Little Green Footballs

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

More airline madness (5)

You can clearly see how this is protecting our airspace. Thank god they caught her in time.

The family of an 87-year-old diabetic great-grandmother says she is the latest victim of new, tighter security regulations at airports.

Hetwig Strohmeier is supposed to take heart medication every four hours, but had to go almost 12 hours without it after the drugs were confiscated Friday by screening officers at Pearson airport, said her son Helmut Strohmeier.

"What did they think were in the pill bottles with my mother's name on them — dynamite?" said an irate Helmut Strohmeier, who is demanding answers from the Greater Toronto Airport Authority.

The woman, who does not speak English, has had four angioplasty procedures, bypass surgery and a double-hip and shoulder replacement. She had just wrapped up a 10-week visit with her son in Stoney Creek and was on her way home to her native Germany.


Source: The Star

Monday, August 28, 2006

When is a controversy, not a controversy?

When nobody except the wingutosphere cares.

Michelle Malkin jumps on the Editor and Publisher bandwagon. With her on that said 'wagon are all the people who were happy to harangue Reuters for 'slightly-more-smoke-gate' but generally shy of condemning the mass murder of civilians by Israeli forces.

PS While Malkin to our knowledge has never faked reports, there is some debate as to whether she writes hers at all.

Another War, Another Planet

I just can't get my head around this. Is Ehud Olmert seriously suggesting the war against Lebanon was a success, more than that actually a fantasy result!

Prime minister says that if someone would have told him a month and a half ago about the current situation, he would said he was dreaming of unrealistic goals. Says cautiously, 'could be deterioration'

His poll results are abysmal, protestors are practically beating down the door to his office but, despite all that, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert spoke proudly in a Sunday morning cabinet meeting of the accomplishments of the Lebanon war. According to him, prior to the war, its outcomes would have been considered a "fantasy".

"If someone would have told me a month and a half ago that there would be a multinational force and Lebanese army presence in the south, that UN Security Council resolution 1559 would begin to be implemented, that the UN Secretary-General would says that the multinational force could disarm Hizbullah, that there would be an arms embargo in Lebanon, observation of crossings, and all this while the IDF sat in Lebanon without being dragged into combat, despite a continued aerial and naval blockade - I would have said he was dreaming and that he shouldn't try to set unrealistic objectives."
I'm sure the dead of Lebanon and Israel are rejoicing wherever they are. Thank you Ehud.

I can't seem to shake the The Only Ones song "Another Girl, Another Planet" out of my head, because this man is seriously treading ground on Mars if he thinks his military campaign was a success.

That was the week that wasn't

Here's a brief list of Charles Johnson's "top stories" last week!

1. Reuters demands an investigation into the killing of it's employees. Yes, Charles it should send the perpetrators a bunch of flowers shouldn't it.

2. Greg Mitchell apparently edited something he did 3 years ago, that frankly nobody cares about (as detailed in the post below, Charles Johnson is hardly one to point the finger).

3. Caliphate imminent in Palestine, apparently.

4. How to deflect the horror of Qana by Charles F. Johnson (below), by again implying it was all staged. Amazing how they get all those 'dead' children to act all limp isn't it?



5. CAIR is hosting a dinner for a former President of Iran. Controversy as the main course is yet to be decided.

All interesting I'm sure. However, these stories broke yesterday or over the weekend. Let's see how many of them slip under the Charles Johnson radar.

1. 69 Killed in Sunday attacks in Iraq

2. 7 US soldiers killed by bomb attacks in Iraq

3. American deaths in Iraq, Afghan wars approach 9/11 toll

4. Turkey bombed Kurdish rebels at Iraqi border. Which puts this story about bombings in Turkey into context.

5. Another miserable milestone for Bush's war

Sunday, August 27, 2006

Charles 'Hypocrite' Johnson

LGF boss Charles Johnson continues to flog a dead horse, this time by way of a news item about the Israeli Defense Force bombing a press car in Gaza.

Johnson is horrified that Reuters would want the Israeli army to investigate the incident, in which two journalists were wounded.

Why is he so outraged? Because Reuters isn't launching a public investigation into the manipulation of photographs by one of its freelancers in Lebanon (whom Reuters has since fired and whose pictures it has withdrawn).

Now ask yourself this: What is more important, a bit of extra smoke in a picture of Beirut, or the near-killing of two journalists doing their job? Was anyone harmed by the dodgy Reuters pictures? No, most of them weren't even widely published until the wingnut-o-sphere made a fuss about them. But the targeting of a car clearly marked as a press vehicle sets a dangerous precedent which deserves to be investigated to find out why it occured.

But Mr Johnson never was a fan of level-headed thought: while civilians were dying in their dozens every day in Lebanon, he made a big fuss about 'staged' photographs, and grandly claimed the entire mainstream media operating there were corrupt and working with terrorists.

That's some chutzpah coming from Johnson, who, as LGF Watch revealed three years ago published a picture of a person dressed up as a suicide bomber and claimed that it showed a 'terrorist supporter' in LA protesting against the Israeli Apartheid wall. (
littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=8871)



The picture was taken from the open-publishing newswire at Indymedia LA. Either Johnson trusted the anonymous Indymedia commentator so much that he didn't bother checking the nature of the picture he was posting, or he deliberately used that particular picture to mislead readers into thinking that supporters of suicide bombings openly joined peace protesters at the demonstration.

The evidence points to the latter scenario. As Johnson himself is forced to admit hundreds of comments down the page, he "already knew" that the costumed 'bomber' was a pro-Israeli counter-protestor. But he doesn't bother correcting the headline ("Terrorist Supporters in LA"), or the text accompanying the picture ("Good lord. This happened yesterday at Palisades Park in Los Angeles: Bringing down the wall protest photos."), thereby leaving readers with the impression that it accurately portrays the peace protesters.

If such a distortion of the news had happened at a mainstream media outlet, Charles Johnson would be screaming for the editor's head. But as editor of LittleGreenFootballs.com, Johnson has no qualms about manipulating facts to suit his agenda.

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Charles Foster Johnson is a Class A Hypocrite.

Racial and religious hatred

One of the constant themes of LGF and other right wing American sites is the amount of anti-Jewish hatred in the Arab world and especially in their press. Something tells me that they'd have no problem with this kind of racist trash that appears in the Israeli media by ultra-Orthodox Jews.

Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, has approached Attorney General Menachem Mazuz Saturday evening and demanded that he launch an investigation against the haredi author of an article that refers to Arabs as "a cult of murderers, savages, and a loathsome nation whose prophet is a false prophet."

In the article, published in the ultra-Orthodox newspaper "Hassidic World", author Yitzhak Ben-Zvi writes that "the Arabs are a people
similar to donkeys… they are a vile nation of savages… they have a great desire to murder and are even worse than the Nazi enemy."

The article analyzes Torah rulings, and presents the alleged opinion of a Jewish scholar, who claims that "the hatred and cruelty of the Arabs, may they be damned, towards the Jews surpasses even that of the Nazis," and that "the hatred to the Arabs should have naturally been etched in our hearts."

Throughout the article, the writer refers to the Arabs as stupid, hypocrite, and uncivilized. in a separate clause, Ben-Zvi refers to Muhammad as a false prophet.

The affair was first revealed in the Israeli-Arab newspaper Kul al-Arab, which quoted the article. According to Adalah, the article is packed with severe racial incitement, slander, and insults to the religious sensitivities of the Muslims living in Israel.

Attorney Abeer Baker, who represents the organization, stated that "the article's messages are basically of a racist nature, and their sheer purpose is the humiliation and mockery of Arabs, especially Muslims, merely because of their national and religious affiliation."
And just for extras, if you want to check out views that would make your average Lizardoid blush, check out the comments below the piece on Ynet News.

Source: Ynetnews

Bush's gift to the world

An empowered and militarily confident Iran. Thank you George W. Bush, way to fight terror

PRESIDENT Bush’s war on terror has made Iran the most influential power in the Middle East, a report warned yesterday.

It said Iran’s standing had superseded that of the US, following mounting instability in the region.

And it found the Islamic Republic had benefited dramatically by the American-led ousting of its great rivals - Saddam Hussein and the Taliban.

The report warned: “There is little doubt that Iran has been the chief beneficiary of the war on terror in the Middle East. The US, with coalition support, has eliminated two of Iran’s rival governments but has failed to replace either with stable political structures.”

The verdict of respected think-tank Chatham House is an embarrassing blow to President Bush and Tony Blair.

It is highly critical of US meddling in the Middle East and said instability in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Israel’s failure to defeat Hizbollah, had strengthened Iran’s standing under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.


Source: Jewschool

More airline madness (4)

This is getting seriously ridiculous. The Sunday Post reports two more instances.

“It’s a real concern. After the 7/7 attacks, in particular, passengers were noticeably more wary of Asians. But the situation became even more tense after the alleged terrorist bomb plot a fortnight ago.

“I’ve only witnessed two sets of passengers kick up a fuss about Muslims on their flight but I’m sure it’s happening regularly. It’s sad, but people are inclined to take the law into their own hands if they think their lives may be at risk.”
Source: Rolled-up Trousers

Saturday, August 26, 2006

Religious Hatred

I think that Charles Johnson is a product/consequence of the failure of Catholicism to remain relevant in a person's life over a lifetime---he's a lapsed Catholic, you know. He obviously rejects the religion's touchy-feely, peace and love side entirely, yet the muscle memory of remaining contextualized by a strong, age-old culture full of jots and tittles of law is still there within him. So even though he's turned his back on religion in general, the broader contexts of religion and philosophy keep framing his psyche, and he's produced this site, an extension of his psyche as all sites are, that is obsessed with the struggles over religion and ethnic identity, obsessed with fanaticism itself. The site enables the blogger to remain tied and even relevant to strong and muscular cultural traditions, even while he has rejected his native one.

From an interview with Martini Republic editor Joseph Mailander (hat tip TP!)

Thursday, August 24, 2006

More airline madness (3)

In Holland this time. These guys were obviously guilty of being Asian in posession of plastic bags.

All 12 passengers arrested after a US airliner returned to Amsterdam will be released, Dutch prosecutors say.

Northwest Airlines flight 42, bound for Mumbai (Bombay) in India, changed course over Germany and flew back to Schiphol airport on Wednesday.

The 12 men, said to be of Asian appearance, reportedly aroused suspicion by fiddling with mobile phones and plastic bags.

US air marshals apprehended them before the pilot diverted the flight.

Two Dutch F-16 fighter jets escorted it back to Schiphol.
Source: BBC News

More airline madness (2)

How many more of these idiotic incidents are taking place without reaching the media? This is a classic. Read in utter disbelief as the blogger Raed in the Middle is detained and harrassed by an airline for wearing a t-shirt with Arabic on it. What a security risk!

Via Thabet in the comments section.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Caption Contest!



What might the adorable Pamela be telling her followers here? Or for that matter, what the hell is she doing? Entries in the comments section please.

All angles covered. Well, almost...



Notice any particular country missing in that list of places PJM has been covering the war in LEBANON from?

More airline madness

It's unbelievable that there are more stories like the Monarch flight story coming to the surface. Each one of them seems more and more ridiculous. Here's another.

A British Muslim airline pilot yesterday described the "humiliating" moment when he was hauled off a transatlantic flight just before take-off.

Amar Ashraf, 28, who was born in Wrexham, North Wales, said he felt " demoralised and humiliated" after being told to leave the flight from Manchester to Newark by a stewardess, and then being questioned by armed police. He believes his removal was down to having a "Muslim-sounding name".
And just to rub salt in the wounds of an already harrassed Muslim community it seems that bigots that assault them in the streets can get away without a custodial sentence.
FURIOUS Muslim leaders last night criticised magistrates after a man escaped custody following a disgusting racist attack on two women.

A court heard how jobless Daniel Thackray, 19, of Hen Felin, Aber, near Bangor, spat on two Muslim woman and then pushed one who was heavily pregnant.

He received a six months' custodial term suspended for 18 months which angered the Muslim Council of Britain.
Sources: The Independent & icNorthWales

Have beard and Cagoul will travel

Here's a interview with the two "jihadis" unmasked by passengers on the Monarch flight to Manchester.


THESE are the two innocent Asian students kicked off a jet because other passengers feared they were terrorists.

Friends Sohail Ashraf and Khurram Zeb, both 22, said last night they were stunned that anybody could think they were suicide bombers.

And they insisted they were just a couple of ordinary lads who wanted a bit of fun on a day trip to Malaga.

Sohail - who was marched off the Monarch flight to Manchester at gunpoint - said: "My first reaction was to laugh when I was told why we had been taken off the plane. Then I realised they were deadly serious."

Despite their ordeal, the pair do not blame the paranoid passengers.

Fforgiving Sohail said yesterday: "These are nervous times and I can understand why people are so panicked.

"All I would say is, 'Don't be paranoid. Don't judge every book by its cover'.

"We might be Asian, but we're two ordinary lads who wanted a bit of fun.

"Just because we're Muslim, does not mean we are suicide bombers."

Khurram added: "I don't blame anyone for what happened. Actually I feel sorry for the people who thought we were terrorists."

The fun-loving pair visited the Spanish resort for a quick recce ahead of a proper holiday later in the year.

They are so far removed from extremism that they even spent the day boozing and tucking into a McDonald's burger.

Khurram admitted: "As Muslims we are not supposed to drink alcohol, but we did have a few."

[...]

The pair, studying for degrees at Manchester's Umist institution, believe the scare was sparked by an elderly lady sitting nearby.

Khurram said: "We were chatting away in Urdu and she kept looking at us.

"At first I didn't really take any notice. I just thought perhaps she'd never seen an Asian person before."

Sohail added: "She had to move to let us sit down and I knew straight away that something was bothering her.

"I tried my best to ignore her but she started asking me questions like where we lived and how long we had been in Malaga.

"When I told her we had only gone for the day she became even more suspicious. She kept saying that was a strange thing to do.

"Suddenly she got up and walked toward the cockpit."

[...]

The friends deny claims they were wearing heavy leather jackets which aroused suspicion. They insist they merely had on light windcheaters, T-shirts and jeans.

But they were able to laugh off their nightmare in their hotel room . Sohail said: "We sat on our beds and Khurram said, 'You don't look like a terrorist'. I said, 'Neither do you'. Then we both collapsed with laughter.

"I suppose we were a bit hysterical. It all felt very odd.

"We've never experienced racism before so it was very unnerving."
I'm happy to see the two lads concerned took it so well. It's also interesting to see that, like the John Charles de Menezes case, original descriptions of dress and attitude seem a bit far off the mark.

Source: Mirror.co.uk

Paying the price in Gaza

Amira Hass writing for Ha'aretz points to the horrific toll being taken in Gaza whilst the world looks to the north.

IDF soldiers have killed 44 children in Gaza since June 28, when the failed campaign to release abducted IDF soldier Gilad Shalit began. That is 44 children out of the 188 people the IDF has killed in Gaza - civilians and armed men, most of whom had embarked on a doomed fight against the invading tanks. The last three who were killed, on Monday, were three farmers from Beit Hanoun who were hit by an IDF shell - about as precise as a Hezbollah Katyusha - instead of the rocket launcher it had been intended to hit.
Where's the UN's outrage here?

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Hopeless in Kabul

This is tragic. Welcome to the new Afghanistan. Moving forward, apparently.

Dog-tired and fed up with the hardships they have been facing over the years, 65 per cent of the 50,000 widows in Kabul see suicide the only option to get rid of their miseries and desolation, revealed a survey conducted by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM).

Addressing a news conference, UNIFEM's Director Meryem Aslan described condition of widows, especially those living in Kabul, as terrible. She said widows living in Kabul have to look after their families in face of little opportunities of earning livelihood and high rate of inflation. Without elaborating on the topic, she said 16 of the 65 per cent women had already ended their lives.
Source: Angry White Kid & Pajhwok Afghan News

"....but guvnor, he was speaking Arab like..."

This is getting beyond a joke.

London Eye bosses have apologised to a family from Dubai who were initially stopped from boarding, apparently after being overheard speaking in Arabic.

Syed Husain, 65, of Manor House, north London, was stopped while showing his sister and brother-in-law the sights.

He said it was when his sister started speaking Arabic in the queue that a security guard's attitude changed.

British Airways, which runs the London Eye, has written to apologise and offered him two free tickets.

Mr Husain has lived in London for 30 years and was showing his family around as they visited from Dubai.
Is speaking Arabic in a queue a security risk now? This is getting ridiculous. Why are Britons turning into "lizardoid" style panty wetters?

Source: BBC NEWS

Selective viewing

Nice to see Charles directing people to Hotair to see and hear 'clips' of the Presidents speech. To catch such quotes as "We're not leaving as long as I'm President". Strange how he doesn't mention the fact that George admits that there were no actual operational WMD's and that Iraq had no links to 9/11.

How speculation becomes reported fact

I would be very surprised if the champion of 'slightly-more-smoke-gate' reports on this example of poor reporting by news outlets. In fact Charles would be more likely to report the original dubious claims.

Via The Huffington Post

Second-class compensation for second-class citizens

This is represhensible, unlikely to be acknowledged in the wingnutosphere and to sadly all too regular. While I, unlike others wouldn't compare Israel to Apartheid-era South Africa, instances like this don't help. When one group in a nation is treated in a different manner because of their race and their religion in a negative way, you will always draw comparisons to regimes that have utilised racism and segragation. Israel needs not only to secure peace with its neighbours but with its own citizens.

Is a shop owner in Nahariya, who was forced to close his business during the war, entitled to more compensation than the owner of a similar store in Acre or the Haifa bay area, who had to close shop? Are lawyers and accountants who were forced to close their offices in Kiryat Shmona or Ma'alot eligible for higher compensation than that which will be given to their colleagues in Rosh Pina or Safed?

According to the decisions taken by officials in the Finance Ministry during the war, which were approved by the Knesset's Finance committee, the answer to both questions is yes. Since the government refrained from declaring a state of war, a strange and unusual legal situation has emerged, in which differences have arisen in the amount of compensation paid to various owners of businesses that were affected in a similar way.

The gap between the amount of compensation that was granted - stemming from whether the persons in question were designated as belonging to "confrontation line" communities - is well known and has already prompted three petitions to the High Court of Justice on the part of owners of small and medium businesses, who have requested that the situation be rectified. A fourth petition, submitted by attorney Samuel Dahwar from the Arab village of Fassouta in Galilee, reveals the fact that no Arab communities are included on the full-compensation list even though Arab towns and villages were in the range of the Katyushas and were hit by them.

[...]

The matter in question is one of "blatant discrimination on a national basis," Dahwar wrote in his petition, in which he requests that the High Court order inclusion of Arab communities in the list of confrontation-line settlements. "Businesses in the Arab villages close to the border with Lebanon will get less compensation simply because they are Arab."
Via Haaretz

Hero

Something tells me there won't be much coverage of this on the usual anti-Palestinian sites. It wouldn't do for them to portray humanity, bravery and selflessness for a people they consider sub-human. What these sites fail to appreciate is that no matter what political mind games and fantasy battles they are engaged in, it is real people on the ground in Israel and Palestine, Jewish and Arab that matter.

JERUSALEM (AFP) - A 24-year-old Palestinian man died over the weekend trying to save four Israeli teenagers from drowning in waters just off a beach south of Tel Aviv, an Israeli newspaper has reported.

Ahed Tamimi, from Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem, was on the Rishon Le Tzion beach with his relatives when he heard four teenagers in the water cry for help,the Maariv daily reported Monday.

"He heard our cries for help and he dove into the water without hesitation," of the teenagers, Denis Mihayev, 15, told the newspaper.

"He swam towards me, grabbed my hand and pulled me forcefully back to shore," he said.
Via Yahoo! News

Uri, my dear son

As the Lebanon war raged, David Grossman, the celebrated Israeli writer, publicly urged his government to accept a ceasefire. Just days later, his soldier son was killed by one of Hizbollah's final anti-tank missiles. This is the eulogy he read at the funeral.

Via Richard Silverstein

The great goggle mystery

Rememeber those British made night-vision goggles that were allegedly supplied to Hizbollah? Yeah, well, funny things happen.....it may well have been Israeli sourced.

Sources at the firm, SDMS, of London, said that the published serial numbers on one of the kits found by the Israelis did not match any aspect of the contract that it had won to supply Iran with equipment for counter-narcotics operations on the Iranian-Afghan border.

The Israelis claimed that the equipment they had uncovered in a house in a village in southern Lebanon was for highly sophisticated military use. They confirmed that it was British, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office promised a full investigation.

One source at the company, which is a distribution firm, not a manufacturer, said: “The kit we supplied was actually made in Russia, which makes some pretty rugged equipment. But they were not the sort of systems which the Israelis seem to be talking about.”

Foreign Office sources said that night-vision equipment had also been sold to Lebanon and to Israel in the past, and some officials considered it was possible that the systems that found their way into the hands of Hezbollah fighters might have emanated from “somewhere closer to home”.
Oops.

Source: Times Online

Monday, August 21, 2006

21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca

Johann Hari makes some excellent points in his latest piece in The Independent regarding the jumbo jet jihadis, the right-wing shrieking and the growth of Islamophobia.

It's not just those panicked passengers who have crossed this line. There are intellectuals on the British right who are propagating a conspiracy theory about Muslims that teeters very close to being a 21st century Protocols of the Elders of Mecca. Meet Bat Ye'or, a "scholar" who argues that Europe is on the brink of being transformed into a conquered continent called "Eurabia".

In this new land, Christians and Jews will be reduced by the new Muslim majority to the status of "dhimmis" - second-class citizens forced to "walk in the gutter". This will not happen by accident. It is part of a deliberate and "occult" plan, concocted between the Arab League and leading European politicians like Jacques Chirac and Mary Robinson, who secretly love Islam and are deliberately flooding the continent with Muslim immigrants. As Orianna Fallacci - one of the best-selling writers in Italy - has summarised the thesis in her hymns of praise to Ye'or, "Muslims have been told to come here and breed like rats."

Rather than dismissing her preposterous assertions, high-profile writers like Melanie Phillips, Daniel Pipes and Niall Ferguson laud Ye'or as a suppressed hero, silenced by (you guessed it) "political correctness". Her name is brandished as a gold standard in right-wing Tory circles. It's interesting that writers so alert to anti-Semitism have lent their names to an ideology that is so startlingly similar. In this theory, the Star of David has simply been replaced by the Islamic crescent. If the term has any meaning, this is authentic Islamophobia, treating virtually all Muslims as verminous sharia-carriers. So why are these people still treated as serious and sane by the BBC and its editors?
Would this be the same "dhimmified" BBC that is deemed anti-Semitic by Lizardoids? Strange that they should give a platform to hate-fuelled bigots like Pipes, Ferguson and Phillips, eh?

But anyway, well done Johann. For once you make a lot of sense.

Express Deja-Vu

This is truly disgraceful. As Asians In Media magazine points out quite clearly.

The Daily Express has come under intense criticism for running an inflammatory headline based on a recent poll of Britons on the subject of terrorism.

When asked if Britain is engaged in a "battle against Islamic terrorists", three out of four respondents believed it to be true. However, a frontpage article by the Daily Express' Gabriel Milland claimed: "Britain says: we're at war with Islam".
Kind of reminds me of this headline....


....and we all know the kind of people who use the above as justification for vile bigotry. Strange that it's the same paper involved isn't it?

Source: Asians In Media & Islamophobia Watch

The biggest failure

Remember Eldad Regev, Ehud Goldwasser and Gilad Shalit? Nope? You'd be excused for forgetting the names because the MSM and especially the 'wingnutosphere' have curiously not mentioned them in a while. They were the reason Israel went to war. They are still captive.

The brother of captured Israel Defense Forces soldier Eldad Regev said Sunday that the war had failed in its main objective, that of bringing about the release of kidnapped troops, adding that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had promised last week to enter into negotiations over the release of the captive men.

In an interview on Sunday morning, Regev said Olmert did not specify how the negotiations would take shape.

Last week Olmert appointed his friend and former deputy head of the Shin Bet security service Ofer Dekel to coordinate the safe return of three captured IDF soldiers - Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, who were captured July 12 in Lebanon by Hezbollah, and Gilad Shalit, who was captured June 25 in Gaza by Palestinian militants.
So there you have it. The Israelis who had 'had enough of Hezbollah' provocation and were not willing to negotiate with terrorists for their release are now doing just that. A whole war was built on the premise of releasing these men and stopping terrorist rocket attacks. The Israelis failed in both objectives. They are now negotiating. If they had done that to begin with the Lebanon death toll wouldn't be exceeding 900, there wouldn't have been 30,000 ruined homes, there wouldn't have been Qana or any other site of wholesale slaughter.

Shame on them.

Source: Haaretz

Now that's what I call chutzpah (2)

First they complained that Hezbollah were using Russian equipment, now it's time for the British to come in for criticism. The Israelis have found some night vision equipment stamped with "made in Britain" in the hands of Hezbollah.

AN URGENT investigation was launched last night after Israel accused Britain of indirectly supplying Hezbollah terrorists with military night-vision equipment that helped them to target Israeli soldiers in Lebanon.

The equipment was found by Israeli troops in Hezbollah command bunkers in southern Lebanon. Each set was stamped “made in Britain”.

The Israelis made representations to the Foreign Office after it was revealed that Britain had sold 250 night-vision systems to Iran in 2003 for use against drug smugglers.

Foreign Office officials said early indications seemed to suggest that the night-vision equipment found by the Israelis was not part of the batch sold in 2003 to Iran. However, thorough checks were being made to compare serial numbers on the equipment found in the Hezbollah bunkers with those on the ones exported legitimately to Iran.
The Foreign Office are investigating to see if there has been any wrong doing. I can't imagine the same response if the Lebanese complained about the source of the missiles, cluster bombs, shells and bullets the Israelis used recently.

Source: Times Online

Sunday, August 20, 2006

Beware the beards of doom (2)

Something tells me this is going to get worse before it gets any better. This time it's America where it's pick on the non-whites who dare to fly.

3 Doctors returning to Winnipeg on a connecting flight from Denver were forced off their flight earlier this week. One was Muslim. All were dark skinned.

A passenger in front of them who was drunk at the time, claimed he heard one of them state "I have control of the aisle now" They were then questioned by the FBI and TSA security let them go shortly after checking things out. However they missed their flight and still had to overnight in Denver because their ordeal with no compensation. These passengers want a full investigation through the government on this....
Source: No More Mister Nice Blog

Beware the beards of doom!

Is this an example of security conscious passengers or a mass outbreak of bigotry?

British holidaymakers staged an unprecedented mutiny – refusing to allow their flight to take off until two men they feared were terrorists were forcibly removed. The extraordinary scenes happened after some of the 150 passengers on a Malaga-Manchester flight overheard two men of Asian appearance apparently talking Arabic.

Passengers told cabin crew they feared for their safety and demanded police action. Some stormed off the Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 minutes before it was due to leave the Costa del Sol at 3am. Others waiting for Flight ZB 613 in the departure lounge refused to board it.

The Monarch pilot accompanied by armed Civil Guard police and airport security staff, approached the two men and took their passports. Half an hour later, police returned and escorted the two Asian passengers off the jet.

Websites used by pilots and cabin crew were yesterday reporting further incidents. In one, two British women with young children on another flight from Spain complained about flying with a bearded Muslim even though he had been security-checked twice before boarding.
They were speaking Arabic! They had beards! Guitly as charged!

Bigotry it is then.

UPDATE: Osama Saeed adds this...
The incident is so bad that even the Tories have condemned it. The Mail however, manages to write a whole article about the incident without using the term "Islamophobia". They actually describe the men as "Asian", despite the fact they spoke Arabic.

One of the families on the flight are interviewed like they were the victims. Would love to see one of the tabloids doing a heart-to-heart with the guys who were humiliated.
Best of luck on seeing that Osama, I doubt that kind of honest reporting will ever come out of The Mail or many of its contempories.

UPDATE: Glenn Greenwald makes a good point here....
The blame lies not with those who entertain such fears, but with those who allow those fears to govern their conduct, and more so, those who purposely stoke and exaggerate those fears due either to their own fears and/or because doing so is to their advantage.
He also points out to this statement coming from the UK Conservative Party of all places....
Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security spokesman, said last night: "This is a victory for terrorists. These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally."

For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense."
Somehow I can't imagine a Republican politician downplaying a 'terror alert' and being so sensible about this bizarre event.

Update: Here are some of those "oh, so tolerant and intelligent" Lizards on the subject....
1 Liz Ard 8/19/2006 05:54PM PDT

we're all essentially on our own (we're doomed, doomed, I tells ye! get that woman some Pampers - ed). Even Israel Defense Forces were not able to fight a proper war against Hezb'allah- what do you expect our governments to do (not listen to hysterical buffoons like you would be a start - ed)?

#5 doppelganglander 8/19/2006 05:55PM PDT

What's irrational about being afriad of Arabic speakers? They're just alert.

#9 dead sea squirrel 8/19/2006 05:56PM PDT

They sounded rational to me. Heavy clothing in warm weather (wasn't that the same excuse that came out about Jean Charles de Menezes before the Met killed him? And then turned out to be false? - ed)? Excessively checking their watches? (While travelling? Who'd have thunk it - ed)

People are getting fed up with governments more concerned about being PC than they are about the safety of their own citizens.

#10 Promethea 8/19/2006 05:58PM PDT

This kind of "mutiny" is excellent news. Much more worrisome are the kinds of public behaviors that permit dangerous looking people to proceed because people are afraid of confrontation or of embarrassing themselves.

I've often wondered what I personally would do if I saw a suspicious person on a public bus, for example.

On the other hand, on a recent flight, I sat next to a Lebanese man, and I "interviewed" him, and he knew that I was "interviewing" him. If he resented it, well too bad.

#31 FrogMarch 8/19/2006 06:08PM PDT

I am so glad this happened. IT'S ABOUT TIME!

Arabs and Muslims need to feel the pain.
Arabs and Muslims need to understand completely that this is what they have done.

The rest of us are not going to put up with the fear of death. These days, death on aircraft
only comes in a single form: Islam.

ENOUGH!

#32 cbinflux 8/19/2006 06:08PM PDT

Those guys were trying to make folks nervous. I'll bet the delay took the giggles right out of them.

#39 rokbassist 8/19/2006 06:12PM PDT

Well, we saw what happened when someone witnessed Middle-eastern looking men going in and out of the bathroom with a paper bag. Absolutely nothing. I'm glad passengers are becoming more aware and more pro-active, because our friggin governments aren't doing a damn thing! FINALLY, self-preservation is growing upon the masses, because our governments aren't doing doing squat to make you safe. This is even more remarkable with the British citizens, who seem to be in some sort of coma excepting soccer hooligans, of course (well known defenders of western civilisation? - ed).

#44 RepJ 8/19/2006 06:13PM PDT

Once again, the MSM calls them "Asians" and British citizens instead of telling it like it is. While they are technically correct, why don't they just come out and say the men were Arab in appearance (Yep why not just call them what they were! We're all for that. Let's start by calling them 'innocent travellers'. - ed) and the passengers decided they needed extra scrutiny. If the two men are innocent of any wrongdoing, then they did the right thing by cooperating w/the authorities. I hope they understand the stressful times that we live in.

Sensible Lizardoid Alert (below)!


#59 mich-again 8/19/2006 06:20PM PDT

I don't get it. So we should all refuse to board a plane if there are Arabic passengers speaking Arabic. Geeze, they might as well shut down DTW.

I'm not jumping on this bandwagon. Thats not say that I don't think Islamic terrorists will continue plotting to blow up airplanes, but I seriously doubt that if/when they do try, the would-be killers will be so easy to spot.

Are we advocating separate airplanes for Muslims? Nice. Where does that line of thinking stop?

More idiocy.....

#62 wordwolf 8/19/2006 06:21PM PDT

I think cbinflux has it just right: These clowns were probably playing terrorist, as in, "Hey Fawaz, let's see if we can't give these infidels a little scare, put the fear of Allah into 'em, yuk yuk..."

And until their "landsmen" react to this sort o' thing with denunciations of irresponsibility, poor citizenship, and just plain BAD MANNERS instead of cries of racism and victimization, the rest of us will just trust them - ALL of them - less and less until some of those victimization nightmares start coming true.

#71 doppelganglander 8/19/2006 06:25PM PDT

#59 mich-again: It seems to have been more than just speaking Arabic. They were checking their watches frequently and wearing heavy sweaters and leather jackets in Spain in August. I've been in Spain in August, and that's just insane (insane I tell's ye! If it turns out to be true, it could be considered odd but certainly not insane. - ed).

#89 JammieWearingFool 8/19/2006 06:33PM PDT

If you're on a plane with me, bet your ass I've profiled you (Woooh, scary - ed).

#94 cbinflux 8/19/2006 06:34PM PDT

Mich*again
We all know that you're reasonable, and would never do or condone anything bigoted.

I should have added that there have been dozens of reported instances of Muslims trying to make folks nervous since 9/11. Some of them quite famous. I've seen it in Memphis and o'seas, especially Germany. Trying to make our skin crawl.

I truly believe that's what these knuckleheads were up to; thousands are being trained in hatred, mockery, taqqiya, etc. weekly in UK mosques and streets.

They had the same possum-eatin-sh*t grins on the inside as the poster ladies are displaying. Just my opinion.

#103 armytramp 8/19/2006 06:37PM PDT

Excuse me, but I speak a little Arabic, and when I have a cab driver next to me who spends the entire trip talking into a headset about dawa, surrah, sunnah, hadith, jihad, and koran, I get nervous. This has actually happened to me. (Cab drivers speaking Arabic? About Islam in a taxi! Panty-wetting time - ed)

And am I the only one who remembers hearing Arabs brag about how funny it is to make the white folks squirm? Didn't this board have a link to internet postings about Arabs laughing about going out of their way to do odd things to make the dhimmis upset on airplanes?

If someone is acting suspiciously, do what you have to do. And if some Arab dude spends a half hour in the john after being airborne, he may just have the trots, or he may be testing the limits of security on that flight...or he may be making a bomb. Don't take chances.

The next bomber may not look like an Arab. Report anyone who acts out of the ordinary. You know, like the creepy British guy who tries to light up his shoe.

I happen to think the mutiny is a GOOD THING and if it had happened before, and we'd had more awareness of the situation, and we'd had more people who knew they had the right to fight back, maybe their would have been fewer deaths on 9-11. Stop being treated like SHEEPLE! Protect yourselves.

#104 Pastorius 8/19/2006 06:37PM PDT

If you ask me, this is the first shot in the great European Civil War that Fjordman warned us about (Wasn't Fjordman the person who believes there is a "cult of Anne Frank" that protects the "Holocaust taboo", why yes, of course it is - ed).

Sure, we have had hooligans firebomb mosques, and Muslims have been beaten in the streets, but this is the first mainstream revolt against the dhimmi-practices of Eurabia.

Let the fun begin.

Continues for another mind-numbing, brain draining, bigot fuelled 388 comments...
UPDATE: More interesting thoughts over at Lawyers, Guns & Money.
Shorter various blogospheric wingnuts: the government's appalling lack of racism gives people no recourse but to take racism into their own hands.
Source: Islamophobia Watch & The Mail on Sunday

LGF comments from http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22183

Saturday, August 19, 2006

I can see no 'Walthamstan' on the streets where I live

Vanessa Walters on the Asian community, Islam and the East End.

With the rising number of Asians, as well as eastern Europeans, many of whom are Muslim, Islam has had an increasingly visible profile in the area. On weekday mornings the play area in front of the shopping mall is full of women in hijabs. But a noticeably high proportion of Muslim men in Walthamstow are white and Afro-Caribbean as well as Asian. So I reject the references over the past week to "Walthamstan" in the media, which seem to be painting east London as an isolationist Pakistani Muslim community and a haven for terrorists.

[...]

The government has failed to properly understand what the community in east London is, just as it failed the lost generation that Islam was trying to help. Last summer a friend of mine, Christian Small, a man of Jamaican origin, was killed in London's 7/7 bombings by another young man of Jamaican origin who had converted to Islam and been radicalised. Is this a meaningless coincidence? I would say not. The idea that a homogeneously Asian Muslim community of "Walthamstan" has taken over an area of London to pursue a culture of isolationism is erroneous. From ridiculous ricin theories to fruitless raids in Forest Gate and a fatally flawed shooting, in the government's war on home-grown terror there has been an abject failure to see the wood from the trees.
Source: Comment is free

When is ceasefire not a ceasefire?



When the Israeli government signs up to one.

I'm sure certain parts of the wingnutosphere will be wetting their pants in anticipation of another escalation in the Middle East.

Source: Yahoo! News

A little flattery and he spills the beans...

Charles Johnson is flattered (yes, that's correct, he comes right out and says so) that MPACUK has described him as "the most powerful enemies Muslims have faced in a thousand years".

Remember that, next time he makes a pathetic fool of himself on CNN claiming he knows 'the majority of Muslims are peaceful' while spending all his waking hours bashing them as hateful untermenschen.

Flattered to be their most powerful enemy. Gotcha, Charlie.

Now that's what I call chutzpah!

This is priceless.

An Israeli delegation traveled to Moscow this week to complain that Russian-made anti-tank missiles have reached Hezbollah guerrillas who used them against Israeli troops in south Lebanon, said Asaf Shariv, a senior adviser to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert Friday.

The Associated Press reported that the anti-tank missiles proved to be one of Hezbollah’s most effective weapons in combat with Israeli soldiers in Lebanon. Such missiles killed at least 50 of the 118 soldiers who died in the 34-day fighting that ended this week.
I'm sure the Lebanese have a similar objections to the nation who supply the Israelis with jet fighters, attack helicopters and cluster bombs to destroy a total of 30,000 homes and kill scores of civilians. Who did that again?

Source: MOSNEWS.COM

Sunday, August 13, 2006

How to cheapen the suffering of Jews

......at the hands of the Nazis



Part One: Compare Hizbullah rocket attacks to the attempted liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto

Is there no low some people will stoop to?

Next week: How Nasrallah's eyes remind someone of Himmler.

When propaganda goes wrong.....

...the video the Israeli military didn't want the world to see.



he Israeli army has expressed a note of contrition after a television station aired a videotape showing an army assault on a Palestinian home in which a mother of five children died.

When CBC News spoke with Ismail Hawarjeh at Bethlehem's hospital earlier this month, there was no way to verify the story he told about how his wife had died, until Israel's Channel 2 broacast the tape last weekend.


Source: CBC

US? Never! (4)

If you were to believe Israeli spokespeople you'd think that the carnage in Lebanon wasn't happening.

Mr. Pazner, the Israeli spokesman, when asked about the attack on the convoy, insisted that the Israeli Army did not aim at civilians. “This is our pride, that we only hit Hezbollah,” he said.
How one can have "pride" in incidents like this, this and this is beyond me.

Source: New York Times & Tikun Olam-×Ŗקון עולם

Saturday, August 12, 2006

A question of perspectives

What would you call young men who do the following?

1. Leave their country of birth to fight abroad in the name of religion
2. Get trained by a Middle Eastern nation to kill

You'd call them 'Jihadis' right? Well you're wrong.

Meet the IDF's British recruits.

Source: The Nether-World via Osama Saeed

Another miscalculation?

Or cold blooded murder?

Israeli aircraft fired rockets at a convoy of hundreds of cars carrying people fleeing south Lebanon on Friday, killing at least six people and wounding 30, witnesses and rescue workers said.

They said the convoy that had left the Israeli-occupied town of Marjayoun earlier in the day was targeted by at least one drone near the wine-making village of Kefraya in the eastern Bekaa Valley.
So let's get this straight. Villagers leave an 'Israeli-occupied town' in hundreds of cars. Which would suggest that the Israelis knew about them leaving. Later on, they are targetted by an Israeli drone and then are blown to kingdom come by IAF aircraft. I'm sure the IDF will express "regret" again and mouth the same inane excuses.

"Please, sir, I want some more"

Israel is playing an 'Oliver Twist'. It seems it really needs Cluster Bombs to drop on Lebanon.

More? More? You want more?
But unlike the workhouse master Mr. Bumble in the Charles Dickens classic, the US will probably gladly oblige.
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 — Israel has asked the Bush administration to speed delivery of short-range antipersonnel rockets armed with cluster munitions, which it could use to strike Hezbollah missile sites in Lebanon, two American officials said Thursday.

The request for M-26 artillery rockets, which are fired in barrages and carry hundreds of grenade-like bomblets that scatter and explode over a broad area, is likely to be approved shortly, along with other arms, a senior official said.

But some State Department officials have sought to delay the approval because of concerns over the likelihood of civilian casualties, and the diplomatic repercussions. The rockets, while they would be very effective against hidden missile launchers, officials say, are fired by the dozen and could be expected to cause civilian casualties if used against targets in populated areas.

Israel is asking for the rockets now because it has been unable to suppress Hezbollah’s Katyusha rocket attacks in the month-old conflict by using bombs dropped from aircraft and other types of artillery, the officials said. The Katyusha rockets have killed dozens of civilians in Israel.

The United States had approved the sale of M-26’s to Israel some time ago, but the weapons had not yet been delivered when the crisis in Lebanon erupted. If the shipment is approved, Israel may be told that it must be especially careful about firing the rockets into populated areas, the senior official said.
Why would they be careful with these bombs? They're hardly renowned for the care when bombing are they?
The M-26 “is a particularly deadly weapon,” Bonnie Docherty, a researcher with Human Rights Watch, who helped write a study of the United States’ use of the weapons in the 2003 Iraq invasion. “They were used widely by U.S. forces in Iraq and caused hundreds of civilian casualties.”

After the Reagan administration determined in 1982 that the cluster munitions had been used by Israel against civilian areas, the delivery of the artillery shells containing the munitions to Israel was suspended.

Israel was found to have violated a 1976 agreement with the United States in which it had agreed only to use cluster munitions against Arab armies and against clearly defined military targets. The moratorium on selling Israel cluster weapons was later lifted by the Reagan administration.

Last week, State Department officials were studying records of what happened in 1982 as part of their internal deliberations into whether to grant approval for the sale to go forward.
Will the State Dept. learn from the mistakes of the past? Will it aid the IDF in making the same horrific attacks?

We all know that answer.

Source: New York Times

The key to every good joke is.....

Timing!

Another GOP master stroke. The biggest jokers on the block.

Friday, August 11, 2006

Selective Outrage, Cont'd.


Q: When is it okay to photoshop events to advance a political aim?
A: When you are doing the divine work of The Decider.

Johnson and the lizards were not bothered by the egrerious fakery of the Bushies when they used the "Clone Tool" not to add smoke or a couple of flares, but thousands of fake Iraqis.

Selective outrage

Remember how Charles hates Bush=Hitler analogies?
You've seen his outraged stance against Photoshops right?

Something tells me he isn't going to be hateful or outraged against this example of painting someone as Hitler using Photoshop.

After all it was done by GOP.com

Source: Interesting Times

Most unsurprising

Greg Sargent at The American Prospect hits the nail squarely on the head.

So let's get this straight: The FBI did contact Johnson twice. The first time it was because of a comment that "could be interpreted as a threat," and the second time it was because of "harassing emails." OK, so if we accept Johnson's version, is the Post piece really wrong in any meaningful sense? OK, "several" isn't twice, and in the second instance, the harassment was via email rather than via a post on the blog. Big deal. And Johnson's contention that the target was Hooper, not "Muslims"? Come on. He's the spokesperson for a Muslim group. Johnson's pushback is just inane.

Bottom line: Little Green Footballs has been contacted at least twice by the FBI about comments that could be construed as anti-Muslim threats. Given the hateful garbage that the site spews, I can't say I'm at all surprised.
Source: The Horse's Mouth

Hyping the Bottle Bombers

Here's a few non-sensationalist links to blogs covering the London terror plots with a little less hyperbole than others.

Mike Power - High Energy Drinks
Crooked Timber - The End of Carry on Baggage
Best of Both Worlds - A Hole in the Timeline
Blood & Treasure - Bokinka Part Two
Qlipoth - Bush Knew for Days
Steve Gilliard - Sophistication My Ass!
Boing Boing - British aviation bans all hand-luggage
Normblog - Unbooked Flights, Failing to connect the dots & A radical security proposal

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

When 'dumb' just isn't a strong enough word.......

This is what happens when dumber people than Charles try and jump on the 'slightlymoresmokegate' bandwagon.

Confederate Yankee: Dumber Than Anyone Thought

Source: Sadly, No!

Hypocrisy personified

This quote by Charles 'Eagle Eye' Johnson is quite something....

"The vast, vast majority of Muslims want to get along and live a comfortable life just like everyone else," he says. "But the mainstream media shies away from showing the public the real face of Islamic extremism. They don't want to offend. And they are influenced by some strong advocacy groups that are funded by Middle Eastern countries, which are actively engaging with the mainstream media to promote a point of view."
Now let's change that a tad....
"The vast, vast majority of Jews want to get along and live a comfortable life just like everyone else," he says. "But the mainstream media shies away from showing the public the real face of political Zionism. They don't want to offend. And they are influenced by some strong advocacy groups that are funded by a Middle Eastern country, which is actively engaging with the mainstream media to promote a point of view."
If Glenn Greenwald, Markos Moulitsas, Robert Fisk, Juan Cole or Justin Raimondo had said that Charles would be busily hammering out a post about how anti-Semitic they were.

Another day, another massacre

This is another Qana in the making (if not worse). Let's hope that the response from the 'wingnutosphere' actually expresses horror at the loss of civilian life and not 'gut feelings' and 'half-formed speculation' to attempt to deny, excuse or gloss over it.

Fourteen more bodies have been pulled from the wreckage of two buildings hit Monday night by Israeli airstrikes in a southern suburb of Beirut, bringing to 30 the number of deaths in what was believed to be the deadliest known attack of the month long war.

Police said 60 people were wounded in the attack on the Shiite Muslim Chiah district, which leveled one building and badly damaged another.

Rescuers labored overnight and all day Tuesday to retrieve bodies trapped under shards of concrete.

It was believed to be the single bloodiest Israeli attack on Lebanon in this war.
Source: Tikun Olam-×Ŗקון עולם:

War on Christianity

Remind us again, what 'noble cause' was George W. Bush prattling on about? I can't recal the destruction of Iraq's ancient Christian community as part of those aims.

The destruction of Iraq's Christian community – one of the oldest in the world – is no mean feat. The religion took root in the land in the first generation after the Romans executed the troublesome of Nazareth, and has flourished there for almost 2,000 years. Now it is being wiped out before our eyes. Half gone already, it will certainly disappear altogether in the next few years, as civil war consumes the nation, and sects devoted to the most fanatic and retrograde distortions of Islam – empowered beyond measure by the Bush Faction's war of aggression – impose their draconian rule. Surely the oh-so-Christian Coalition of Bush and Blair will record this with their many high and worthy deeds.
With this kind of feat already achieved, the fate of Lebanese Christians at the hands of an 'ally in the War on Terror' is surely sealed.

Source: Empire Burlesque & Mike Power

Lies, and the lying.......you know the rest

Whilst reading a piece on Charles 'Eage-Eye' Johnson's valiant actions during the slightlymoresmokegate incident, I came accross this.

It's OK if bloggers make errors, says Richard North, a blogger in the United Kingdom who follows Johnson's work. As he wrote last weekend, "if being wrong gets one closer to the truth - as it does - then it is worth putting up half-formed speculation and letting the debate rage."
Isn't that a doozy! The man who started the whole 'Qana was staged' fiasco is saying that it's ok to 'lie' (and ladies and gentlemen that's what half-formed speculation and 'gut instinct' without evidence is) as long as it gets the debate moving!

Israel to UN: We'll target your troops

Straight from the book of 'shotgun diplomacy', here's an interesting new tactic from the IDF. Threatening to kill UN troops.

Israel also threatened to attack UN peacekeepers if they attempted to repair bomb-damaged bridges in southern Lebanon. UN officials contacted the Israeli army to inform them that a team of Chinese military engineers attached to the UN force in Lebanon intended to repair the bridge on the Beirut to Tyre road to enable the transport of humanitarian supplies.

According to the UN, Israeli officials said the engineers would become a target if they attempted to repair the bridge.

Senior UN officials reacted angrily to the destruction of a temporary causeway over the Litani river overnight. "We must be able to have movement throughout the country to deliver supplies. At this point we can't do that," said David Shearer, the humanitarian coordinator for Lebanon. "The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure is a violation of international law."
Via Guardian Unlimited

Holiday!

The Israeli government is sending 17,000 people on 'holiday' for some 'recuperation'! Isn't that nice of them. Or it could be a nice way of dressing up mass evacuations from a situation that needn't have been this bad.

The government is offering some 17,000 residents of border towns to leave for several days, Cabinet Secretary Yisrael Maimon said Tuesday.

In making the announcement, Maimon avoided the word Ƃ“evacuation,Ƃ” saying instead that the residents were offered to leave the war zone for several days of recuperation. The government will pay for the stay of those leaving the border area.
That whole mission to smother Hizbollah's rocket attacks, which have increased, is going damn well, eh?

Via Richard Silverstein

Photoshop, lies and videotape

Seems it's not only Reuters photographers are in on the whole 'touching up' vibe. Israeli interrogators seem not to be too adverse to it either.

The Israeli army has released a video apparently showing a Hezbollah fighter admitting to taking part in a raid on Israel and undergoing training in Iran.

On the tape, the fighter describes his role in the raid in which two Israeli soldiers were seized on 12 July, triggering the current conflict.

The man identifies himself as Hussein Ali Suleiman, 22, and says he flew from Syria to Iran for training in 2003.

The videoed interrogation appears to have been heavily edited.
Perhaps someone should send the intelligence officers on a course with Adnan Hajj to improve their 'fakin' skills'....

Why would you release a hevily edited video? Surely that makes it look suspect straight away?

Via BBC NEWS

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

How to lie about something....

..using photography the Charles Johnson way?

It's easy, he doesn't even need to use Photoshop! He's that good at it. Look here.

Teaching the MSM a lesson

It seems that Charles is happily socking it to Reuters for publishing faked photo (which it took down immediately and sacked the photographer).

Is this the same Charles Johnson who.....

tripped over Giuliana Sgrena's car, when he made up a quote, when he helped distort the Dean Scream, when he made up 'facts' about the British education system, when he purposefully misquoted Ted Turner, when he held back some pertinent background information on a student whose story of college anguish he was promoting, when he....need we go on?
Of course that is just part of one post here at LGFW. Have a quick look through our archives and prepare to be amazed at a man who accuses the MSM of being dishonest. Hypocrite doesn't quite cover Charlie. Sociopathic propagandist is nearer the mark.

[UPDATE: But wait! There's more!

Much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, much, more.]

Charles Johnson: Hypocrite & Fox apologist

It's funny how your past comes and kicks you in the ass on your best days isn't it?

Ironically, one of the anti-Reuters lynch mob leaders, Little Green Footballs, defended Fox's publication of false Kerry quotes by arguing that Fox "pulled the article down and apologized for it the same day. That is, of course, how a responsible news organization handles a situation like this" (emphasis added). That, of course, is precisely what Reuters did with the altered photographs. In fact, the agency went much further by removing all of the photographs and announcing it will never use that photographer again. Fox, by contrast, refused to remove Cameron from covering the Kerry campaign and continues to employ him. Worse, Fox excused itself by claiming that publication of the fake quotes "occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice."
Via Glenn Greenwald & Canadian Cynic

UPDATE: Billmon gives his opinion on the matter here and says just what every normal human being was thinking with regards this phony 'outrage'.
Shocking, isn't it. Darker smoke. Two -- count 'em, two -- extra flares. What would Robert Capa have thought?

The fact that our homegrown war porn aficionados apparently find this offense more atrocious than the vile crimes being committed in this war -- by their side as well as by the officially designated terrorists -- speaks volumes about their ethical priorities, not to mention their sanitary habits.

To call them morally depraved would be like calling Jeffrey Dahmer a meat eater.

Monday, August 07, 2006

Dodgy Photoshop vs. Reality

55 more die.

ISRAELI attacks killed at least 55 people in Lebanon today and a UN security council vote on a resolution to end the 27-day-old conflict was delayed after Arab nations objected to the draft.

An Israeli strike on a crowded area in Shiite-dominated south Beirut destroyed a building and killed at least 15 people, rescue workers said.

At least 30 were wounded. Rescuers dug through the rubble with a bulldozer and with their hands as fire engines doused burning ruins and the charred shells of cars.

Israeli air raids killed at least 40 people in southern Lebanon and the eastern Bekaa Valley.

Are the Israelis this desperate for positive PR?

Is Israel allowing Hezbollah to fire on it for PR reasons? As absurd as this claim may sound, US Military analysts are suggesting this according to Washington Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks.

One of the things that is going on, according to some U.S. military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they’re being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon.

HOWARD KURTZ: Hold on, you’re suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it’s fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here?

RICKS: Yes, that’s what military analysts have told me.

KURTZ: That’s an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here.

RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.


Source: Antiwar Blog

....and now the news.

Just in case you thought one unethical photographer touching up a picture or two was the only thing going on in the world we've got some news for you. It's from a place called Iraq. Remember Iraq? It's the 'noble cause' of, oh, about a couple of years ago that is still throwing up stories of...

Serial killers.

Civil war

Rape and murder

More dead American servicemen

Ethnic strife

....and those are just the things in the news in the last couple of days.

Wowzer!

It seems those folks at Sadly, No! have a new take on slightlymoresmokegate.

The myth of pin-point accuracy....

....and the tragedy of Lebanon.

Israel's claims about pin-point strikes and proportionate responses are pure fantasy. As a researcher for Human Rights Watch, I've documented civilian deaths from bombing campaigns in Kosovo and Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. But these usually occur when there is some indication of military targeting: high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's regime present in a house just before it is hit, for example, or an attack against militants that causes the collateral deaths of many civilians.

In Lebanon, it's a different scene. Time after time, Israel has hit civilian homes and cars in the southern border zone, killing dozens of people with no evidence of any military objective.

[...]

Tragedies happen in the fog of war, but Israel's strikes on civilians can't all be excused as accidents or mistakes. The unacceptably high death toll is the natural result of Israel's failure to distinguish between civilian and military targets, and Israel is responsible for the deaths.
Peter Bouckaert via The IHT via Mike Power

How the news may change

Now we all know, it goes without saying, that Charles will report on any incident worldwide (be it a stabbing, rape, murder, fraud etc etc) that may have been committed by a Muslim for his own ends. Therefore we can safely assume that he won't pick this story up.

Police charged a 32-year-old Israeli man with murder on Monday over the fatal stabbing of another Israeli national near Sydney's Bondi Beach at the weekend.

Police found Hernan Guelman, 36, slumped on the sidewalk outside a convenience store late Saturday suffering from multiple stab wounds. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but died several hours later.

On Sunday, the 32-year-old man reported himself to police over the stabbing, the New South Wales state police said in a statement. He was charged with murder and was to appear at Sydney's Waverley Local Court on Monday.

Witnesses said Guelman was attacked by a gang of men, but it was not immediately clear whether anyone else was involved, police said.

Guelman was a former Israeli soldier who had lived in Australia for three years.
Unless of course the accused turns out to be an Israeli Arab, then all hell will break loose at LGF. The assailant will suddenly be promoted to terrorist mastermind guilty of murdering a heroic ex-IDF man.

UPDATE: It has been pointed out to us that Charles, true to form did post on the story. It seems a member of the Australian Jewish community suggested it was 'Lebanon related', ie a Muslim did it. As usual no update to identify the real killers, two Israeli citizens Dror Salah and Ezra Salah.

UPDATE: Vic Alhadeff of the NSW Board of Jewish Deputies who was quoted as saying it did appear that it was 'Lebanon related' actually said:
"But as far as we're aware, there's absolutely nothing to connect what happened with any events in the Middle East. There could have been a totally different motive for this attack."
Strange that a man so critical of the 'MSM' and their reporting, Charles would depend so heavily on their news gathering. Especially when it proves inaccurate.

UPDATE: And just to give you a flavour of the amen corner at LGF here's the first couple of comments by the ever lovely 'Lizardoids'

#1 Pro-Bush Canuck 8/5/2006 09:41PM PDT


Kristalnacht II is coming...



#2 KevinV 8/5/2006 09:41PM PDT


Tim Blair has been all over this today. Not only this horrific murder, but a temple has been attacked as has a Jewish youth center.

And this is just in Sydney.

The mask is coming off the ummah. The only question is: do we let these Nazis do this in our nations or do we stop them?



#3 Stuck in california 8/5/2006 09:42PM PDT


Thanks again, Charles, for the previous thread!



#4 Sir Lurksalot 8/5/2006 09:42PM PDT


Probably Zionists looking to drum up sympathy for Israel.

//DUmmy



#5 cbinflux 8/5/2006 09:43PM PDT


Heh. Beat you to it.



#6 OldGuard 8/5/2006 09:43PM PDT


There's nothing to see here...move along.



#7 Buckaroo 8/5/2006 09:44PM PDT


"One man is described as 178cm tall, of medium build with shoulder length dark hair and clean shaven, wearing jeans and a black top. The second is 170cm tall, of medium build with dark short hair."

Visiting Swedes, no question ...

/c'mon, Aussies, time to expel those who would poison your land ...


And the reaction when they find out it was committed to Israelis? Get ready for the in-depth reportage.

#162 Self Hating Muslim 8/6/2006 05:01PM PDT


Update: An Israeli has been charged for the with the man’s murder.

Nothing to see here.



#163 Jude 8/6/2006 06:06PM PDT


#162 - an Israeli 'national' has been charged.



#164 spot! 8/6/2006 06:07PM PDT


Israeli charged over Israeli killing

An Israeli national has been charged with the murder of a Israeli man in Bondi on Saturday night, police say.

Hernan Guelman, 36, died after he was allegedly beaten and stabbed in the back and stomach by a gang outside a shop on the corner of Glenayr Avenue and Beach Road about 9.45pm Saturday.

A 31-year-old Israeli national living in Vaucluse handed himself into Bondi police station about 7.45 last night, police said.

http://www.smh.com.a...


And then there was silence.

Source: Jerusalem Post

Creepy similarities

Sadly, No! gets on the 'plumes of smoke' outrage and points out some nasty parallels between the 'Reuters is evil and wants to destroy Israel' crowd and another lot of braying idiots.

Lying about the dead

Here's further proof that Ehud Olmert and his advisors are living in a parallel universe. Where they honestly believe people are buying the crap that comes out of their mouths. He goes as far as lying about the NATO action in Kosovo, but then again it hasn't stopped certain warmongering Milosovic supporters in blogosphere either.

“Where do they get the right to preach to Israel?” Olmert said when asked about criticism from European capitals of Israeli military operations that have led to a heavy civilian toll.

“European countries attacked Kosovo and killed ten thousand civilians. Ten thousand! And none of these countries had to suffer before that from a single rocket.
Richard Silverstein is quick to dismiss and debunk Olmert's claim.
Where to start in unraveling the mendaciousness? First, Olmert is collapsing the Serbia war against Kosovo in 1998-99 which killed many thousands of Kosovars (Wikipedia estimates that 10,000 were killed) and the subsequent NATO campaign against Serbia which attempted to pry Serbia’s death grip off of Kosovo’s throat. Olmert seems to want us to believe that NATO (”European countries”) killed 10,000 civilians. This is a bald-faced lie since Serbia did the lion’s share of the killing well before NATO came along. As distinguished an organization as Human Rights Watch tells us that NATO killed 500 Serbian civilians during its campaign, not 10,000. And Israel has already far exceeded killing that number of Lebanese in a much shorter time (78 days in Serbia and 26 days in Lebanon).
Ouch.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

More 'MSM' Photoshop perfidy!

Shocking. They're not even hiding it now. Check this out...



Now it may not be obvious to a casual blog reader, but an expert like Charles 'eagle-eye' Johnson will point out that those flags, shockingly, were added later.

Rabid dogs

"Hezbollah are a terrorist group whose aims are to destroy Israel and then fight for a global Jihad and exterminate all non-Islamics and impose a global Islamic caliphate. Negotiation with such groups is a waste of time. It's a 'Them or Us' situation. You cannot negotiate with a rabid dog, you can only kill it. Those that say that negotiation is possible with Hezbollah fail to understand that the aims of Hezbollah are not based on rational politics, they are based on theological absolutism. They do not want to negotiate with us, they just want to destroy us. Therefore terror must be met with terror."

Sound like Little Green Footballs? Close

Qana II?

More proof, if any were needed, that the perfidious liberal media is helping the enemy.

To quote Charles 'LGF' Johnson: Shoot them all!

Common sense at Harry's Place?

Surely not? Of course it was in the comments section, but still a refreshing change.

OK reality check, guys. First, here's a fact. You won't like it but it's still a fact. ALMOST EVERY PHOTO YOU SEE IN THE MEDIA HAS BEEN PHOTOSHOPPED TO A CERTAIN EXTENT. This is simply a by product of the digital era. It's simply much easier to use a digicam nowadays, and then the obvious way to 'chop' the photo and make it publishable is using photoshop (or similar). You don't actually seriously think those models actually look that thin? Likewise, crow's feet, ahem, laughter lines...all gone! With 'outdoor' shots the same principle applies: the temptation to lighten up a dark photo or darken an overly light one, or slightly change the colour saturation or whatever is simply overwhelming and almost everyone gives into it.

So what do we conclude from this? That most photos exist in a number of versions, and that, therefore , mistakes are easy to make. It's easy to be fiddling around and add some smoke (or whatever) for your own amusement, or by mistake, or to check something and then 'click'...the wrong pic is attached and sent to your editor. Remember, unlike any of you, photographers are immensely stressed, under fire (literally), short of sleep and food. Mistakes are very easy to make.

Think about it: if this is a fake it is immensely stupid because it's so easily spotted, and also because so what? Hands up: who had even seen this photo before LGF etc. started to highlight it? I had neither seen nor heard of it, and i've been following the invasion closely. This was not in any sense an emblamatic or famous pic.

And in any case, what propaganda value does it have? Do you think people might flock to the Hizbollah cause because Beirut looks smoky? If you wanted to fake a pic for propaganda purposes, you would fake dead maimed babies, weeping women, anninhilated buildings. Or you would fake Hizbollah successes against the IDF. You wouldn't waste your time making Beirut look more smoky (especially since genuine pics of the anninhilation of large chunks of Lebanon is so much more shocking).

As for the Qana pics: NO. The implication was NOT that 'some pics at Qana' were faked. The implication (as you all know, although of course some of you are lying and pretending otherwise) is not about the pics: the implication is that Qana ITSELF was faked. Again, you all know this.

To quote Instapundit:

'A number of y'all have emailed me (and I presume the other guest bloggers) about the various claims THAT QANA WAS A HOAX, based either on the time stamps on the rescue photos, or the fact that the building seems to have fallen down hours after the airstrike.

As I wrote to several people, having spent a year working at Ground Zero, I have a very high level of scepticism about these sorts of conspiracy theories. The photo conspiracy seems to be based on the ignorance of how wire services work; its author has confused the dateline, which indicates when the wire service loaded the photos into their system, with a digital timestamp. And the claims that the building couldn't have collapsed after so much time sound remarkably like the WTC Building 7 conspiracy theories, which were based on the fact that 7WTC, the farthest from the twin towers, inexplicably collapsed nine hours after the planes hit, even though it suffered no apparent structural damage.

In the "fog of war" all sorts of rumors get started--remember how tens of thousands were thought killed in the WTC, or the various reports of impending terror attacks in the days that followed? And when something bad happens, it's normal to look for reasons it's not your fault, especially if it was an accident. But I need a pretty high standard of evidence to accuse the victims of a tragedy of staging it to make us look bad. Meanwhile, it's not exactly helpful that many of the people arguing against the conspiracy theories are making remarks that sound like borderline anti-semitism, trending into grand Zionist conspiracy theories.

I've never managed to convince anyone of anything on the Israel/Palestine conflict, and perhaps it's impossible (though perhaps I'm just a lacklustre debater). But I think there are helpful and less helpful ways to express the deep rifts that divide us, and looking for grand plots in the chaos strikes me as among the least productive.'

Whereas Israeli strikes on civilian targets are invariably described as 'mistakes', when someone sends in the wrong photo this is proof, at HP, that there is a huge conspiracy by the Arabs, who control the media. They control everything. They control Reuters, the BBC, CNN. Their secret hand controls the horizontal, controls the vertical. This is straightforward 'the Jews control the media', with 'Arabs' substituted for 'Jews'. It is paranoid, BLATANTLY racist gibberish and you should be ashamed of yourselves for propagating it.

(NB: not that Reuters should have used the pic, but I'm willing to bet that the internal investigation will show that this was just a mistake. By that time, of course, you will all be chasing some other conspiracy theory).
Posted by Brendan at August 6, 2006 05:20 PM
Source: Harry's Place

A book worth reading.....




Available here, and Antony's blog is in the link section to the left of this post.