BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage

Subject: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: C. Ham
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 11:41 AM

Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage

A fascinating little documentary that runs about two minutes.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Old Guy
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 12:09 PM

This illustrates how naive anti-war Liberals are being manupulated by the Media.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 12:26 PM

Or, how the right-wing is manipulated to believe otherwise. In one scene there is no proof that a downed plane did not ignite the tires. IN this day and age, it is easy to distort photos, etc. I am sure neither "side" is innocent of such.

What I do know is a lot of civilians, mostly women and children have been killed, senselessly and it benefits none. THAT is what is important to me no matter what the country/religion/etc.

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 01:36 PM

kat,

"What I do know is a lot of civilians, mostly women and children have been killed, senselessly and it benefits none."

What you know is that you have seen a number of claimed "victims"- In THOSE scenes there is no proof that the dead were not shot by Hezbollah for propaganda purposes. THAT is who benefits.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 01:57 PM

Thanks for posting this C. Ham. It's a great relief to know that the invasion of Lebanon is not really happening, that it's a media fraud by those untrustworthy Lebanese, and that those thousands of people murdered may actually be alive. I knew the Israeli army wasn't really in Lebanon either. Amazing how the media sucks us in.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 01:59 PM

"those thousands of people murdered "

Perhaps 1000 total dead, on both sides- aand international law holds Hezbollah responsible for the vast majority of the dead.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 02:05 PM

The filmer darkened the smoke from the conflagration so it would reproduce better.
Hardly fraud.

The murder and displacement of innocent Muslin and Christian Lebanese goes on.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 02:05 PM

Israel has a right of self-defence found in both the United Nations Charter and customary international law. However, the right of self defence is not unlimited. Israel commenced its military campaign against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon after the capture of two of its soldiers in mid-July. The scale and intensity of the Israeli military campaign has clearly moved well beyond efforts to retrieve its soldiers.

Israel is also bound by international humanitarian law based upon the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Israel can legitimately attack Hezbollah fighters and justify the targeting of certain objects based on military necessity. However, humanitarian law requires a distinction between civilian and military targets. Israel is not protected by international law from culpability for attacks on civilians.

The bombing of large tracts of southern Lebanon, the bombing of civilians, children, refugees and Maronite Christian areas are in violation of international law.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 02:10 PM

Unfortunately a freelance photographer gets his picture bought if he provides the emotional image. No doubt these same frauds are being perpetrated by the other photographers in Israel. No one side is ever right and the other wrong. It's human nature. I am not being manipulated by press photographs. What is going on is obvious to us all, liberal and non liberal alike.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: C. Ham
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 02:26 PM

Freda Underhill,

Your complete misinterpretation is hardly surprising. I've not suggested that innocent people are not dying. Of course they are; although not in the highly exagerated numbers you've mentioned. Do you make them up as you go along? The language you choose also reveals your bias. Unless you can prove that Israel is intentionally targeting civilians, their deaths, while tragic, are not murder.

The problem for the Lebanese civilians is that Hezbollah hides among them. Hezbollah launches their rockets from civilian houses and apartment buildings and mosques. What heroes they are.

BTW, Israeli leaders have expressed regret and sorrow for the civilian deaths in Lebanon. On the other hand, your Hezbollah heroes explicitly, and almost exclusively, target civilians with their rockets. And when Israeli children die (including Arab children), Hezbollah gloats.

Quite a contrast.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 02:38 PM

To those armchair warriors who think that murdering Lebanese children is acceptable, remember more than 1,000 Lebanese, most of them civilians, have been killed and 123 Israelis, most of them soldiers, have also been killed. (BBC online)

"War crimes and crimes against humanity may be committed, even by those who believe, accurately or not, that their combat is a just one, and their cause a worthy pursuit."

Louise Arbour
UN Human Rights Commissioner

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 03:34 PM

What you know is that you have seen a number of claimed "victims"- In THOSE scenes there is no proof that the dead were not shot by Hezbollah for propaganda purposes. THAT is who benefits.

BeardedBruce, first, you have no proof that they were shot for propaganda, for either side. Second, your argument is very similar to what was said before the US got into WWII. They didn't really kill all of those Jews, did they? *irony intended*

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: C. Ham
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 04:18 PM

Freda Underhill quotes Louise Arbour above.

Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard, has responded to Louise Arbour at this link.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 04:27 PM

Louise Arbour, the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the gathering that there have been violations by both sides.

"Israeli attacks affecting civilians continue unabated," she said. "Also unrelenting is Hezbollah's indiscriminate shelling of densely populated centres in northern Israel, which has brought death and destruction."

She also drew attention to "repeated allegations of Hezbollah's systematic use of civilians as human shields."

Let's quote her completely . . . .

from
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060811.warbour0811/BNStory/International/home

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 05:22 PM

Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard, also supports the use of torture.

Louise Arbour is rightly criticising both sides. As I stated previously, Subject: RE: BS: An interesting viewpoint on Lebanon
From: freda underhill - PM Date: 11 Aug 06 - 08:10 AM

Israel has a right of self-defence found in both the United Nations Charter and customary international law. However, the right of self defence is not unlimited. Israel commenced its military campaign against Hezbollah forces in Lebanon after the capture of two of its soldiers in mid-July. The scale and intensity of the Israeli military campaign has clearly moved well beyond efforts to retrieve its soldiers.

Israel is also bound by international humanitarian law based upon the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Israel can legitimately attack Hezbollah fighters and justify the targeting of certain objects based on military necessity. However, humanitarian law requires a distinction between civilian and military targets.

The bombing of large tracts of southern Lebanon, the bombing of civilians, children, refugees and Maronite Christian areas are in violation of international law - Housing blocks have been reduced to rubble, leaving thousands homeless. Villages have been bombed without justification. Aid and humanitarian workers including the Red Cross have been targeted. Israel has shattered Lebanon's infrastructure and economy, homes, factories and warehouses have been destroyed, roads severed, bridges smashed and airports disabled.

Yes, Lebanon's failure to control Hezbollah must be acknowledged. It has failed to meet the requirements of Security Council Resolution 1559 calling for the disarming and disbanding of Hezbollah.

However, do Lebanon's failings justify the scale and intensity of the Israeli assault? No. The reconstruction of the last 15 years has been obliterated in a few weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 05:25 PM

I posted this on another thread, but I shall post here, also.

"I will ask you the same question I have asked others, Freda. What would you have Israel do in response to rocket attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas from Lebanon and the Gaza?

I agree that the intensity of Israel's response is massive. However, they have to answer the same question I just asked you (and have asked on other threads and have yet to receive a response from anyone other than words to the effect: "Well, if Israel wasn't there in the first place then none of this woulda happened" kinda stuff).

I await your response."

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 05:45 PM

and here is that response again, since you've asked twice:

The question should be rephrased, Bruce: How should Hezbollah respond to the bombing of Lebanese citizens by Israel? What Israel was responding to was the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers. It was Israel that started the mass bombing - and Hezbollah is responding. What part of that can't you understand?

More than 10,000 Israeli troops are now fighting Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon. In the new phase, Israeli forces will push toward Lebanon's Litani River, some 18 miles from the Israel-Lebanon border, trying to capture more than twice as much territory as they hold now.
WHY IS ISRAEL USING THE KIDNAPPING OF TWO SOLDIERS TO EXPAND ITS BORDERS INTO ANOTHER COUNTRY?

I repeat: Israel has a right of self-defence against Hezbollah found in both the United Nations Charter and customary international law. However, the right of self defence is not unlimited. Israel can legitimately attack Hezbollah fighters and justify the targeting of certain objects based on military necessity. However, humanitarian law requires a DISTINCTION BETWEEN CIVILIAN AND MILITARY TARGETS.

The bombing of large tracts of southern Lebanon, the bombing of civilians, children, refugees and Maronite Christian areas are in violation of international law. And don't give me that guff about Hezbollah hiding everywhere - the Maronites don't hide Hezbollah - refugees fleeing in cars with white banners on them aren't hiding Hezbollah - Israel has an obligation not to kill civilians.

More than 1,000 Lebanese, most of them civilians, have been killed and 123 Israelis, most of them soldiers, have also been killed. (BBC online) THAT is the crime.

The only practical way for outsiders to stop the fighting is to starve the soldiers of weapons. This would mean Iran and Syria denying Hizbullah guns and rockets, and America denying Israel planes and bombs. Both would be admirable contributions to peace.
...

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 05:47 PM

Thanks, but no thanks. It does not answer the question I asked. I don't understand why that question is such a difficult one . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 05:48 PM

OK, so back to photo fraud.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 05:51 PM

yeah, those manipulative Lebanese, folling the world into thinking they have been invaded and their country destroyed.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 05:58 PM

Hezbollah attacked Israel FROM Lebanon. If you were Israel, how would YOU have responded?

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: beardedbruce
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:05 PM

"first, you have no proof that they were shot for propaganda"


"In one scene there is no proof that a downed plane did not ignite the tires."


Make up your mind- do you require proof only from Israelis, and NOT from Hezbollah???????



Are you that much of a bigot???????

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:06 PM

I wouldn't have been in their country, bombing the shit outta them, in the first place. and then to have the chutzpah to play victim afterwards - its sickening. Like the bully saying "this is hurting me more than its hurting you"- crap.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:19 PM

BB, how about using the full quote:
"BeardedBruce, first, you have no proof that they were shot for propaganda, for either side."

First time anyone has ever mistaken me for a bigot. If you'd like to read some of my published articles on human rights let me know.

All I am saying, as stated before, is that press photos can be manipulated by anyone, no matter the country, religion, etc. It is a specious argument which points to only one side doing so, when both are quite capable of doing so. How do you know the video/pictures in the original link weren't "cooked?" It's just not a black and white world, is it?

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:22 PM

So now Israel started the war?

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:26 PM

well, yes, Peace, they did.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:27 PM

RIGHTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT . . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:29 PM

right.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:29 PM

They took their cue from the little shrub, eschewing a diplomatic effort to obtain the release of the kidnapped soldiers, going straight to waging war. As Freda has said, Israel has a right to defend itself, but, imo, they could have tried other less-violent measures before going to a full-scale assault.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:34 PM

No, Freda, wrong. Hezbollah has admitted that they made a strategic error, and that Israel's response was NOT what they expected. Hezbollah is getting more than it asked for or thought it would get. Unfortunately, the Lebanese people are paying the price for Hezbollah's short-sighted crap.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:35 PM

I agree with everything you've said on this thread, Katlaughing.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:37 PM

Rewriting history won't change anything, Freda.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:38 PM

Nor will it help the people of Lebanon, Gaza or Israel.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: katlaughing
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:39 PM

Thanks, Freda. I think it's a lost cause to debate with some folks, though, so I probably won't be saying anymore. It's a symptom of our world, imo. How can we expect to have a civil discourse when world leaders set such poor examples?

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:42 PM

you're right, kat, as usual. I'm outta here!

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: GUEST, The Banjoist
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 06:43 PM

As a photographer/photojournalist, I'm sickened at doctored/staged photos used for news. I don't care which "side" took them.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 07:25 PM

"New York Times 'used fraudulent photo'

Man seen 'dead' in Beirut photo essay appears in other photos from same scene up and walking around, blog blasts 'unbelievable fraud'. NY Times issues 'correction,' says man was injured

A man who appeares to be playing dead in a New York Times photo essay entitled "attack in Tyre," is seen in other photographs in the same essay walking around and pointing.

Under the caption of the photo in question, the New York Times wrote: "The mayor of Tyre said that in the worst hit areas, bodies were still buried under the rubble, and he appealed to the Israelis to allow government authorities time to pull them out."

from

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3288887,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 07:30 PM

Nice to see he takes his chances with the rest, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: C. Ham
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 07:36 PM

Alan Dershowitz, professor of law at Harvard, also supports the use of torture.

Freda Underhill makes a very generalized statement that Professor Dershowitz supports the use of torture.

What Freda Underhill does not tell us is that Professor Dershowitz has suggested that it be used in only very specific circumstances. Here are his own words:

"We should never under any circumstances allow low-level people to administer torture. If torture is going to be administered as a last resort in the ticking-bomb case, to save enormous numbers of lives, it ought to be done openly, with accountability, with approval by the president of the United States or by a Supreme Court justice."

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: freda underhill
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 07:37 PM

give a man enough rope..

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 07:39 PM

The war started in 1947 when Palestinians were dispossessed and made into refugees in their own land. For 60 years now the Zionists have been consolidating and adding to their takeover. Now the Israelis use the capture of two soldiers to take over southern (if not more) Lebanon.
The contest is lost, so, as noted above, there is pointless to continue to call for justice.

I notice Mudcat has accepted an add for Israeli t-shirts from someone called Pongo. Where is the add for Palestinian and Lebanese t-shirts???

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 09:26 PM

Q, if you want an ad for a Palestinean and/or Lebanese t-shirt, I suggest you take out such an ad. You might even make a few bucks here.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 11 Aug 06 - 11:02 PM

If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed. If you do read the newspaper you are misinformed. (Twain)

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 12 Aug 06 - 11:03 AM

In the Saturday, August 12 edition of the Los Angeles Times--a paper not known as conservative, nor particularly pro-Israel--Tim Rutten, the paper's media critic, expounds on this very topic. In anticipation of the inevitable question, I do not know whether Mr. Rutten is Jewish, harbors Jewish sympathies, or is pro-Israel. At any rate, I commend this article to all of you reading or posting to this thread. If you do not have access to the print LAT, the column is available at latimes.com (I entered Rutten in the search box.)

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Peace
Date: 12 Aug 06 - 01:44 PM

From the article John mentions above:

"What the major news organizations ought to be doing is to make their own analysis of the images coming out of Lebanon and if, as seems more than likely, they find widespread malfeasance, some hard questions need to be asked about why it occurred. Some of it may stem from the urge every photographer feels to make a photo perfect. Some of it probably flows from a simple economic imperative — a freelancer who produces dramatic images gets picked up more and paid more. Moreover, the obscenely anti-Israeli tenor of most of the European and world press means there's an eager market for pictures of dead Lebanese babies.

It's worth noting in this context that there is no similar flow of propagandistic images coming from the Israeli side of the border. That's because one side — the democratically elected government of Israel — views death as a tragedy and the other — the Iranian financed terrorist organization Hezbollah — sees it as an opportunity. In this case, turning their own dead children into material creates an opportunity to cloud the fact that every Lebanese casualty, tragic as he or she is, was killed or injured as an unavoidable consequence of Israel's pursuit of terrorists who use their own people as human shields. Every Israeli civilian killed or injured was the victim of a terrorist attack intended to harm civilians. That alone ought to wash away any blood-stained suggestion of moral equivalency.

That brings us to the most troubling of the possible explanations for these fraudulent photos, which is that some of the photojournalists involved are either intimidated by or sympathetic to the Hezbollah terrorists. It's a possibility fraught with harsh implications, but it needs to be examined thoroughly and openly.

Johnson and his colleagues have done the serious news media a service. Failure to follow up on it would be worse than churlish; it would be irresponsible."

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Troll
Date: 12 Aug 06 - 11:07 PM

Q, you ARE aware that the State of Israel was created by the UN in territory that had been part of the Ottoman Empire but which they lost after WWI with the breakup of said Empire.
You should also be aware that the Palestinian Arabs were offered citizenship in the new country but listened to the Arab leaders who advised them to flee because they were going to destroy the new country. So they left and have been living in refuge camps ever since.
They are there because the leaders of countries find it politically useful to not encourage or - in some cases - allow them to assimilate.
Another thing you should know is that in 1948, the year Israel was founded, all jews living in Islamic countries in the middle east were expelled from those countries and their property confiscated.
Israel ahs given back most of the land which it held by right of conquest, if you will.
The Arab countries attacked and Israel defended its right to exist. It occupied land that it had taken during those wars of defense. And now it has given most of it back asking only to be left alone.
If they really wanted southern Lebanon, why did they pull out 6 years ago?
A wonderful thing, selective memory.

troll

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: GUEST,beardedbruce
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 02:55 AM

Troll,

You forgot to mention that the British, in violation of the treaty of Lucerne, split off over 70% of the Mandate Palestine "Jewish Homeland" and created the "Arab Homeland" of Transjordan, where Jews were not allowed to settle. That was BEFORE the division of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states in 1948.

Subject: RE: BS: Photo fraud in Lebanon news coverage
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 13 Aug 06 - 01:19 PM

The sad truth is that most people form opinions after watching thirty seconds of news on TV, or reading the tripe that newspapers have the audacity to report as facts.

Yours, Aye. Dave