information. When the media riles up the public, governments can feel pressured to act in one direction or the other. All this conflicts with honest reporting.

A prime example involves a front page photo in the New York Times. An angry Israeli policeman is seen brandishing his police club while standing over a bloodied man on the ground. The Times caption reads:

“An Israeli policeman and a Palestinian on the Temple Mount”.

The photo suggests a Palestinian so badly beaten that blood was running down his face. Publishing such an inflammatory photo had to generate extreme outrage against Israel, and the Times had to know it.

But the caption was effectively a lie.

The victim was a Jew beaten by Arabs. The Israeli policeman was defending the victim. When the Times was forced to retract they did it grudgingly and then added another lie to the story until public outrage forced them to come clean with the real story. The action of the Times (“All the news that’s fit to print”) was so outrageous that a media watchdog organization was born in response.

Please go here and see “The photo that started it all” on the top right. Then read the details of how the New York Times prints ‘All the news that fits.’ There is no mention that anyone at the Times was punished. If the once-prestigious New York Times can be so deceptive we are now in a new era of extreme media dishonesty and must be extra vigilant.

In the Arab – Israeli conflict, Israel’s Arab enemies long ago developed an effective way to promote anti-Jewish terror and win the public relations battle in the process. Yasser Arafat early on employed the tactic of shooting at Jews from behind Arab women and children which were used as shields. The Israelis were caught in a dilemma. Not to fire back meant being helpless to respond to the ongoing slaughter of Jews. But to fire back meant unavoidable loss of Arab civilians, including children. And with a complicit media conveniently present (by appointment?) to see and film and later to edit. The resulting story would emphasize the retaliation over the provocation, making it seem as if Israel was deliberately targeting Arab civilians. Reality would be a product manufactured to suit.

This tactic required the willingness of Arab leaders to deliberately sacrifice many Arab civilians in the process of attacking Israel. Many Arabs have long been brainwashed via their schools, their media and their mosques to see Israelis, and even all Jews, as monsters bent on their destruction. This made it easier to keep them compliant with these tactics. Also, any Arabs who objected could be killed.

In Lebanon today Hezbollah is employing the same tactic. Their rocket attacks often originate from within civilian areas which will assure civilian casualties. They, and their supporters, accuse Israel of deliberately targeting civilians. If Israel really wanted to target civilians it would not take a full week of intensive bombing to kill 250 people.Many in the media have now joined the chorus of “disproportionate response” and ‘targeting of civilians’. They call, in effect, for a one-sided cease fire where Israel ‘ceases’ and Hezbolla remains free to ‘fire’.

It would help if Israel and her friends would make it clear to all that Israel only targets sources of aggression. But the media, by their skewed reporting, is making it politically profitable for Hezbolla to locate rocket launchers in the midst of civilian areas. This reinforces the Hezbolla tactics and increases the civilian death toll.

The major media are thus directly complicit in enabling this tactic to continue and for more Lebanese civilians to be killed. If the major media would tell the whole truth and place the blame entirely on the Hezbolla terrorists it would no longer be politically profitable to continue this tactic. People who care might communicate to the media on this and even send them a copy of this article as back-up.

It would also help greatly if Israel would explain more clearly that:

1. It makes great efforts to not attack innocent civilians.

2. It will target every rocket launcher, no matter where it is located, and it is the responsibility of Hezbolla and the Lebanese to remove civilians from that area.

It would also help if the American Jewish leadership would finally wake up and show the complicity and culpability of the U.S. media in the killing of Lebanese civilians. This would at least take the political and public relations profit out of terrorism.

http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5725

Jack "In Cold Blood" Murtha sued for Defamation

And it couldn't happen to a more deserving slime ball. Marine Corps sergeant Frank D. Wuterich has filed a defamation case against Congressman John P. Murtha over his public comments in the incident in Haditha;

Lawyers for Frank D. Wuterich, 26, who grew up in Meriden, Conn., argue in a suit to be filed Wednesday in federal court that Murtha falsely accused Wuterich "of cold-blooded murder and war crimes."

The suit maintains that Pentagon officials "who have briefed or leaked information to Mr. Murtha deliberately provided him with inaccurate and false information" and that the congressman subsequently "has made repeated statements .... that are defamatory" to Wuterich and his fellow Marines.

The suit accuses Murtha of spreading "false and malicious lies" about Wuterich and his squad that were "intended to serve his own private purpose and interests" and that Murtha's comments "have been reproduced by countless third parties throughout the world."

It says many of Murtha's remarks were made outside his "scope of employment as a congressman." Murtha, a former Marine, has been a leading proponent of withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq.

Let's hope that Murtha can't weasel out of this by somehow successfully invoking the Speech & Debate Clause which should have no bearing on this case against Murtha;

The Speech or Debate Clause (found in Article I, Section 6, Clause 1) is a clause in the United States Constitution which states that members of both Houses of Congress

...shall in all Cases, except Treason, Felony, and Breach of the Peace, be privileged from Arrest during their attendance at the Session of their Respective Houses, and in going to and from the same, and for any Speech or Debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other Place.

Its intended purpose is to prevent a President or other officials of the Executive branch from having members arrested on a pretext to prevent them from voting a certain way or otherwise taking actions with which he or she might disagree.

Many of Murtha's comments were made to the media, often on TV. They clearly appeared they were designed for public consumption with the intent of damaging the Bush Admin. The Speech & Debate Clause was not designed to protect members of Congress from willful libel, slander & defamation. And this appears to be a case where Murtha's comments were willful distortions.

Sergeant Wuterich has already gone public proclaiming innocence;

A sergeant who led a squad of Marines during the incident in Haditha, Iraq, that left as many as 24 civilians dead said his unit did not intentionally target any civilians, followed military rules of engagement and never tried to cover up the shootings, his attorney said.

Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, 26, told his attorney that several civilians were killed Nov. 19 when his squad went after insurgents who were firing at them from inside a house. The Marine said there was no vengeful massacre, but he described a house-to-house hunt that went tragically awry in the middle of a chaotic battlefield.

Here's an easy prediction. The MSM will use this case as an excuse to bash the military & the Bush Admin about their many "war crimes" & human rights "abuses". Don't expect them to hignlight Murtha's checkered past. And don't expect them to question the partisan motives of his which are legion.

Murtha was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Abscam investigation. There are public allegations that he was steering defense appropriations to companies represented by his brother's lobbying firm. Including Haditha, there is the litany of other thoroughly discredited assertions Murtha has made. That clearly indicates that the MSM already has considerable evidence already available to properly inform the public of the merits of this defamation case. Just don't hold your breath waiting for it.

Appeasement by Chickendoves

Why else would the EU pretend the obvious does not exist;

EU - No intent yet to add Hizbollah to terror list

Wanna bet their intelligence agencies all have a laundry list of known terrorist atrocities committed by Hizbollah? Have they been watching events in Lebanon recently?

"Given the senstitive situtaion, I don't think this is something we will be acting on now," Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja, told a news conference following an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels.

Give me a break. John Hinderaker at Power Line opines;

Which means, I guess, that the EU thinks it would be rude to identify Hezbollah as a terrorist organization while it is in the midst of carrying out terrorist acts. Who, exactly, is going to man the "international force" that Olmert's government is now calling for?

Me thinks the EU just want to send a message to Hizbollah & their masters, Syria & Iran that they don't want to face their wrath. Go ahead & kill the Jews, but pretty please leave us alone.

Lipstick on a Pig

Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid and other senior Democrats have sent a letter to President Bush showing that BDS trumps all;

We believe that a phased redeployment of U.S. forces from Iraq should begin before the end of 2006. U.S. forces in Iraq should transition to a more limited mission focused on counterterrorism, training and logistical support of Iraqi security forces, and force protection of U.S. personnel.

No, victory, supporting democracy or winning the GWOT were not a consideration in this letter. Well OK, they were. You see, if we stay & win, a successful democracy in Iraq will go a long way toward winning the GWOT. Since the DNC has BDS, they simply must attempt to, by any means necessary, derail anything that would be considered a positive for President Bush - damn the consequences.

Mark Noonan at Blogs for Bush notes;

"Phased redeployment" is Democratese for "cut and run" - as a phrase, it polled better in focus groups than "surrender" and "betraying our military".

Yup! Lipstic on a pig.

Why we just might lose (part 2)

Edward Morrissey (Captain Ed of the Captain's Quarters blog) has an excellent piece in the Washington Examiner on the soft nihilism of low expectations.

While the world holds Israel to this standard, things become curiously silent when it’s time to hold Hezbollah responsible for its conduct of war. Hardly a word has escaped from the U.N. or Europe on the 2,500 missiles that have rained down upon Israeli civilians, deliberately targeted by Hezbollah. Those attacks have displaced more than 300,000 civilians, a fact the global community and the mainstream media ignore.

Those who argue that Israel has occasionally violated the Geneva Conventions in its attacks casually ignore the blatant violations of Hezbollah, whose combatants wear no uniform, deliberately hide in civilian populations and fire weapons from residential areas. Hezbollah conducts none of its operations within the rules of war — and yet world leaders and the media never mention it.

Why? Because no one expects terrorists to follow the rules. This is the soft nihilism of low expectations.

This is no way to fight a war. When grossly exaggerated, intentionally misleading, & manufactured allegations of "atrocities" dominate headlines & are a serious part of the debate within the MSM, UN, many Western Democracies & the DNC, world opinion is then grossly distorted. When these same bodies utterly fail to educate the world about the terrorists dedication to inflicting horrific atrocities on civilian populations of both their enemies & the people unfortunate enough to live in the areas where the terrorists (and rouge dictators) control, that too distorts global perception of real world events. This sets the stage for tying the hands of our military unnecessarily & emboldens our enemies.

Our military bends over backwards to avoid civilian casualties, but that's not how it is portrayed to the public. When bogus & hyper exaggerated allegations of "atrocities" become common knowledge it places undue pressure on political leaders to show even more restraint when terrorists strike. It forces political leaders to make the military alter their tactics & Rules of Engagement (ROE) even further to protect civilians, which in turn places our troops at greater risk. And it makes it easier for the terrorists to operate with impunity as they dress as civilians, use them as shields, store their arms, bunkers & safe houses among them.

Captain Ed, on his blog nails it;

Quite frankly, this double standard will eventually destroy Western civilization by rendering us incapable of defeating our enemies. Those nations wishing to destroy us have watched carefully over the last several years while our own people obsess -- and I do not think that too strong a term -- over anomalies like Abu Ghraib and Qana, and they note the lack of outrage over the fact that their proxies have deliberately launched 2,500 missiles at Israeli civilians. No leaders or media make a peep about the butchery of our enemies as displayed in the torture and beheading of our troops, except to somehow make it our fault for fighting terrorism in the first place.

What lessons do you think Iran, Syria, and the rest of the terrorists draw from these observations?

Be careful what you with for leftists. In your zeal to bring down President Bush you've become willing to blindly accept the worst about this Administration & our military. And the pablum from liberal elites about Palestinians & Muslims as victims & that all war is evil may one day come back to haunt you in a big way. But then it may be too late to do anything about it.