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PrintAugust 15, 2007
When dullards run enemy propaganda (updated)
Rocco DiPippo, AT contributor and blogger at The Autonomist, spotted enemy propaganda in the press, as delivered by the incompetent information warriors at French news agency AFP. Although we don't like to post news agency photos out of respect for copyright laws, this particular photo is the subject of the news story, so we violate our normal policy and post it.
The caption run by Yahoo News, and presumably supplied by AFP states:
An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. At least 175 people were slaughtered on Tuesday and more.
Now anyone who has actually held a gun and fired ammunition understands that a bullet which has been fired looks nothing like the unfired cartridges the woman holds. If I recall, the difference between bullets and cartridges was the first thing taught in the NRA firearms safety course I took decades ago when I first took up shooting as a sport and bought my first guns.
But Rocco, ever the helpful chap, supplies some remedial education for the evidently naïve and downright stupid journos at AFP:
BULLETS THAT HAVE BEEN FIRED AND HAVE ACTUALLY HIT SOMETHING OR SOMEBODYBULLETS THAT HAVE NOT BEEN FIRED AND HAVE NOT HIT ANYTHING UNLESS THEY WERE THROWN AT SOMETHING OR SOMEBODY
Of course, we have seen other such ridculous errors, as when the New York Times published a photo of an exploded artillery shell (supplied by AFP) next to a child in Afghanistan and identified it as a US missile (using the AFP caption) supposedly used to demolish the house of the poor kid.
Since no such Coalition artillery was in use anywhere near the site, the shell had been moved to the spot and posed. The problem with such crude propaganda fakery is that some people, say the average New York Times subscriber, share the same ignorance of journalists when it comes to nasty items like guns and military equipment. Eventually, The NYT corrected the item, but did not note the obvious fact that the shell was dragged to the site and posed with the child as a propaganda exercise uncritically disseminated by the Times.
Update: Separated at birth? (hat tip: Lucianne.com poster Hopster)
Since no such Coalition artillery was in use anywhere near the site, the shell had been moved to the spot and posed. The problem with such crude propaganda fakery is that some people, say the average New York Times subscriber, share the same ignorance of journalists when it comes to nasty items like guns and military equipment. Eventually, The NYT corrected the item, but did not note the obvious fact that the shell was dragged to the site and posed with the child as a propaganda exercise uncritically disseminated by the Times.
Update: Separated at birth? (hat tip: Lucianne.com poster Hopster)
A Lebanese woman wails after looking at the wreckage of her apartment, in a building, that was demolished by the Israeli attacks in southern Beirut July 22, 2006. REUTERS/Issam Kobeisi (from Yahoo News)
A Lebanese woman reacts at the destruction after she came to inspect her house in the suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Aug. 5, 2006, after Israeli warplanes repeatedly bombed the area overnight.(AP Photo/Hussein Malla) (from Yahoo News)Both pictures from Drinking From Home
Update: Rocketsbrain emails us a link to another suspicious picture, which might be the same woman, via Gateway Pundit, Confederate Yankee and Snapped Shot .
I am not a photo ID expert, and the identical garb may make them look similar anyway. But perhaps we have uncovered Islamic Rage Girl, the perfect match for bachelor Islamic Rage Boy, who lives at home with his parents.
Blackfive has made some of the same connections, and offers this classic: Flat Fatima
Update: Suitably Flip has the perfect follow-on for AFP. (hat tip: Bryan at Hot Air)
