Love is blind

Yes, having a go at the Beeb is like shooting fish in a barrel, but à propos my earlier post about media bias this is too good an example to ignore.

The subject in question is scrap cars and, we learn from the Beeb that, "Scrap cars [are] creating toxic waste", a report earnestly broadcast last night on The World Tonight and repeated on the BBC website .

The main claim of the report was that: "As many as 1.5 million cars are being scrapped illegally in Britain every year, presenting a major environmental hazard," pompously announced in that self-regarding way the media does, as "the BBC has learned".

Thus does it continue that: "Thousands of tonnes of toxic waste are being created by drivers who fail to dispose of their vehicles in the way demanded by the European Union."

This is the notorious End of Life Vehicle Directive, on which we have written occasionally, as indeed did the The Daily Telegraph last year, both of us pointing out how the legislation was an unmitigated disaster.

But such faint-heartedness is not for the Beeb. If it is EU law, then it can only be spoken of in terms of approval. So do we get a brief description of the Directive, with the Beeb telling us that, "In 2003 the European Union introduced legislation requiring all cars coming off the roads to be taken to an approved site, cleaned of pollutants, and the owner issued with a certificate of destruction."

From this, you immediately see where the Beeb is coming from: the munificent, caring EU has delivered unto us with wonderful law which protects us – and the sacred environment – from the depredations of irresponsible and polluting car owners. How lucky we all are.

But, instead of being grateful, according to the Department for Trade and Industry, two million cars were scrapped every year, but by the end of June this year only 250,000 had received a certificate of destruction. And, according to "industry experts" (unnamed - could be the caretaker at a scrapyard, for all we know) this "meant 18,000 tonnes of vehicle fluids and the same amount of batteries could be being dumped or poured down the drain every year."

Then we get Lib-Dim MEP Chris Davis, supporting the Beeb line. The situation was starting to get out of control, he said. "We have some really useful European environment legislation, designed to ensure that we deal with this huge mountain of scrap cars in a responsible manner. It's been British law now for the best part of three years, but the arrangements simply aren't working." He thus burbles on:

Either the government has got to join departments together and get these changes made, or we've going to have to ask the European Commission to take Britain to court and make sure that we're protecting our environment properly.

Then we get an interesting little tailpiece, which the Beeb retails, but doesn't understand. It cites "legitimate operators such as Jeff Bridges" who are struggling to compete with the illegal car-breakers: "You've only got to pick up the local paper, turn to the back page and there will be dozens of adverts with mobile numbers to remove your vehicles. And we can't compete with that", says Bridges. He adds:

We obviously have overheads, we have legal obligations to fulfil, whereas they are just one man with a lorry who will go along and take the vehicle away - untraceable, unprosecutable.

And there, in all its glory is the reality of a totally unworkable law. You create a morass of paperwork, regulation and controls which make it so expensive and onerous to dispose of a car that the business simply goes underground, and 1.5 million cars disappear from the system. Quelle surprise!

It is here that the Americans have really got it right. Instead of devising an onerous bureaucratic scheme – in which the EU excels - their government has created a tax-break for the disposal of cars, where anyone donating a wreck to a charity can deduct the notional value of the car from their taxable earnings statement.

This has spawned a massive charitable endeavour, with a whole range of websites, such as here, here, here and here. As a result, car disposal is much less of a problem in the USA than it is in the UK, with the Americans having harnessed the power of tax incentives to the might of the charities, utilising market mechanisms.

As we have remarked before, such thinking is totally beyond the capability of the EU and, as we see today, it is totally beyond the capability of the Beeb to see anything wrong with this crass system of government, with which it is so infatuated.

But, as they say, love is blind.

COMMENT THREAD

She doth protest too much, too late…

Julia Langdon is waxing indignant in an op-ed in The Daily Telegraph today about a story the paper broached yesterday.

This "revealed" that spending on government spin had trebled under Labour and taxpayers are now supporting an army of more than 3,200 press officers. When Labour came to power in 1997, just over 300 fully-fledged press officers were working in Whitehall (although that figure excluded a small number of other public relations staff).

Furthermore, the amount being spent on government advertising, marketing and public relations had risen three-fold since Mr Blair entered No 10. The Central Office of Information's PR, advertising and marketing budget had soared from £111 million in 1997 to £322 million last year.

Julia Langdon, of course, is a former political correspondent of The Guardian, and political editor of the Daily Mirror and The Sunday Telegraph. She is now free-lance and is often to be seen (or heard) on the Beeb, hosting a variety of political programmes.

Her piece in the DT, however – headed "3,259 PR men with nothing to say" - is the usual vacuous mouthings that one would expect from a former political correspondent of The Guardian. Central to her thesis, she complains that:

It is a difficult job, trying to control the media. Any study of competent bureaucracies will show it is always going to require a very large number of drones labouring in the ministry basements in order to try to achieve that particular end. It is therefore no surprise to learn that the "enormous team of experts" now employed in the Government's PR business has swollen from a few hundred in 1997 to the ludicrous figure of 3,259 today. But while not surprising, it is, actually, scandalous…

Then, referring to her own little tribe of hacks, she refers to "we political journalists" who are meant to do business with these people. The reality, she writes, and the real scandal:

…is that all these press officers are not doing the job, or any job much except paper-pushing. They tell you as little as possible and their words are meaningless. They use words with a literal accuracy that obfuscates the truth and does not allow for any suggestion of original thought or imagination.

They do not seek to enlighten and they very infrequently attempt to help. When - or if - they return a call, my experience is that they will offer to furnish the required information some time after the newspaper in question is already in the nation's recycle boxes. Most political journalists don't bother with them, except for seeking the occasional statistic, because the press officers have been raised in a culture that does not seek to enlighten public opinion about the processes of government.

As I wrote in our forum, though, that latter comment is hardly surprising. I have always worked on the basis that, if you want to know something, the last thing you do is ask a government spokesman - and anything they do tell you is suspect.

But Langdon is wrong about these press officers doing nothing. They churn out press releases by the thousands - so say nothing of posts on their hundreds of websites - and other hacks do use them. There are thousands of trade journals – many of them staffed by little more than a man and a dog – and the torrent of press releases emanating from the various ministries find their way into these, often with only the bare minimum of editing.

Then, the news agencies also pick them up and, with often minimal re-writing, send them out on the wires where they are used, second-hand, by national and local newspapers – the circulation of the latter, cumulatively far exceeding that of the nationals. And, by and large, the specialist correspondents on the nationals rely on their diet of press releases – often sent in advance of the general release, as a "reward" for good behaviour.

For these and others, government statements and press releases are "safe" - you don't have to do any fact-checking before you quote them. So our little darlings in the media have got fat and lazy churning out government spin for all these years, recycling press releases instead of going out and getting their own stories.

But now that the government is getting more reticent about certain aspects of its policies, the milk in the teat is drying and the likes of Julia Langdon are throwing a hissy. They are spitting their dummies (pacifiers, for our American friends) out of the pram.

The thing is that, despite this, nothing will change. The government employs thousands of press officers because it is in its interest to do so and the media does not complain too loudly or too long because it suits it as well. Both print and broadcast media have been shedding journalists in droves and as long as they have a cheap, reliable source of copy, they may rock the boat occasionally, but they are not going to capsize it.

By tomorrow this story will be yesterday's news. The Daily Telegraph will have moved on to pastures new and the whole thing will be quietly forgotten. It will have filled a bit of space in its column, sold a few more dead trees and paid the salaries of its hacks, and everybody will be happy.

Nothing will have changed.

COMMENT THREAD

So it goes on…

If the mistakes governments make are not publicised and analysed, there is no accountability. Nor then will there be any popular pressure to put matters right. The result, in this case, is that people are dying.

That is the measure of the failure of the media as it records, yet again, the surge in illegal immigration from West Africa to the Canaries in small boats across the perilous Atlantic, the Guardian, amongst others, reporting, "15 Bodies Found on Mauritanian Beach", believed to be would-be immigrants washed ashore after a failed attempt to reach the Canaries.

As we detailed in May, here and again here, the forced migration is almost entirely due to the collapse of the artisan fishing industries in Mauritania and Senegal.

This is in very large part due to the predatory EU third country fishing agreements exacerbated by the EU's failure to assist in developing effective conservation systems and enforcement measures to deal with non-EU fishing vessels which are also raiding the fishing stocks.

To be fair, on 27 May, The Daily Telegraph did point this out but that was just one article of hundreds – yesterday's fish and chip wrapping, long gone.

Dealing with the current crisis, with numbers having exceeded 19,000, an article from UPI today records the disaster in terms: "EU steps in to stem flow of migrants", the BBC headlines: "EU promises help with migrants" and Reuters (of Adnan Hajj fame) proclaims: "EU states urged to help Spain stop African migrants".

Now, you might say, the coverage cited – and much more – is perfectly neutral, recording simple fact. But that is precisely the point. Imagine, for instance, that the Canaries crisis was due to the action of Israel, or some other non-favoured entity. Do you think that the headlines would be so studiedly neutral? But, because the EU is involved, we get strictly factual reporting.

It would be just as accurate, for instance, to write a headline declaring, "EU fails to stem migrants". Equally, the copy could just as easily make reference to the "crisis caused by the EU's fishing policies in Africa", and it would be entirely factual to state that Spain – which is so voluble in appealing for help, and on whose behalf the EU is calling for help - is the main beneficiary of the fishing policy.

But, while pejorative references are prevalent in virtually every report about Israel's actions, you will not find a hint of censure directed at the EU in any of the copy produced on the Canaries issue. It is in that way, mainly, that bias operates. In the case of the EU, it is not what the media say – it is what they leave out that makes the difference.

So, the betting is that, after reading the story in whatever media outlet they prefer, the bulk of ordinary, intelligent people will conclude that the EU is a beneficial organisation, struggling to assist a member state deal with a sudden and unavoidable humanitarian crisis. And if they do, they will be wrong.

But the reason will be the misinformation – and the lack of information – that dogs this issue. Thus do we aver that the single most important obstacle we confront in trying to deal with the EU – and so many other issues – is the media.

COMMENT THREAD

Shifting populations - 2

Populations come and populations go, each time influenced by economic reality. Bloomberg.com reported yesterday a development that is giving the German authorities furiously to think, as Hercule Poirot used to say.

Last year 145,000 Germans, mostly skilled and educated workers, left the country “amid record postwar unemployment, pushing emigration to its highest level since 1954, Federal Statistics Office figures show. Last year was also the first since the late 1960s that emigrants outnumbered Germans returning home from living abroad, the statistics office said”.

Though unemployment has decreased a little since Angela Merkel’s government has taken power it still remains at over 8 per cent, rising to over 20 per cent in the eastern part of the country. It seems that ever fewer people think that the government will solve the problem.

The problems of high taxation and over-regulation are so bad that many are leaving to go to Austria and Switzerland, neither precisely a laissez-faire country. But the bulk of the emigrants are heading to the Anglosphere: Canada, Australia, New Zealand.

COMMENT THREAD

Shifting populations - 1

Much of Europe’s history has consisted of shifting populations, usually though not always westwards, sometimes peacefully, sometimes considerably less so. People in varying numbers arriving into Europe and, also in varying numbers, leaving Europe. Nothing new there but the political implications are important.

My colleague has pointed out yet again that the imminent collapse of many parts of East European economy and the consequent move of many of those who cannot find jobs to the western part of the EU is an almost inevitable result of the latter’s policies. Speaking as someone who has been warning East Europeans since 1998 or thereabouts that joining the EU will not be the solution to any of their problems, I can only add the obvious comment: the astonishing thing is the number of people on all sides who refused to see that this would happen.

In the same way we have written over and over again that the influx of Africans into various parts of the European Union is the inevitable result of the latter’s refusal to have genuinely free trade agreements with them and, above all, the third country agreements that are part of the Common Fisheries Policy.

Nor has the inordinate amount of aid handed over to corrupt and bloodthirsty dictators either directly or through NGOs been particularly helpful for the development of African countries.

The Italians, as before, have found an interesting way of dealing with the problem. As the Wall Street Journal Europe reported over the week-end [subscription only] the city of Padua has revived the literal meaning of the Italian word ghetto. It was originally used for the walled area of Venice where the Jews were confined.

Ghettoes existed in various European cities but were slowly dismantled and even abandoned in the post-Enlightenment era to be revived by the Nazis as they took over one East and Central European city after another. Jews were walled in and many were eventually transported to the death camps.

Now the ghetto is back though not for the Jews. Padua Mayor Flavio Zanonato of the Democrats of the Left party has ordered the construction of a three-meter steel wall around the problem-ridden Serenissima housing project.

The wall is anchored well under ground to prevent tunnelling, is equipped with just one entrance that is firmly controlled by the police and surveillance cameras. The project is home to about 1,500 immigrants, many illegal, most from sub-Saharan Africa.

Apparently, soon after the wall had gone up one Serenissima resident put up a hand-written poster, which said, “today’s illegal immigrants are tomorrow’s voters”. Well, maybe. Or maybe not and the “militarization” praised by one of the nearby residents will remain in place and possibly spread through the city. As long as there is a socialist mayor, he will be able to get away with it. Whether it will provide anything like a long-term solution to the multiplicity of problems involved is questionable.

COMMENT THREAD

Can't resist this

This is only marginally relevant to the various themes of this blog but I thought our readers would like to know exactly what happens in the Great Glass Egg a.k.a. City Hall, the home of London’s government. Actually, London’s government has not been happening in the sense that there have been no committee meetings or Assembly plenaries or Mayor’s Question Time and Hizonner, the Mayor of LondON has been away though not, one regrets to say, silent.

Amazingly enough, London has carried on as it had done for the couple of millennia of its existence in one form or another before Our Ken became Our Mayor. However, not everything is quiet on the Tower Bridge Front.

The staff of the Great Glass Egg received the following delightful round robin this morning:

“Dear All,

From 29 August 2006, the Environmental Champions at the request of the Mayor and the Director of Corporate Services, will be monitoring the waste that is thrown away at City Hall. Individual bins will be viewed by an Environmental Champion and the types of waste in the bin will be recorded to try and find out how much of our waste could be recycled. The results will be recorded on a floor by floor basis and given to Directors and the Mayors office. Progress reports will also be give to staff periodically so you can see how well your floor is doing!

We hope the results will show that the recycling facilities are being used and value your support in carrying out this initiative.”

What a delightful picture that conjures up. We couldn’t possibly comment.

COMMENT THREAD

An industry in denial

A number of people thought I was a little hard on the media yesterday, in my post headed, "The scum that they really are". To an extent, they are right. Not all journalists are scum. There are some fine people in the trade who do their best – within the limits they have to work – to do a diligent and professional job.

However, in an industry that is so tainted, their individual output must be measured by its overall effect. Thus, all the practitioners must bear the burden of that taint.

But quite how bad the situation is, I scarcely imagined. This is brought home by an article in Ynet News yesterday, headed, "Journalists blame Israel for war coverage".

The opening sentence has it that, "A number of journalists claimed during a convention in Jerusalem Monday evening that Israel and the IDF were mostly to blame for the way the foreign media covered the Lebanon war."

But what particularly stands out are the comments by Associated Press' Chief Jerusalem Correspondent, Ravi Nessman. He downplayed the Reuters doctored photo scandal, saying: "It was probably one guy… everyone's working very hard. Everybody is tired. Everybody is overworked. It's very unlikely that the photo editors sat there and said, these are doctored photos, get them on the wires… I'm sure it slipped through. They're trying to do as credible a job as possible."

Nessman also claimed that "there was one real photo scandal in this war, and there were dozens of non-scandals that cropped up." This can only be a reference to the "Qanagate" staging, which stands at odds with a claim from Stephen Farrell of The Times who remarked that, "Pictures have been faked as long as there have been pictures." He cited "commercial imperative" as a factor in the doctored images.

Thus do we read Melanie Phillips today in her article headed, "The media war against Israel". Her long and well-argued piece is worth reading in full but especially chilling are her conclusions. "To date," she writes:

…as far as I can determine, not one mainstream editor or proprietor has acknowledged this corruption of the western media. The scale of this corruption now threatens to have a lethal impact on the course of human history. Hatred now drives not just the jihadists but their western dupes, too. Truth and freedom are indivisible. The deconstruction of the former inevitably presages the destruction of the latter. This is the way a civilisation dies.

To now turn to a piece on the BBC website concerning EU action over Polish shipyards might seem a complete digression, but – as I will show – the inadequacies of this report are all part of the same phenomenon, the corruption of the media.

Written by Jan Repa, styled as a "BBC Europe analyst", this records how the EU Commission has presented Poland with a deadline of the end of the week to "present credible plans for the future of its Baltic shipyards." If it fails to do so, the shipyards could be forced to hand back large amounts of state aid, which the EU Commission says contravene EU rules. This will almost certainly result in the closure of a number of the yards, including the former Lenin Shipyard in Gdansk - birthplace of the Solidarity movement.

The article itself is a fairly factual piece of reporting – but the situation has been developing for some considerable time. The shipyards have been under investigation by the Commission for more than two years.

Where the "corruption" comes in, therefore, is that this issue is treated in isolation and has not informed the coverage of other issues which are directly related.

Not a week ago, I wrote a piece called "The enemy between", where I pointed out how superficial has been the coverage of the Polish mass migration in the media.

Not only was it inevitable and predictable, I wrote, one of the reasons I gave was that:

In the accession countries, however, far from expanding, the industrial base is contracting. Under the dual assault of EU environmental protection laws and the prohibition on state aid – with the added problem of global competition - many of the former state-owned enterprises have shut down or have reduced their labour forces. Thus, we have a situation where, just as the rural economy is shedding labour, so is the industrial sector.

Here, in this BBC report, we have graphic evidence of that dynamic – but no one joins up the dots. Where you have an economy that has failed to develop – through the dead hand of Communism and Russian occupation – to expect it to then immediately to conform with all the norms and regulations of the far more advanced and mature western economies is asking for trouble. The net effect, as we have observed, is mass migration.

The point her is that in all the huge amount written recently in the media about the "Polish problem", nothing of this has been aired. The trivial, superficial and wholly inadequate discourse betrays a massive failure on the part of the media, a total lack of professionalism.

In discussing media issues with my colleagues, in and out of the trade, we see this as all part of the same quantum. It is difficult to distinguish, sometimes, between bias, incompetence, laziness and sheer lack of professionalism. But, in the round it does not really matter. It is corruption in the sense that we apply to word to computers – a "corrupt disc" or a "corrupt file" – something which has broken down or deteriorated to such an extent that it no longer functions as it should.

What the Ynet report indicates, though, is that the problem is far worse than we imagined. Not only is the western media corrupt, it is nowhere near acknowledging that it has a problem, or that there is anything seriously wrong.

For our part, we need to appreciate that, while the Middle East reporting showed up the fault lines in a spectacular fashion, the more pedestrian inadequacies evident in reporting elsewhere, on a wide variety of issues, are all part of the same disease. Basically, the media can no longer be relied upon as a purveyor of information or reliable analysis and, as long as it fails to recognise that it even has a problem, there is no immediate prospect of improvement.

Inasmuch as there are people in that industry who wilfully refuse to accept just how corrupt their industry has become, I stand by my original epithet, although I will add that the issue is the corruption of the industry as a whole. But that merely highlights the more immediate problem - we have an industry in denial.

COMMENT THREAD

A little known fact about Sir Alfred Sherman

The death of Sir Alfred Sherman, self-styled (accurately in part) progenitor of Thatcherism has brought out all sorts of reminiscences. Sir Alfred was such a difficult person in many ways that we must all wait for a properly researched and argued biography to form any kind of conclusions about him.

Here I should like to offer a small vignette that is, perhaps, not very well known. Sir Alfred had ambitions to become the leader of the eurosceptic movement by taking over, if possible, the Anti-Federalist League, which subsequently transmogrified itself into the UK Independence Party, a name and a concept he disliked, as I shall explain.

The AFL was formed in 1992, a few months before the election. In the confusing period after the election and through a by-election, with Alan Sked still leader, Sherman came to at least one of the public meetings we held at the LSE. This must have been immediately after his Karadjic interlude, though it was not till later that he told me he had been dismissed by that great humanitarian for being too much of a hard-liner. Back in London, Sherman still had close connections with the Bosnian Serb organizations here and went to many places accompanied by at least two unpleasant looking toughs who had, undoubtedly, worked for the Yugoslav secret police in a previous political existence.

Still, Yugoslavia was a bit of a backwater, particularly as it was unlikely to last much longer as a state, and Sherman wanted to make his way back into British politics. He told me that he had tried to take other Conservative politicians in hand and groom them for leadership as he had done with Thatcher but none of his plans seem to have worked out. It obviously did not occur to him that there was something special about the material he had been using in the past. (He would not have liked anyone to ask this question but one cannot help wondering exactly who was using whom.)

So, clearly, he had to find another niche and the burgeoning eurosceptic movement seemed to be just the ticket. He had always been a fervent supporter of various nationalists, getting into trouble when he invited Jean-Marie Le Pen to a Conservative Party Conference fringe meeting and generally making comments about the need to send second and third generation immigrants “back” to their parents’ homeland. Being somewhat humourless, he never really appreciated the irony of the situation as he, too, was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants.

He certainly opposed the European Union by the nineties though the probability is that he had not really seen the dangers back in the seventies. Few people did. Why he should oppose one artificially created supranational state and yet have no particular objection to others, remained a mystery.

The idea he toyed with was the taking over and grooming of Alan Sked. If that did not work out, he reasoned, then he could take over himself and put the eurosceptic movement on the right tracks.

The first thing to do, he explained to me over coffee, was to define what we wanted to fight for as well as against. Not unreasonable but he then proceeded to make life a little complicated. It is English nationalism that we need to define and strengthen, he insisted. It is not strong enough. All this stuff about the United Kingdom was a political cul-de-sac.

Given that Sir Alfred made numerous comments about being Jewish and being vehemently against this, that and the other because of that, this idea of strengthened nationalism, a sort of sturm und drang seemed rather odd and, given that we were trying to build up a country-wide organization, inappropriate.

Besides, Alan Sked was not going to relinquish his position or put himself in the hands of the man whose behaviour had entailed the changing of the locks on the Centre for Policy Studies building to prevent his entry.

All the same, every now and then I think about what would have happened if...

COMMENT THREAD

The scum that they really are

We see that Daniel Hannan, the eurosceptic's eurosceptic, is in full flood in The Daily Telegraph today, holding forth in an op-ed about the terrors of the European Union.

"The European Union is a solution in search of a problem," he writes. "Whatever the question, the answer is invariably 'more Europe'. War in Lebanon? We need to be able to deploy an EU army. A breakdown in the World Trade Organisation talks? Let's have a more integrated European economy. People voted against the constitution? They obviously thought it didn't go far enough."

I suppose we should not be ungracious. Never mind that this is the man that staked his political reputation on the Boy King Cameron taking the Conservative MEPs out of the federalist EEP group in the EU parliament – only to have his new leader renege on the promise, leaving Hannan high and dry – and still a member of the federalist EPP.

We should quietly forget this little embarrassment and be grateful that thus highly paid MEP is not too busy to earn a little more money telling us what we already know – that the EU in reality only has one policy and that is political integration. And, in seeking to achieve this, it has become past master at exploiting situations of concern, in this particular case concern about terrorism.

This is a phenomenon we have called the "beneficial crisis", about which we have written many times on this blog, like here, here, here, here and here … and er… here and here. Not, of course, that Hannan could ever bring himself to use that phrase. It was coined by the Booker/North team and associating himself with anything we did would soooo damage his credibility.

But, as I have just said, I should not be too ungracious. The fact is that what Hannan has written cannot be said too often – especially for our American friends, some of whom still labour under the impression that the EU has some purpose other than integration for the sake of it.

But what one should really query is why The Daily Telegraph actually bothers to print this sort of stuff – unless, of course, it was a slow news day and it needed something to fill its pages.

The point is that the newspaper itself – as reflected by its editorial line – obviously does not believe it, otherwise it would be pointing it out more often, instead of trying to excise any reference to the EU as often as it can get away with it.

What occurs is that the Telegraph is vaguely aware that some of its readers are vaguely eurosceptic so that, every now and again, it throws a token piece into the pot to keep them happy, and the advertisers coming back to but more space. It is probably as simple as that – for all its high pretensions, this newspaper is a business like any other, there to make money for its owners.

What sticks in the craw though is the pretension. For instance, yesterday, the paper ran a robust editorial demanding that the MoD should "Equip soldiers properly". "We've said it before, and we'll no doubt say it again," the paper intoned. "British troops are as brave, willing and deadly as any in the world. But they are let down by poor procurement and an inefficient MoD."

It then preens itself on reporting that "our forces" in Afghanistan are short of ammunition and are to be supplied with drones bought off the shelf from America (pictured above), because of the inadequacy of our own kit. British weaponry, it seems, is not suited to the rough conditions of Helmand province.

It then goes on to declare that:

The reason for this is that, deep down, our generals are still gearing up to fight the Cold War. Our defence procurement is Euro-centric, designed to protect the Continent from a modern conventional attack. As such, it is ill-suited to the theatres in which our soldiers are commonly deployed.

What use is the Eurofighter, the most expensive item in the history of the MoD, in the Afghan campaign? What about our new nuclear submarines? Are they, perhaps, to be dismantled and carried across the Hindu Kush by mule train, and then reassembled in mountain lakes to take on the Taliban?

The purchase of drones is a welcome, if belated, development. Far more needs to be done if the British Army is to be properly suited to out-of-area deployment. We need modern military computers, guided satellites, air- and sea-lift capacity. And the best way to secure these things is to buy them from the Americans, so as not to have to duplicate the research and development costs that have already been sunk into them.

Sadly, our political leaders, for ideological reasons, prefer to participate in costly and inefficient European consortia than simply to purchase what we need from across the Atlantic. And our top brass, partly because they can see which way the wind is blowing and partly out of sheer inertia, are too ready to go along with them. It is the young British soldier, "wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains", as Kipling put it, who is left to pay the price.

Er… excuse me! This we have been saying for some considerable time, not least in my CPS publication last year called the "Wrong Side of the Hill" (and more recently here), when I pointed out that the British government was expending billions on European equipment which was more expensive and less effective than US counterparts.

And where was the Telegraph then? Did it even publish a story on the paper, or refer to it at all? And, when one of the biggest wastes on money we have seen in recent times – the Type 45 Destroyers – celebrated the launch of the first of its class, what did we get other than a gushing eulogy that could have come straight out of the MoD's publicity pack.

Similarly, when it comes to the purchase of "drones" – funny how the paper cannot bring itself to call them UAVs – I recall writing many pieces about the urgent need for this equipment, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, most recently here. But I cannot recall at any time the Telegraph calling for such equipment. The best it has been able to manage of late, is another gushing piece which could have – and almost certainly did – come straight out of the MoD press pack for gullible journalists.

And, as for the desperate (and ultimately successful) campaign we ran to get improved armour for our troops, to supplement "Snatch" Land Rovers, where was the Daily Telegraph?

And has it ever bothered to report the story of the Panther, that useless and extremely expensive pile of Italian junk, on which the MoD is spending nearly £500 million, when it could have spent less money on decent (and effective) vehicles for our troops? It had an opportunity last year but, of course, blew it.

What all this goes to show it how low grade the media really has become. Over a year ago, I was talking seriously to senior journalists in the MSM about the deficiencies of British Army equipment, stressing that there was a crying need for publicity before troops were unnecessarily killed. My efforts were in vain and now, with the latest tally of 14 troops killed in Afghanistan, we have the Telegraph preening itself over its concern for "our" forces.

As a final note, in the paper today there is a story – curiously not on-line – where it notes with glee that "the American billionaire seeking to open a super casino at the Millennium dome" is facing a "fresh controversy" after one of his companies put misleading information on its website. This it picked up from a political blog and rushed into print with it.

But isn't it odd how this same newspaper, so purient about others’ transgressions, is quite happy to post faked photographs on its website while it, and the rest of the media, is unwilling to debate its own transgressions.

Even until relatively recently, I used to believe the media had some authority and credibility. Now, increasingly, I see them for the scum that they really are.

COMMENT THREAD

Well, that just goes to show

I note with some admiration that my colleague has apologized for what he calls light blogging over the week-end as he was busy wrapping up the Green Helmet saga. I don’t have the same excuse for light blogging though I did manage to see two excellent World War II films by Sir Carol Reed “Night Train to Munich” and “The Young Mr Pitt” about which I shall be blogging somewhere. Then again, a large number of our readers or, at least, members of the forum, tell us quite frankly that they do not read what I write, have not noticed that there are two writers on this blog and do not care to find that out. All I can say to them: skip this posting.

What caught my eye this morning was a rather curious piece in the Daily Telegraph about who might have been the greatest twentieth century British Prime Minister. As Margaret Thatcher, whom I admire enormously, won I was going to nod and pass on. Then I noticed that Clement Attlee, author of the modern British welfare state, which is still causing endless problems to this country, came second and Edward Heath, possibly the most unsuccessful (well, give or take Anthony Eden) of our most recent Prime Ministers, third with Winston Churchill fourth and the unfortunate Neville Chamberlain last.

At that point I started paying attention. It is, of course, impossible to set up a real league table of premiers, as circumstances are so different for each. Influenced by Robert Donat and by William Hague’s excellent biography of Pitt the Younger, I would probably place him at the top of my complete list, as one who was successful in peace and war (though, clearly, not all the time in the latter). But back to the twentieth century that does not boast personalities like either of the Pitts.

The list was put together by Francis Beckett, a veteran left-wing journalist and a long-time contributor to The Tribune. In the circumstances I am not as surprised as Graeme Wilson, the Telegraph’s Political Correspondent, about him putting Tony Blair so low. I am surprised that he put him so high.

Mr Beckett is also an historian and biographer, mostly on left-wing themes, though there is a biography of Harold Macmillan due out soon (I suppose that, too, could be counted as left-wing) and, mysteriously, of Laurence Olivier. Mr Beckett has written short stories and plays of what looks like agit-prop persuasion, so, I suppose, he might be interested in one of our greatest modern actors.

There is a book due out, edited by Francis Beckett on 20 British twentieth century prime ministers and, presumably, this table is a precursor or, perhaps, a bit of free advertising. All in all, it gives an interesting insight into the thinking of a left-wing historian and journalist.

Margaret Thatcher was awarded full marks (five out of five) for “taking one kind of society” and turning it into another. Attlee, it seems, was awarded full marks for much the same thing. The fact that Thatcher’s great achievement was to dismantle a good deal of Attlee’s edifice and the tragedy of this country being that she did not have time to complete the Herculean task, does not seem to alter Mr Beckett’s view. He is, after all, a left-wing historian and for the likes of him criticizing Attlee’s government would come close to blasphemy.

His argument for not placing Churchill above fourth is not irrational. A great war leader, which makes him one of the greatest men in this country’s history, he was largely an unsuccessful peace-time politician and Prime Minister. Mr Beckett also points out that Churchill lost the 1945 election, which takes away some of the achievement.

Well, Attlee lost the 1951 election and Heath lost three of the four he fought. What makes Heath the third greatest twentieth century Prime Minister in this country? Was it the climb-down to the unions or the winter of discontent? Was it the three-day week or the destruction of local democracy? Was it the creation of the large police forces, the beginning of the process which has brought us to the sorry state of policing that we suffer from now?

It might be any or all of the above but what really endears Heath to Francis Beckett and the BBC History Magazine is the taking of Britain into the European Union as Mr Wilson puts it in the Telegraph. Possibly, Mr Wilson does not know that Heath took this country into the Common Market, having assured all and sundry that a political union was not and never had been on the cards. Possibly, Mr Beckett also holds that view. One does rather wonder why he should have such a low opinion of Tony Blair and his economical attitude to the truth and yet think so highly of Edward Heath.

Then again, why put Neville Chamberlain, who was really quite successful in domestic politics with many good ideas that came to fruition and many more better ones that would have created a much more successful welfare system than the one that came out of Attlee’s government, at the bottom? The Munich Agreement, of course, with Mr Beckett (or possibly Mr Wilson of the Telegraph) unaware of the many historical debates that have raged around that event, and the fact that he did not manage to avoid war.

True enough but then the purpose of the Munich Agreement was to do just that. Would not signing it have avoided war? And why is Edward Heath desperately going along with everything presented to him by the EEC negotiators, regardless of the benefits or disbenefits to this country, to be praised for his supposed achievements?

COMMENT THREAD

Remembering Katrina

Couldn’t resist this, courtesy of Six Meat Buffet. A proper post to follow shortly.

Drawing a line

For those of you who might have thought that the unusual lack of posts in the blog has meant I've been taking time off – you were mistaken. I decided I must absolutely focus on finishing the definitive version of "The Corruption of the Media", otherwise it would never get done.

Barring any typos that are brought to my attention, the work is now finished and I will not be making any further corrections or additions to it. Now standing at 104 pages when printed out (up from 85) with 204 illustrations – plus links to others – this is the best I can do. I must now draw a line and move on.

That does not mean to say the issue is finished with – far from it. One reason for getting the report done (and for the substantial element of re-writing) was to be able to submit it with a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission. I formally lodged a complaint today, via the online system, citing The Daily Telegraph and enjoining the Guardian, The Independent and the Daily Mail.

Any developments on this, or on the "Qanagate" saga, I will post separately as and when, rather than add to the report.

One reason for focusing on The Daily Telegraph is the discovery that its web entry for the Qana story of 31 July now sports a picture of the "dead baby", taken by none other than Reuters' own Adnan Hajj, he of photoshopping fame (see top illustration - double-click to enlarge).

This comes after web editor Shane Richmond wrote a self-regarding post on 2 August, explaining how he had personally decided not to use that particular picture because it would be "exploitative and gratuitous" (see extract, right).

Richmond originally posted a picture of "White Tee-shirt", so his replacing it with this one, after he was soundly trashed on his own blog – seems to his rather sick way of getting in the last word. Interestingly, the picture he has chosen is the only one which Deborah Howell of The Washington Post - in an article of 13 August - was prepared to admit was staged.

Well, we shall see what the Press Complaints Commission thinks of Richmond's sick little game. However, this is a notoriously weak watchdog and it has complete discretion as to whether it entertains a complaint, but it is worth a try.

In the meantime, I will be closing down the existing thread on the forum headed "Green Helmet/AP", and opening up a new one linked specifically to this post and the report.

Normal service will be resumed in the morning, and this time I mean it.

COMMENT THREAD

Wishful thinking

The Sunday Times today carries a leader headed, "Life in the old dog yet", extolling the virtues of the "dead tree sellers", as we call the print newspapers.

"The death of newspapers has long been predicted," the piece opens, but, says The Sunday Times, "newspapers are investing heavily in websites where they can continue to deliver reliable news and comment." After a discussion on how its product can be delivered, the paper continues:

Some titles may close, as they have in the past, but the ones that will survive in print and online will be those that invest in journalism and innovation. In such a rapidly changing world, the demands for good reporting and analysis will be at an even higher premium, whether it is delivered through the letter box or down a phone line.

This is from a newspaper which, today, devotes a significant amount of space in its magazine – and its whole front cover (illustrated) – to a faux story about photographer Jill Greenberg, who made children cry by confiscating their sweets, then photographed their reactions. "Did she go too far in the name of art?", asks Christopher Goodwin. See pages 28, 29, 30, 31... with full-page, lurid pictures of crying babies.

This is the same newspaper which, two weeks ago, quite gratuitously chose to use this picture from Qana (right), showing "Green Helmet" parading dead baby Hashem to illustrate a comment article on the war in Lebanon.

Yet, despite the issues raised by this treatment of death as a commodity, with four weeks having elapsed since the Qana incident, mainstream British newspapers have been silent on its implications. Furthermore, they have no intention of confronting this issue. They can happily prattle on about someone taking sweets from babies, but they simply cannot handle a debate about the use of images of dead babies as a propaganda tool, in which they themselves had a part to play.

Significantly, though, during the week following our first post on the issue, the weekly circulation of this blog exceeded that of The Sunday Telegraph, formerly the second-largest quality Sunday in the UK.

A similar phenomenon was seen during the Danish cartoons affair, about which the British media were cravenly silent. That time, it was the online Brussels Journal that made the running and, at the height of the crisis, its daily hit rate was running at over 200,000.

Its circulation has declined since – as indeed will ours – but the point is that, in recent times, when contentious issues have arisen, the traditional media has shown extreme reluctance to take them on. The "blogosphere" has made the running. And, if the media continue to show their same cowardice, that is how it is going to be in the future. Ours and others' experience has shown that there is a real thirst for information on key issues and the MSM is simply not delivering the goods – whether physically or electronically.

Furthermore, it is not just on these highly contentious issues, but in the coverage generally that the MSM is lacking. This week, The Sunday Times offers a leaden piece headed , "Humbling of the supertroops shatters Israeli army morale", its analysis of the Israeli Army in the wake of the Lebanon War.

This subject, though, has been running on the "blogosphere" for weeks, and even we did it last week. And frankly, The Sunday Times did not tell me anything I didn't already know and I have seen far better analyses on any number of blogs and websites.

For the paper, though, this is a nice "safe" (and cheap) issue – it's open season on knocking the IDF and, as we know, the MSM prefers to hunt in a pack. But, while the Lebanon war was and is important, at least it was a drawn match - at the very worst.

What could be far more important, in the longer term, is the effective surrender of British forces in Iraq's Al Amarah last week to Islamic extremists – on which we reported yesterday. This represents a humiliating surrender, without even giving battle.

The name Al Amarah seems to be unlucky for the British Army. On 29 April 1916 – 90 years ago - it suffered what was described then as "the greatest humiliation to have befallen the British army in its history". This was at the siege of Kut al-Amarah. For the Turks - and for Germany - it proved a significant morale booster, and undoubtedly weakened British influence in the Middle East.

Now, history doth repeat itself, in part. In 1917, the British Army was allowed to redeem itself, with its capture of Baghdad. This time the Army is being forced to slink back into its barracks, pending a complete withdrawal, while our government is pretending it has won a victory.

How useful and interesting it would have been for The Sunday Times – or any quality newspaper – to have discussed this issue. But you will not find any of them taking it on.

Interestingly, it is not only the MSM which is deserting the field. Our regular readers will have noticed – "Qanagate" apart – how little we are writing on the affairs of our domestic politicians. This is not accidental. They have become so irrelevant to our concerns – especially the not-the-Conservative Party – that they have simply written themselves out of the script. As so often, The Business puts it admirably:

The collapse of trust in political parties is now all but complete. The information revolution – from 24-hour news to the internet – has allowed the electorate a clearer view than ever of politicians who purport to represent them; the reaction is one of informed, rational and heartfelt contempt.

This is not altogether irrelevant to the plight of the MSM – which in all sectors apart from magazines is suffering continued decline in circulation. For most of its history, it has relied on its close relationship with politicians to provide its content but, as politicians become increasingly irrelevant, so too does the MSM.

However, implicit in The Sunday Times editorial is the expectation that it will survive. That may be the case, but I wouldn't bank on it. Judging from its lacklustre content and its craven attitude to contentious issues – in common with the rest – that expectation may be more wishful thinking than a reasoned prediction.

Perversely, what may save them is - as my colleague often remarks – that while we may get our news and comment from the internet, the cats still need something to shit on. Which makes a change from them shitting on us – the MSM, that is.

COMMENT THREAD

That's where our money goes

There is an interesting story in The Sunday Telegraph on EU fraud.

I was going to do an analysis of this but it is largely self-explanatory and there is little I can add to the discussion going on in the forum. It does underline, however, that the whole system is pervaded with corruption, from the very top to the low-grade defrauding of expenses by by MEPs which, with the total lack of accountablilty, makes the system unreformable.

This is an issue which the Europhiles continue to skate around - when they are not throwing up huge smokescreens - but the fact remains that the EU is more like the Maffia than a government (if there is a difference) and will always remain so for as long as we tolerate its existence.

COMMENT THREAD

Was it the EU's fault?

Brigadier General Ulf Henricsson, the Swedish head of the outgoing Sri Lankan Monitoring Mission (SLMM) thinks so. It is, according to him, the decision to put the Tamil Tigers on the list of terrorists in May that undermined the cease-fire that had been negotiated in 2002 and had held since then more or less.

It is not quite clear why the decision was finally taken this May after decades of fighting and several years of a more or less effective cease-fire. But then, neither is it entirely clear that the Swedish general is doing anything else but venting his frustration because his own memo had been ignored.

As a consequence of the May 29 decision, for which Britain had campaigned for some time, the Tamil Tigers have announced that there would be no more EU members of the Monitoring Mission, so the Nordic Group after September 1 will consist of Icelanders and Norwegians. Clearly the Tamil Tigers have a very good idea who is and who is not in the EU.

The cease-fire had been brokered by Norway. They do have quite a track record in brokering cease-fires, accords and agreements. None of them last for very long but it is the thought that counts.

The renewed violence of the last two months has resulted in around 650 dead and many refugees.

General Henricsson’s argument is quite interesting. The Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers had signed the agreement as equal partners (though, as he did not say, neither kept to it one hundred per cent or anywhere near that). Announcing that one side is a group of terrorists, as the United States, Canada and India have also done, gave the Sri Lankan government a carte blanche to open up hostilities against the Tamil Tigers though it is the latter who have been responsible for most of the recent violence.

At least, I think that is how the argument runs. He may well be right. Then again, it is possible that the cease-fire was not going to hold much longer even in name and the presence or not of the Nordic peace-keepers is not all that significant.

Sheer sentimentality

As we look around the political scene today we cannot help sighing for one or two outstanding figures somewhere, anywhere. There are those who point to John Howard in Australia and I do not disagree. I merely know less about him than I should, perhaps, but he is a stalwart Anglospherist and under him the country became a proud and strong member of the Western alliance.

Stephen Harper? We don't know yet. President Bush? Well, anyone who cheerfully announces that "if I were Hezbollah I'd claim victory, too" is a lot smarter than a lot of clever-dick journalists give him credit. No-one in Britain, alas.

So we turn to the past. I came across this posting by Sister Toldjah, one of the most interesting American bloggers on the right, in which she demonstrates why she misses President Reagan. I couldn't help agreeing with her. The world is a sadder and poorer place without him.

There are certain people whose opinions are so utterly skew-whiff that I do not bother to talk to them or argue with them. I have no problems with those who are anti-Reagan but I shall never have any truck with those self-important and supercilious nobodies who sniff and tell me that he was just a B-movie actor who went into politics and got lucky. Yeah, right, lucky. How come nobody else got to be that lucky?

The British are running

It was as recently as late June – two months ago – that we were writing on this blog that Al Amarah in the southern, British sector of Iraq had become the "badlands".

So far had the security situation deteriorated that routine patrols in the hopelessly inadequate "Snatch" Land Rovers had been abandoned and patrolling was limited to daily sallies in Challenger MBTs and Warriors. We recalled how, in order to carry out border patrols from their base in Al Amarah, the King's Royal Hussars were having to rely on their Land Rovers being airlifted by helicopters past the town, to avoid their being attacked en route.

Now, two month after our report, we are being told that the security situation has improved so radically that the British Army can afford to leave their base and hand over security to local Iraqi forces.

It is in that context that one must read the report in today’s Daily Telegraph which records that "jubilant Iraqi looters" stripped the military base after the British forces pulled out. Thousands of jubilant Iraqis, we are told, looted the base: everything from doors and window frames to corrugated roofing and metal pipes was pillaged.

No sooner had the British departed than a crowd gathered outside Camp Abu Naji. Three companies of Iraqi troops stationed in the base initially dispersed them with shots into the air but, the following morning, a mob of between 2,000 and 5,000 returned, hundreds of them armed with machineguns and rocket-propelled grenades. After sporadic fighting the Iraqi troops retreated to a corner of the camp as the base was stripped.

Hundreds gathered around the local offices of Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric whose followers had fired 281 mortar rounds and rockets at the camp, to offer their congratulations. A loudspeaker repeatedly broadcast the triumphant message: "This is the first Iraqi city that has kicked out the occupiers." By nightfall, said Lt Rifaat Taha Yaseen, of the Iraqi army's 10th Division, "everything" had been taken.

Says the Telegraph, "The capacity of Iraqi security forces to secure the country is the central plank of the British exit strategy. That they seem unable to secure even their own bases does not augur well."

In fact, the British strategy is a sham. It is plain as a pikestaff that the Iraqi forces are unable to maintain order – and neither can the British with their current force structure, equipment and numbers. But, rather than admit this and do the honourable thing, declaring that it is pulling out, our government is doing it on the sly. It is pretending things are under control and that it is achieving its objectives.

Once again, all we get is spin and lies, this time to dress up the fact that, when it comes to our policy in Iraq, we have made an ignominious retreat.

COMMENT THREAD

The game they are playing

The most dangerous form of propaganda is that which does not appear to be propaganda. And it is that form at which the BBC excels.

Typical of the genre is the outrageous “puff” currently on its website extolling the virtues of the EU’s Galileo satellite navigation system. Under the headline, "Boost to Galileo sat-nav system", the Beeb reports that, "The UK government is to invest another £21m in a space mission to build a civil satellite navigation system".

As far as it goes, that is factual, but the report then goes downhill, retailing pure propaganda on behalf of the government. This "boost", is according to Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling, "good news for British jobs, British technology and science. Furthermore, the £2.4bn scheme, adds the Beeb helpfully, "promises to transform transport and communication industries", which then allows Darling to add,
"The Galileo project has real potential to develop groundbreaking technology leading to more accurate in-car navigation and new systems for the emergency services to locate missing or injured people."

Nowhere does the Beeb say, however, that the government has already paid £93 million to the scheme which, with the contributions to the EU research fund and European Space Agency payments, now amounts to well over £200 million.

Nowhere does it say that the US GPS "Navstar" system is already up and running, that it is totally free of charge and that any performance benefits that Galileo will be able to offer are largely illusory and will in any case be matched by the new generation of Navstar.

Never mind that, as we have reported , that there are grave doubts as to whether Galileo will ever be able to recoup its investment, that there are significant civil liberties issues with the proposed applications of the system, or that the political and military implications could destabilise Nato and weaken the Anglo-American special relationship.

But then, you might say, why should the Beeb bring all this into a routine announcement by the minister of extra funding for the system?

There's the cleverness of it all. There is no reason at all – so there are no grounds for complaint. But this is "good" news about Galileo, so the Beeb publishes it. Yet, in all the time this blog has been covering Galileo, we cannot recall the Beeb every having published anything critical about the system.

Interestingly, Zombietime has done a superb article about media fraud, which covers many of the categories. But, as we remarked some time ago, and more recently, perhaps the biggest sin of all is that of omission.

It is in routine issues like this – the fate of the Galileo system, which has enormous implications for us all – where the Beeb does most of its damage. By simply not informing us of key issues, they go by default, unchallenged until it is too late to do anything about them.

And it's all so innocent and above board – until you realise the game they are playing.

COMMENT THREAD

Bloggers win and lose .... but mostly win

For anyone interested in what is going on in Iraq even mildly, Iraq The Model is a must to read as regularly as possible. It is run by two young men in Baghdad who have lived there all their lives and are involved in the developments now. Not long ago they mourned the death of a cousin in a terrorist attack.

A couple of interesting postings: Omar has added up how many blogs there were in Iraq now and has come to a very interesting and heartening conclusion. According to the Technocrati data there are (ore were last week) 212 Iraqi blogs and some frustration was expressed with that low number.

However, Omar points out that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Most blogs are written in Arabic and are, therefore, not necessarily noticed outside the country. On the other hand they do have a greater influence inside.

Adding them all up, he says:

“Total Number of Users: 1558
Total Number of Posts: 13458
Total Number of visits to all community members: 9 920 393

And knowing that this community was created on 15 Jan 2005, i.e. only 18 months old makes these statistics impressive in my opinion.

It's true that not all those 1 558 blogs are active ones but that also applies to the other 212 as it does to the 50 million blogs worldwide.”

There are also bloggers in Egypt and other Arab countries, though, according to Mohammed, who has just returned from a bloggers’ conference in Cairo, their lives are considerably more difficult than those led by the Iraqi contingent.

Not so long ago a number of bloggers were arrested by the Egyptian police and maltreated in a way that probably made them wish they could be imprisoned in Guantánamo. Most were eventually released in response to demonstrations in Cairo and a world-wide protest on the blogosphere (well, some parts of it). I must admit that I am in awe of these people’s courage.

Things are not so good in Iran, still one of the countries with the largest number of blogs in the world. Farsi is joint second language on the blogosphere and may well overtake French soon. If the Mullahs and President Ahmadinejad with his thuggish Revolutionary Guards will allow it, that is.

The recent news from Iran is that not only the police have been smashing satellite dishes to prevent people from listening to decadent stuff from outside but they have also been working quite hard to block websites and blogs. If that means arresting and beating up bloggers, so much the worse for them.

Yet new ones start up all the time. It is worth remembering the courage and tenacity of these people when we pat ourselves on the back for achieving as much as we have achieved one way or another.

Why am I writing all this? Well, really, just to give notice that in future this site will join (as we have done in the past to some extent) in the world-wide protests when we hear of bloggers being arrested, of writers being maltreated for their writing and of blogs and websites being blocked. We owe it to our brave colleagues in countries where there is real oppression.

As the old Russian slogan about Poland had it: Za vashu i nashu svobodu – For your freedom and ours. And, anyway, now that Amnesty has given up fighting for prisoners of conscience but has become merely an ordinary, anti-Western, pro-terrorist NGO with political ambitions on the transnational scene, somebody has to do their work.

Can't let the Italians lead

The EU foreign ministers are meeting with SecGen Kofi Annan (father of Kojo) to decide on the European contribution to the required 15,000 international peacekeeping troops, required by Resolution 1701. Until yesterday the tentative offers from various member states added up to 4,200 with France contributing the magnificent number of 200.

With the cease-fire more or less holding but grumblings being expressed by various Lebanese politicians who think, on no clear evidence, that if the strengthened UNIFIL is not deployed soon, there might be clashes between the Lebanese and the Israeli forces, the “international community” is losing face.

Yesterday President Chirac went on TV to announce that France would send 2,000 troops (still short of the 5,000 that had been expected and had persuaded the United States to go along with French watering down of the Security Council Resolution. Still, the higher promised number will mean that the French will lead the force, with Alain Pellegrini, the French general presently in charge of the UNIFIL force continuing in that position.

This seems rather hard on the Italians who offered 3,000 soldiers, presumably once their contingent had been withdrawn from Iraq, and to lead the international troops immediately.

Al-Jazeera reports that 170 French troops have arrived in southern Lebanon to join the 400 that had been there before the latest bout of fighting in Lebanon. It is still unclear where the promised 2,000 will come from and when they will take up their position. Nor is it clear how many will other EU member states contribute.

There is a move to convene another meeting of the UN Security Council on Monday.

In the meantime, Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told the Italian newspaper La Reppublica several interesting things. In the first place, he made it clear that it was the job of the Lebanese army to disarm Hezbollah, not that of UNIFIL. Whether the Lebanese forces will be up to the task he did not specify. But Hezbollah, he explained, had agreed to the deployment of Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon, not a phrase that fills one with confidence for the future.

More interestingly, if one can trust Prime Minister Siniora’s judgement, he asserted that Hezbollah was no longer the powerful force it had been before the recent fighting.

“The Lebanese PM also told the newspaper he does not expect Hizbullah to drag Lebanon into a war again.

"I don't believe it can happen again," he said. "I don't think Hizbullah is in the same position where it was before the war, and won't be able to repeat what it did. It learned the lesson from what happened."”

This is a somewhat different assessment from the one most analysts have been rushing to make. Fouad Siniora seems to believe it, though, because he spent some time in the interview discussing the likelihood of a peace agreement between Israel and Lebanon.

Michael Totten, a widely published analyst and blogger who had lived in Lebanon for some time makes this comment:

“No Lebanese politician would have dared to say such a thing two months ago with a Syrian gun pointed at the right side of his head, a Hezbollah gun pointed at the left side, and the reactionary mentality that prevails in certain Lebanese quarters.”

Of course, there is still a long way to go and Hezbollah and/or UNIFIL may well manage to derail any possible negotiations.

It would be funny if...

...it wasn't so sick.

What you are meant to see is the first sequence, where the television camera lingers on the abandoned body of a man, a vignette pregnant with pathos, so laden with symbolism that even the hardest of heats could not fail to be moved.

But the Arab TV station which showed this scene was perhaps too enthusiastic for its own good. In a long clip, of over seven minutes, it then went on to show this separate sequence, starting at 6:45 minutes.

The sequence opens with "Green Helmet" leading a stretcher party towards "Stretcher Alley", comprising himself and two others. As he does so, he spots the camera and stops the party in its tracks. Facing the camera, he appears to give the operator a signal while he and his colleagues lower the stretcher to the ground. There can be no mistaking the deliberation in the act - "Green Helmet" is quite clearly looking directly towards the camera.

Thus we see the party lay the stretcher on the gound, "Green Helmet" all the time keeping his gaze on the camera. There is no verbal sound track to this film (it is overlaid with Arabic music) so we cannot tell if "Green Helmet" gives an order - not that we would have understood it anyway. But what happens next cannot be spontaneous.

With extraorinary rapidity, the three stretcher bearers disperse. The "man in black", or so it seems, heads off at the run in the direction whence he came. The young man breaks left at high speed and "Green Helmet" heads at similar speed in the direction of the camera. The indications are - and the effect certainly is - that they are trying to get out of camera-shot.

No more than a few seconds into the sequence and their high-speecd dashes are paying off. All the figures are now nearly out of camera-shot. The "man in black" looks as if he is about to run all the way back to the wrecked building - that is the direction he is going. The others, we cannot see as they run past the camera out of view.

Now we are but a fraction of a second from the pathos - another iconic shot, showing the abandoned body. "Green Helmet" is just out of view, the young man has disappeared and the "man in black" is now so far up the road that he will not appear in any close-up shot. And a few seconds of a close-up shot is all it will take to make a powerful point.

Context, of course, is everything. An innocent explanation would be that the stretcher party had arrived at its destination. The "man in black" was rushing off to pick up another body and the other two were rushing forward to take on other vital tasks.

However, we know exactly where this is, from the footage of "White Tee-shirt's" camera run. This is the middle of nowhere. It is some distance from the wrecked building and even the staging area, and well short of "Stretcher Alley" and the ambulances. There is no activity here. If for some reason "Green Helmet" and his team had suddenly tired and decided to take a rest, they would surely have remained with their burden. There can be no explanation for their behaviour, other than they are determined to get out of camera-shot to give a clear view of the body.

Once again, the showman scores.

We've added this to our report in Part 7.

COMMENT THREAD

You thought it was over?

I certainly thought it was, or hoped it was, with what I thought was the completion of the "Qanagate report" - all bar tidying up a few odds and ends. But, like it or not, it won't go away - at least, not as long as pictures like this (left) keep turning up.

This I picked up off an obscure website after a reader posted the link on our forum. I do not know the origin of the photograph, but it looks very much to me as if it shows the "dead baby" being uncovered.

I have enlarged it as much as I dare and marked the object of interest. We are looking at a very poor definition photograph, though, so there are all sorts of health warnings to apply. Add to that, the original looks to have been taken with a wide-angle lens, giving rise to all sorts of distortions - look how huge the figure on the right is, compared to the others.

That said, it does look like baby Abbas Ahmad Hashem or, at the least, this representation is not incompatible with the images we have seen elsewhere.

In particular, look at the size of the head compared with that of the Red Cross worker holding the body. Comparative distortions are least here - and the head of the body is tiny. The hair colouration and cut look right. The singlet has the right neck profile and it is sleeveless. The leg we can see is bare, presenting the same profile that we see elsewhere (left) and for once the distortion might be working for us. Look at the foot - it has the same enlargement that we see on the photograph to the left. This has been remarked upon by many readers.

The reason for "banging on" of course, is this photograph, taken for Reuters by the infamous Adnan Hajj. Call it instinct, "gut feeling", intuition or anything you like. The photograph does not look right - and that is a feeling shared by hundreds of our readers. The suspicion, niggling away, is that the body was discovered earlier, and then re-discovered for this photo-shoot. There is another photograph of this supposed discovery, taken by Ali Haider for epa/Cordis. It looks equally improbable - if not more so. The fine consistency of the debris and the fact that it is so obviously posed - as indeed does the other - all raise the greatest doubts as to the authenticity of the scene.

For some time now, I have been labouring under the impression that the scene shown here (left) could be the missing link, and persevered even when dozens of readers and forum members wrote that it was not - that's obsession for you. I continued looking, and have since viewed dozens of video frames in search of the illusive confirmation.

However, I have also come up with a still photograph that I have had on my computer for a while, but had never looked at properly. That (right) proves beyond all doubt that the image is not the "dead baby". Mea culpa - and for my penance, I'm going to have to re-write a whole tranche of the final report.

When I found the new image, showing what could really be the "dead baby", I thus approached it with some caution. At first sight, it looks to be in roughly the same position as the other image, and could have been just another picture of it. Then I found I also had this image (below left), downloaded during some general trawl so long ago that I cannot even recall where I found it.

This actually shows the the same scene as our topmost picture, but less detail of the subject. There is, though, more location detail there. The key datum is marked by the arrow - the concrete rendering of the closed-up opening - which we can see in another picture. From this, and cross-referring with other photographs, I am in absolutely no doubt that the body is a few feet away from the right-hand wall of the basement, and lying parallel to it. The other figure is lying at right angles to the wall and is further out - closer to the leg of the half-buried woman. As far as I can be sure, these are different figures.

Now for the $64,000 question - how does this location compare with the positioning of the "Green Helmet" discovery? Well, by reference to the blocked off doorway (arrowed) they are roughly in the same position. They are not quite the same but, as far as I can make out, the two positions actually overlap. The big difference is that, in the topmost picture, the body is aligned with its head away from the main basement entrance while the other is aligned towards it.

Now for the crucial bit: by examining the markings on the wall blocks, and their pattern, the height of the debris seems to be much the same in both key pictures. In other words, there has been no substantial excavation in this area between the two pictures. Then, in the very first picture, you can see a shallow trench extending beyond the body up to the foot projecting in the top left quadrant of the picture (that belongs to a photographer - so another picture of this event might exist). A similar trench can be seen in the "Green Helmet" picture.

Having regard to the relative positions of the bodies in the two frames, I think a case can be made that they are so close that, had they been different bodies, it would have been impossible to have found the first without also stumbling on the second. With enormous caution, therefore, noting all the "health warnings", I am warming to the idea that these are in fact the same bodies.

Of course, there is one way the mystery could be solved. Someone - or many persons - have somewhere a high definition reproduction of this image. When I tried earlier to do some analysis of a low definition image, the Daily Telegraph's Shane Richmond was quick to slap me down by producing a high definition version of the same picture, to prove my suspicions wrong. So, how about it Shane? Fancy putting your money where your mouth is, and publishing a high definition version of the picture at the top of this post? Or are you afraid I might be right - and it would prove that the body had indeed been re-buried and then "discovered" again by Green Helmet.

Over to you, Shane! And I don't mind if you ask your friends to help you out.

COMMENT THREAD

Green Helmet update

We have been sent some important new video footage which has enabled me to update the "Qanagate" report. So far, I have made significant changes to Part 4 – Red Cross workers, adding three sequences.

The first shows Green Helmet stopping a Red Cross worker from evacuating the body of a girl, telling him to put it on a stretcher – whence it is used for a number of staged scenes.

The second, shown above, expands scene 2. It actually shows a Red Cross worker being placed at the location. Only once his "minders" are satisfied with the positioning does the bearded man in the white shirt - acting as the "prop master" - hand him the body of the child. Another Red Cross worker to his side takes hold of the head, in what is evidently a pre-arranged pose, the pair acting as a duo.

Now that the actors are in place, with the "prop" suitably position, "Black baseball cap" moves in to check the arrangements and give last minute instructions to the actors. Then, as is shown in the report, the actors march off in front of the cameras to give their ghoulish display.

The third addition supplements an already published still frame from AP's Nasser Nasser. Apparently showing an "action shot" with Nasser claiming to show Red Cross workers carrying away a body, the video footage actually shows the workers stationary for many seconds, posing for the shot.

We have other material which we are still processing and will have to add to other sections of the report. Each time, the case strengthens - nothing so far in any way contradicts our original thesis that the bulk of the scenes at Khuraybah were staged.

Meanwhile, the rats continue to nibble at the edges. Two more attacks are up on the web, here and here. Both follow classic lines. The first attacks the author for having an "agenda" while the second lumps the EU Referendum material in with other work and then attacks the latter, damning ours by association. But neither address the substantive evidence offered by this blog.

The first of the pieces, by Greg Mitchell of the Editor & Publisher is now suplemented by a second. The man is in denial. Perhaps he should listen to the advice given to many a politician - when you're in a hole, stop digging.

As to ongoing changes, I have also amended the main graphic in Part 2 and we will keep you informed of further updates.

Comments - use the "Green Helmet/AP" thread

The Irish Question reappears

According to what might be the greatest book of English and British history “1066 And All That”, Mr Gladstone’s sole aim was to solve the Irish Question but the Irish cheated: every time he came near to doing just that, they changed the Question. For those of us who are old enough to have studied history at school that remains the best description of the endless toing and froing over Ireland in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

The creation of the Irish Free State appeared to solve the Question but it left Britain with the Ulster Problem and I am not going to spend the next three hours trying, rather ineffectually, I suspect, to analyze that.

One would think that with both Britain and Ireland being members of the European Union, a transnational organization devoted to the destruction of existing national states and creating a new one, that of a common European State (super or otherwise) would have put pay to all that discussion and the constant changing of the Question. Let’s face it, the EU will have its work cut out with the Transylvanian Question once Romania is part of it.

It seems, we have underestimated Irish tenaciousness. A good Question is not to be discarded just because centuries have gone by and fruitless battles have been waged.

According to the BBC, Gay Mitchell, a member of the Irish Parliament and of the European Parliament, made what turned out to be inflammatory remarks at the annual Fine Gael Collins-Griffith Memorial in Dublin on Sunday.

(It is, perhaps, worth noting that the two men commemorated are Arthur Griffith, the first President of the Irish Free State, who died in 1922 because of stress brought on by the country’s indubitable slide into an extremely bloody civil war and Michael Collins, the leader of the IRA who signed the treaty with the British Government and immediately started undermining it, though this remained unknown to many of his erstwhile comrades. Collins was planning to launch a guerrilla war in Northern Ireland but was distracted by that civil war and was clearly involved in the assassination of Sir Henry Wilson. Despite all this, as Sellars and Yeatman might have said, he was assassinated by disgruntled IRA members 10 days after Griffith’s death. Oh dear, I wasn’t going to go into Irish history.)

Anyway, what did Mr Mitchell say that annoyed everyone so much?

“As a constitutional nationalist, he was interested in looking at Ireland's relationship with NI's unionist population, he said.

He widened his argument to ask what role the British monarchy would have if a united Ireland came about by consent.

"Are we prepared to actually think out of the box and say, well how - if this is to come about - it will be accommodated," he asked.

"Or alternatively, are we saying that we are abdicating solely to Provisional Sinn Fein, the role of being advocates for a united Ireland in the Republic?

"I think that would be a disastrous thing to do."”

Needless to say, Sinn Fein condemned the remarks immediately as did the DUP and these are the only two parties that count for anything in Northern Ireland.

My question remains similar to the one at the beginning of this posting. Mr Mitchell is musing about a united Ireland brought about by consent (another instalment from “Tales of Porcine Aviation”). Is that not rather a passé notion in the brave new world of the European Union? And should Mr Mitchell, as an MEP, not know this fact?

The enemy between

Even though I am still coming up for air after spending more than three weeks on my "Qanagate report" (would you believe 84 pages when I printed it all out, with 173 illustrations?), even I managed to notice that there was a certain amount of interest in immigration over the last 24 hours.

This, I gathered, had something to do with the release by the government of official figure, recording that half a million East (and Central) Europeans had applied for work in Britain during the last two years – i.e., since EU enlargement.

In today’s edition, The Times is chuntering on about this, as is the Mirror and sundry other newspapers. The Beeb had its go yesterday, devoting most of its Radio 4 World Tonight newscast to the issue.

The influx, we are told, is much greater than the Government's prediction of 15,000 immigrants per year and the actual number of workers from these countries is likely to be higher still since the figures do not include self-employed people like builders or plumbers, who do not have to join a workers' registration scheme.

Tony McNulty, the immigration minister, said estimates that included self-employed people would put the total number of from immigrants from the so-called "A8" nations nearer to 600,000.

But, if those are the bald figures, what we have not heard or seen anywhere from the media is why it is happening, and why this mass migration was both inevitable and predictable, once these countries entered the European Union.

Classically, this is in fact a problem of agriculture, about which we wrote in December last year. And this is a problem as old as the hills.

Basically, something like 25 percent of Poland's 40 million population is dependent for its income on the land – 10 million or so people - and other enlargement countries have similar ratios. Yet, in a modern economy, this is unsustainable. Agriculture, typically, can only support between 2-4 percent (in Britain it is lower), and then only with considerable protection and subsidy.

In joining the EU, the enlargement countries – as expected – have been forced into a massive programme of rationalising their farming industries, which means that people are being forced off the land as rural employment declines.

The same rationalisation occurred in the UK during the 18th and 19th Centuries but, fortunately for us, this coincided with the industrial revolution, which soaked up the excess labour and kept it productive.

In the accession countries, however, far from expanding, the industrial base is contracting. Under the dual assault of EU environmental protection laws and the prohibition on state aid – with the added problem of global competition - many of the former state-owned enterprises have shut down or have reduced their labour forces. Thus, we have a situation where, just as the rural economy is shedding labour, so is the industrial sector.

France had something of a similar problem, although it came late – in the 1950s and 60s. It was this which prompted de Gaulle to fight for the CAP, subsidising farmers to keep them on the land and thus slow down the movement from country to city, making it more managable.

But, in the 1999 enlargement settlement (the so-called "Agenda 2000"), existing member states refused this option, cutting back on the entitlement for enlargement countries and then changing the rules which made it more difficult to apply for the funds that were available.

Caught in this classic squeeze, there is only one answer for the economically active population – migration. The ridiculous thing is that this was so predictable that, back in 2003, Booker and I wrote about it in our book, The Great Deception. I pulled off the original text from my files, and this is what we wrote:

Unlike the French back in the 1960s, the Poles were not to get a cushion for their peasantry. They were to be exposed to the full force of competition from highly-subsidised EU produce, transported faster and cheaper down the Trans-European Network to Warsaw than many local farmers could hope to compete with. The only result could be an accelerated drift to the cities. Yet, the EU had also forced the "rationalisation" of Poland's core industries, such as steel, intensifying already serious unemployment and wiping out any potential jobs for the dispossessed farmers.

Emigration would be the only option, something foreseen by the existing EU member states, most of which had refused to allow rights of establishment for seven years. But not so Britain. Following Ireland’s lead, she would allow entry to the eastern Europeans from day one of their accession. Furthermore, they would have the same entitlements to benefits, health care and education as UK nationals. The Home Office believed that only 5,000 to 13,000 would take advantage of this, but Migration Watch UK, a specialist think tank, warned that the UK could be facing 2.1 million immigrants by the year 2021.

That is exactly what is coming to pass. To try and stop it, without dealing with the core issue – agricultural subsidies – is like Canute trying to stop the tide coming in. He knew it could not be done and wiser heads know that this wave of migration – for good or bad – cannot be checked under the current regime.

But, as I observed, nothing of this is discussed by the media. I doubt there is a great conspiracy though. This is just another of those all too common examples of the ignorance and lack of professionalism that passes for journalism these days.

Whether it is the Middle East, foreign affairs generally, domestic or EU affairs, the very last thing you can do is rely on the media for an honest or intelligent appraisal of current events. Through their lame and often trivial efforts, they let the governments of the day off the hook and, in so doing, become part of the problem. Standing between us and the government and still dominating the debate and filtering out alternative views, they hinder understanding and the accountability that comes with it.

They the media, therefore, are not so much the enemy within – they are the enemy between.

COMMENT THREAD

Abbas hands over the money

According to Ha’aretz

“Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) gave some 5,000 members of Hamas' special "operational force" salaries this week, Palestinian sources say. The salaries came from funds the Arab League sent to Abu Mazen's office to pay the wages of 170,000 PA officials. Most members of the "operational force" belong to Hamas' military wing, Iz al-Din al-Qassam, led by Yussef al-Zahar, the Palestinian foreign minister's brother.”

Although a few weeks ago the PA and Hamas signed an agreement, which had brought many of the Hamas fighters into the fold, before that this operational force had spent a great deal of time fighting Fatah. Nor have any of the force agreed to abandon their terrorist activities or to recognize Israel’s right to exist.

In itself, that is nothing new. There have been many protests about the non-payment of salaries and protests in that part of the world are apt to turn violent. There have also been protests by the many unemployed, demanding that the Palestinian Authority find them work, a task that would be beyond most governments.

However, the EU is not uninvolved:

“According to Palestinian sources, the European Union operates a body which, together with Abu Mazen, supervises the transfer of the payments from the Arab League. On Saturday it approved $89 million for payment of salaries going back to the month of May. However some 20 special advisers to the government were not permitted to receive payments. The operational force was nevertheless allowed to receive money because it joined the Palestinian police force six weeks ago as part of Abu Mazen's agreement with Hamas.”

So much for Hamas fighters not getting the money that is being handed over to the PA for humanitarian purposes.

Sadly, they have no shame

An item on the Power Line blog leads us to an article in the Washington Times with the interesting information that a Swedish Foreign Ministry report into the Oil-for-Food scam has established that Norway’s ambassador to the UN, Ole Peter Kolby knew all about the shenanigans but preferred to keep silent “for fear of angering Iraq and big companies involved in the program”.

The report has now been broadcast on Swedish radio and written about in Aftenposten. The Norwegian radio interviewed Mr Kolby, who said that all he had was suspicions and rumours, not proof. Ought he not have followed some of the rumours up or asked someone else to do so? Apparently not.

“Henrik Thune of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs told Aftenposten that Kolby was caught between competing interests, including fear of fueling the push for war in the Bush administration if he revealed corruption in the Oil for Food program.

"In reality, Norway found itself in a hornets nest of large countries' politics, large companies' interests and the humanitarian situation in Iraq," Thune said. "I don't think Norway really had any freedom to act, and the criticism should be directed at the superpowers within the U.N. Security Council."”

Well, diddums. I trust people will remember this bit of whingeing when some of those small countries strut their amazing moral superiority, which does not prevent them from keeping very quiet, indeed, when a major financial scandal is going on.

And what are we to make of that little comment about Kolbe being afraid fuelling “the push for war in the Bush administration”? Clear as clear can be: it was all Bush’s fault. Some of us might think that Mr Kolbe betrayed the trust that had been placed in him by the Norwegian government but we would be wrong. It was all them, the big guys. They didn’t actually make him do it but he was afraid that they might use his comments as a justification.

So the scandal went on, the money was stolen, the people of Iraq suffered and Mr Kolbe glowed in his self-righteousness.

Just a reminder

Some of our readers will say that this posting is entirely irrelevant to the core themes of the blog. I am not sure and, in any case, I find it interesting that two crucial events of the Second World War began on the same day, though two years apart.

Today is the anniversary of the beginning of the Blitz, the night-time bombing of British cities and towns by the Luftwaffe in 1940.

It is also the anniversary of the start of the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 - a more destructive and, as it turned out, more decisive event. The picture above is of Stalingrad (now known as Volgagrad while the battle is mostly known as the Battle on the Volga).

Finished

It's done, all bar the tweaks: the "Qanagate" report. Start here.

COMMENT THREAD

They will come to Beirut (maybe)

One of Agatha Christie’s better spy thrillers is called “They Came to Baghdad” and deals with a rather villainous organization led by a man who sees himself as a superman, intending to destroy what exists and build a completely new world structure. Not all that far-fetched really. At the centre of the novel is a projected conference between the Soviet and the American leaders in Baghdad and, therefore, all sorts of people, important and otherwise descend on that city.

Well, if not Baghdad, then Beirut (maybe) as the discussions continue about that international contingent that will, together with the Lebanese army, ensure peace on the Israeli-Lebanese border.

The line-up seems to be: 200 French of whom some have begun to arrive with the Minister of Defence insisting that a better mandate is needed. True enough but who co-sponsored Resolution 1701 and insisted on a speedy agreement in the Security Council? France has also called for a meeting of EU ministers to “co-ordinate” the European part of the projected UN force as has Italy's Prime Minister, Romano Prodi. When in doubt, call a conference to co-ordinate something or other.

Germany will probably send a naval contingent but no land or air ones and is likely to concentrate on humanitarian aid to Lebanon to which the United States has already given $230 (£121) million.

The current favourite to lead the international force is Italy, who has promised 3,000 soldiers but there is a caveat.

“But Italy's offer to lead the force appears to be conditional on an agreement being reached on a new UN resolution, the AFP news agency reported.

The agency quoted Mr Prodi as saying a new resolution should provide "a specific mandate, specific contents and a very clear definition of the alliances".”

Again, fair enough but was this not clear from the moment Resolution 1701 appeared on the negotiating table? The right-wing opposition in Italy is likely to play on the general dislike of foreign military adventures in that country (at the moment, anyway) and on there being little support from other European countries. As Reuter’s reports through Al-Jazeera:

“Italy's centre-right opposition, mindful of the public sensitivity to military casualties, said Rome's enthusiasm was unmatched by its neighbours.

"Chirac will send a few generals, Germany a launch or two, while we have to send troops dressed as kamikazes in the Italian flag," said Francesco Storace of the rightist National Alliance.”

What a lovely picture that presents. The Italian Foreign Minister Massimo d’Alema has emphsised that, although disarming Hezbollah was quite a good idea, it was more important that Israel must not break the truce. Otherwise the Italian troops cannot go in. Whether they can go in if Hezbollah breaks the truce remains a moot point.

“On Monday, the Shia militant group's deputy leader rejected calls for it to disarm. Sheikh Naeem Kassem reportedly told the Arabic TV station al-Jazeera: "I say it clearly: the resistance will continue. We must remain in a state of readiness with this enemy [Israel]."”

This does not bother our own super-tranzi, Mark Malloch-Brown (or, needless to say, SecGen Kofi Annan) whose biggest worry is that Israel should have no say in the make-up of the international force. Israel, as our readers will recall, expressed some concern about countries with whom it had no diplomatic links and who did not acknowledge the country’s existence, being part of the international force.

“"Yes [the force] must enjoy the confidence of Israel, but that doesn't give them a right to blackball individual contributions," he said.

"We'll expect them to look at... the totality of the force and whether it represents a broad multilateral balance."”

I dare say Mr Malloch-Brown expects Santa Claus to come down the chimney every Christmas Eve as well.

Meanwhile, Salim Mansur has had a look at Resolution 1701 and has come to the conclusion that it is under Chapter 6 (Pacific Settlement of Disputes) rather than Chapter 7 (Action with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression). This is important. Chapter 6 Resolutions leave it to the participants to sort the problems out with the UN looking on and generally guiding procedures. Chapter 7 Resolutions give the UN power to enforce them.

“Resolution 1701 calls for "cessation of hostilities" between Hezbollah and Israel and, thereby, establishes an outrageous equivalence between a terrorist organization and Israel, a member state with a democratically elected government.

It reiterates earlier resolutions (1680, of this past May, and 1559, of September 2004) that called for all "foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon" and for "the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias."

But what has happened since those resolutions? Israel withdrew completely from Lebanon by June 2000. The effort to get Syria to withdraw as well culminated instead with the still-unsolved murder in February 2005 of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who was instrumental in securing the passage of Resolution 1559.

As for the disbanding of militias, Hezbollah has only gathered strength with the full backing of Iran and Syria.

The war started by Hezbollah on July 12 illustrated, as if any further proof was needed, that Lebanon has little more than an empty shell of a government. It lacks any meaningful authority over its territory, and de facto power rests with a terrorist group that does the bidding of Tehran and Damascus.

Since Resolution 1559 has remained unenforceable, there is no reason to think that Resolution 1701 will fare any better.”

It is, perhaps, just as well that as far as any of us can tell, the Armageddon promised for August 22 by Iran does not seem to be happening. The UN might decide to pass another Resolution.

A single picture...

...can tell a thousand lies.

And so it goes on.

Our hidden government

In The Daily Telegraph today, there is a strident editorial castigating the Post Office for introducing complex and unnecessary changes to the postal system on Monday, whereby mail is now charged not only by weight but also by size.

What the paper failed to note was that which had been pointed out by Christopher Booker last Sunday – the Post Office had no choice – it had to impose the changes to comply with an directive on opening up European postal services to competition.

An essential part of that is harmonising the basis of the charging regime and, as always, since we operate a different – and simpler – system, it is us that have to come into line. Never mind that we had a postal service before most of our European neighbours had countries.

Why the newspaper should have failed to mention the EU dimension is incomprehensible, but it is typical of a media which consistently avoids referring to what we so often call "the elephant in the room".

And, strangely, this failing has a great deal in common with the media coverage of the "Qana" incident. On this, we have complained about lies and distortions, but this is more of the same – albeit in a different league.

Being brought up as a good Catholic boy - by Jesuits, no less - I committed to memory the then version of the Catechism, and recall to this day the definition of a lie. It could be, said the book of words, an act, default or omission. Failing to point out something which is relevant to an issue and vital to the correct understanding of it – to the extent that false understanding arises as a result – is as much a lie as telling a direct untruth.

In that context, today's editorial is a lie. Worse still, it is part of a bigger and continued lie – the refusal of our media to inform us of the extent to which we are ruled by an alien government, based in Brussels. In its own way, that is every bit as important as the lies and distortions coming out of the Middle East and – in all probability – stems from the same wellspring of mendacity, sloath and lack of professionalism.

Either which way you cut it though, through the complicity of the media, we have a hidden government. And the worst of it all it that no one (and especially the media) seems particularly to care. I wonder how Americans would react if their government had moved offshore, say to Havana?

COMMENT THREAD

Madness abroad

There is a serious madness abroad – both literally and figuratively – not least in DR Congo, where the high farce descends into low tragedy, the second round of the national elections breaking down into all-too-predictable violence.

This is where, of course, the EU army, was going to move in and sort things out – which is why it took 150 UN troops in armoured personnel carriers (pictured) to dash to the rescue fourteen UN and foreign ambassadors. They were meeting at the house of Jean-Pierre Bemba, one of four vice-presidents, who came second to the President in the vote – when a gun battle erupted in the vicinity.

The ambassadors had, it seems, been trying to broker a meeting between the two candidates who now face a run-off in the vast country’s historic elections, while shooting gunfire echoed around the capital for several hours. UN and European Union soldiers, we are told, "were placed on high alert" but – you will be surprised to learn - "did not intervene".

It was left to Jean-Tobie Okala, deputy spokesman for the UN mission in the country, to say: "We appeal to everyone to remain calm and respect the results from the vote." There's that word, "respect" again. Where have we heard it before, I wonder?

Analysts, according to The Times, have said that the United Nations, which has 17,500 peacekeepers in the country, "would have to act with unaccustomed resolution to prevent the run-off from spiralling out of control and returning the country to civil war," - which will never happen. That means the country is almost certainly doomed to another bloody bout of civil war.

Anyhow, one can only applaud the ambassadors on their choice of company for such a propitious event as a high-profile gun battle. Presidential candidate Bemba controls about 6,000 former rebel fighters, supposedly integrated into a newly constituted national army. His movement is accused of cannibalism after slaughtering pygmies in an attempt to inherit their magic powers and he himself was reported to the International Criminal Court for war crimes. Sounds just the sort of man we can do business with.

Mind you, if you want total madness, read this or even this.

COMMENT THREAD

The public intellectual's travails

One would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh heartily at the travails of that most eminent of Europe’s public intellectuals, Günter Grass, author of many intellectual novels, all-purpose anti-American and anti-capitalist campaigner and the self-designated conscience of Germany.

Having spent many decades calling on the Germans to confess their sins, to come clean on their Nazi past and to atone for all the crimes (though, curiously, he has never been known to call for Communists to atone for their equally terrible and far more voluminous crimes) he has now admitted that in 1944, at the age of 17 he joined the Waffen SS.

My first reaction on reading the story was an amused shrug. Grass is undoubtedly an excrescence on the horizon of public intellectualdom but no worse than many others, say, our own Harold Pinter. In addition Grass is a much better writer than Pinter.

Furthermore, people do very stupid things when they are 17. There are many people around who stayed in the Communist Party till a considerably later age. All the same, it is curious that the young Günter didn’t simply join the army, as he would have had to by 1944 but the elite Waffen SS that was implementing the Final Solution.

He himself maintains that he did not take part in any of the crimes, which is possible, though what on earth he did as a young recruit remains somewhat mysterious. In any case, whatever he did, it would have aided and abetted those who did carry out the crimes.

The fuss is not going away, though, largely because it has taken Grass so long to admit to his early “peccadilloes”, coincidentally just before his autobiography is due to be published.

The real problem is the hypocrisy. Grass had been castigating everyone on the right for so long, demanding so many repentances (though in 2003 he wrote a novel “Crabwalk” in which he called Germans the victims of World War II as well, but presumably only because the nasty British and Americans defeated them), that questions do have to be asked as to why he has kept so quiet for so long about this rather embarrassing episode in his life.

As Suzanne Fields writes:

“And it was a big halo. Like others of the arrogant intellectual left of European letters (such as the English playwright Harold Pinter, another Nobel Prize-winner), he never lost an opportunity to use his fame and sense of moral superiority to scold America. During the Vietnam War, he compared our "war crimes" to the war crimes of Nazi Germany. He never bothered until now to say that he was a member of the elite Nazi unit commissioned to execute the worst of Holocaust thuggery.

He went out of his way to criticize Konrad Adenauer for his friendship with the United States; he blamed the resurgence of German capitalism, which he loathed, on America. He even invited sympathy from Jews for opposing Ronald Reagan's visit to the cemetery at Bitburg in 1985 because some of his old comrades of the Waffen SS were buried there along with American soldiers. Imagine how eloquent that opposition might have been if he had said then that he, too, was Waffen SS. Instead he only sneered at President Reagan.”

All that self-righteousness, all that civil sainthood – all gone. How sad for him – how wonderfully funny for the rest of us.

Death of a photographer who deserved the Pulitzer Prize

Not to be outdone in the war photography stakes, I have also decided to put up a short posting (please control that cheering at the back) on the subject but, as befits one who aspires to be an historian, my story goes back in time.

ABC News has announced the death, at the age of 94, of Joe Rosenthal, the man who won the Pulitzer Prize for one of the most famous photographs of the Second World War: the raising of the flag at Iwo Jima.

The photograph, taken on February 23, 1945 was actually that of a second flag raising, as the first flag was not deemed to be large enough. This had been decided before Rosenthal got there for reasons of military morale rather than the need to send a better picture. In a sense, one could argue that this, too, was an example of messing around with photographs, especially as it is the slightly cropped version that became famous rather than the original shot.There is a slight difference, however. The Iwo Jima photograph, listed as no. 68 in a 1999 New York University survey of the 100 best examples of photojournalism of the century (goodness only knows what sins are buried in that survey), was never simply a news story.

The photo did not lie in the sense that Iwo Jima had been taken with a great deal of sacrifice. But what it really concentrated on is the effort and achievement of war and of the US Marine Corps, in particular.

“"What I see behind the photo is what it took to get up to those heights the kind of devotion to their country that those young men had, and the sacrifices they made," Rosenthal once said. "I take some gratification in being a little part of what the U.S. stands for."”

One wonders whether any of AP’s photographers would agree with that or, even, believe in it.

The photograph was the basis for the Marine memorial in Washington DC, officially dedicated by President Dwight D. Eisenhower on November 10, 1954, the 179th anniversary of the U.S. Marine Corps.

Its influence was shown in another, more recent iconic photograph: that of the three firemen raising the Stars and Stripes over the rubble that had been the World Trade Centre.

Conclusive evidence?

I had not intended to post again on the "Qanagate" affair until the report in preparation was finished - which still needs a few more days.

However, one of our readers has recently unearthed additional video footage, shot by Aljazeera. This more or less proves that the "dead baby" scene, in which "Green Helmet" was photographed by Reuters' Adnan Hajj (he of doctored photograph fame) uncovering the body of Abbas Ahmad Hashim, was not only staged, but faked.

The very strong indications are that the body of baby Hashim was uncovered early in the recovery effort by two Red Cross workers and subsequently re-buried so that it could be "discovered" by "Green Helmet" in a way that maximised the propaganda value.

The footage showing the initial discovery has been posted on this site, from which three "grabs" are reproduced here.

The first of the "grabs" is lifted after scenes of the early stages of the recovery effort in the wrecked basement at Khuraybah, with a Red Cross worker digging in the debris. The camera focuses on a head cradled in the hand of the worker (see right). There is an object obstructing the full face, though, so we do not see it clearly, but the scale and definition indicates that it is very small, entirely compatible with it being that of the body of a baby.

Then, the Red Cross worker lifts the head slightly towards the camera, to give the clearest image of all three sequences of the television footage we have available. The head is still not completely unobscured, but the definition is better than in any other television footage. Colour balance is not as distorted in other footage, showing the grey colouration of the head, in contrast with the colour of the Red Cross workers' uniforms.

As the worker continues digging, the full body becomes visible (bottom right of the frame). another worker joins in and clears the legs, which he starts to lift from the debris, revealing the body. It is unmistakably that of a baby, the low-neck singlet is the same as seen in the still frames of Abbas Ahmad Hashim's body, and the legs appear to be bare, compatible with the shorts seen in those frames.

And here, is a slightly enlarged cut-out of this frame, we see arrowed, a thickish line extending vertically upwards (as viewed) ending in an indistinct blob with a hint of blue colouration. This is too indistinct for certainty, but it looks very much like the blue "pacifier" seen in the still frames.

This is now one of three video sequences which we have gathered and the full evidence is set out here.

As we remark in this section of the report, Reuters have some explaining to do, as have the other agencies who are trying to ignore this issue. The evidence is here for all to see and, with the three video sequences now available, we are convinced that there are now very strong grounds for a full enquiry into the events leading to the photographs by Adnan Hajj and others.

Comments - use the "Green Helmet/AP" thread

The wrong kind of war

Famously, in the days when we had a nationalised railway network and the system was routinely brought to a grinding halt with the even moderate winter snows, a hapless executive was hauled before the cameras to explain why, on one particular occasion, a particularly light fall of snow had brought trains to a complete halt.

It was, he explained to the incredulous media, "the wrong kind of snow". This he later expanded upon, telling us that it has been a very fine snow which, while not heavy enough to block the lines, had invaded the engines, blocking filters and shorting out electrics. This was plausible enough but too late. Forever in the vocabulary now rests that sneering commentary on the inadequacies of nationalised industries, "…the wrong kind of snow".

Reviewing now the recent performance of the Israelis in the Lebanon campaign – something which I promised in a post a week ago, I suppose the best that can be said of it is that the IDF was fighting "the wrong kind of war".

What brought this to mind was a photograph in today's edition of The Sunday Telegraph which we published on this blog nearly a month ago (so much for blogs being "derivative"), which illustrates a different facet of precisely the problem which the Israelis currently face (above left).

In the instance illustrated by the photograph and the accompanying story we have an issue rehearsed at length (and in depth) by this blog, where we argue that British troops attempting to police southern Iraq are dangerously ill-equipped.

More specifically, we have an army in theatre relying on equipment such as the Challenger Main Battle Tank (MBT) (pictured above, on patrol in Al Amarah, southern Iraq) and the Warrior Mechanised Infantry Combat Vehicle (MICV) which were devised as the core weapons of armoured divisions intended to combat a massed Warsaw Pact armoured thrust in northern Europe. In short, they were never intended for counter-insurgency operations (especially in the high temperatures of the Iraqi theatre) and are wholly unsuited to it.

Partly recognising this, in late 2003, the British Ministry of Defence drafted in a consignment of mothballed armoured Land Rovers (the nearest equivalent to the up-armoured Humvee), themselves designed for dealing with street violence in Belfast and other Northern Ireland locations, during the height of the "troubles".

Known universally as "Snatch" Land Rovers, these might have been adequate for dealing with the provisional IRA and general street violence but against an enemy which had access to any number of munitions and increasingly sophisticated roadside bombs – such as the explosively formed projectile (EFP) roadside mine – they proved easy prey. Thus it was that, by early this year, soldiers patrolling in "Snatch" Land Rovers had accounted for more than a quarter of our combat deaths in Iraq.

This was a problem which has also faced the US forces, which have suffered a higher proportion of casualties and larger absolute numbers from what are generically known as Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs.

In response to that – after a series of false starts, which included a programme of adding armour to the standard utility vehicle, the Humvee – the US, led by the US Marine Corps, started a re-equipment programme using vehicles based on Rhodesian and South African experience, specifically designed to deal with the IED threat. These include the RG-31, the Cougar and the Buffalo.

Less obviously but just as significant, the US forces are undergoing a fundamental restructuring. In the war against the hit and run bomber, who will fight in civilian clothes and merge with the civilian population, there is no front line. Casualty rates amongst non-combatants (known from Vietnam days as REMFs) have matched those in combat units.

Thus, in this type of war, the spearhead troops are no longer the infantry and the tankers but the combat engineers. Numbers of these troops in the US order of battle have been increased substantially and, using their new RG-31s and other equipment, they have been active in hunting out IEDs. As a result, they are most often at the sharp end in the vicious fire-fights that develop when insurgents ambush the bomb hunters.

In Lebanon, the problem confronting the IDF was much the same – the hit-and-run fighter in civilian clothes – but the weapons employed by the enemy differed. In Iraqi desert conditions, where there is often little cover and most of the roads are metalled, the roadside bomb is the weapon of choice. In Afghanistan, where cover is also sparse in some areas, but many more of the roads are unmetalled, the mine is commonly used. But in south Lebanon, where the topography is in places more similar to the rolling, verdant hills of Gloucestershire and Somerset (not for nothing is the area known as "Little England"), the man-portable anti-tank weapon comes into its own.

With thick cover, or the protection and disguise of civilian villages, small teams using RPG-7s, or the fearsome RPG-29, anti-tank teams can wreak havoc with armoured formations in what is nightmare country for tankers. Hezbolla have even been pressing into service Russian-made "Sagger" wire-guided missiles – which caused such great slaughter of Israeli tanks during the Yom Kippur war – and even captured (or purchased) US TOW missiles.

Combined with roadside bombs – some disguised as boulders, copying techniques pioneered by Iraqis, who have been known to cast their bombs into kerbstones) – these make a thing of the past, rapid armoured thrusts of the type that so thrilled us during the 1967 Six Day War, and the inspired counter-thrust over the Canal during Yom Kippur.

Instead, like the Americans have learnt to do, and the British are now following with a batch of Cougars on order, the Israelis have had to "up-armour" their engineers, on whom they rely for route clearing before what are now considered "conventional" armoured forces can be deployed. Thus did we see the widespread use of the Puma in the first, cautious phases of the ground campaign.

These vehicles, deployed by combat engineers, are little more than turretless Centurion Main Battle Tanks, known as the Poretz Mokshim Handasati (minefield breakthrough vehicle). Although better than nothing, they are far from ideal, not least because they lack the essential attribute of an armoured personnel carrier – a rear exit door. Egressing troops are forced to clamber over the hull, exposing themselves to fire.

Furthermore, as US forces have found – and as will the British – up-armouring invites a version of the arms race, where the terrorists use heavier and more sophisticated weapons, to the extent that not even the US 65-ton Abrams Main Battle Tank is immune from attack. As well as passive armour, therefore, a way of bringing the battle to the enemy must be found.

It was here, as we observed on this blog, that the Americans found a way, in the battle of Falluja which, when they comes to be drafted – will re-write the tactical manuals.

Contrary to perceived wisdom which has declared that tanks in urban warfare are death traps, the US used their Abrams as "point" to flush out the otherwise invisible enemies by presenting them with a highly attractive target. Dangerous it might have been for the tank crews but, generally, even if an Abrams is disabled, the crews tend to survive an RPG attack.

One the attackers had revealed themselves, above them were circling reconnaissance drones (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, or UAVs) which would relay their co-ordinates to the artillery. Borrowing from a technique pioneered in Viet Nam, these were located in fire-bases away from the action and, within minutes, could bring down highly accurate, targeted fire on the insurgents, bringing instant death.

Additional assets, which could perform the same function as the artillery, were armed UAVs (known as UCAVs) or fighter-bombers stacked in the sky awaiting targets.

This, in the early stages, is what I though the IDF was doing, but it does not seem as if they had got the phasing and the tactics right. Casualties in tanks and crews, therefore, seem to have been relatively high, without corresponding gains in terrorists killed.

And, if this is the ground battle, there is the other element – the Katyusha strikes. In Iraq, the US forces are also prone to such attacks but their greater danger is the "White Van" mortar team. Merging with civilian traffic, these vans can park momentarily and discharge a mortar team to lob a few bombs, which then re-mount and drive off into the traffic, indistinguishable from the hundreds of other vans on the streets.

To counter this, the US has used counter-artillery radars which can locate the firing points of mortars within seconds and, with orbiting UCAVs, fighter bombers or even helicopter patrols, they can return accurate but lethal fire within minutes – or, if preferred, guide ground forces to intercept. Such would have been the expected response from the Israelis so, far from being impressed by their videos showing Katyusha launches, followed by IAF strikes a day or so later, this demonstrated that the capability was lacking.

The propaganda war

Alongside the shooting war, however, there has also been the propaganda war and it is here that the Israelis have proved dismally flat-footed. They are fighting an enemy which, as we have seen with the Qana incident – and many more – is willing to parade the bodies of its dead and, while hiding behind civilians (and even keeping them in harms way) exploits a sympathetic media and an "international community" which is locked into the paradigm that war is the greatest of all evils and any other solution is preferable.

Hezbolla in particular are aided by the notoriously poor local building standards and their fragile, reinforced concrete-framed buildings which give rise to such spectacular pictures of collapsed buildings after relatively modest impacts. But, in using ordnance such as 500-1000lb bombs, with every attack, the Israelis have been creating propaganda opportunities for their enemies and detractors rather than achieving tactical battlefield gains.

And, while propaganda in war has always been important, it is more so in current campaigns. In the past, when Israel could conduct "lightning wars", by the time the international community had mobilised to enforce a cease-fire, the IDF had usually achieved its tactical and strategic goals.

But the nature of war has changed. No longer is territorial gain the objective and neither are the opposing armies conveniently lined up in uniform, fighting an open war. The objectives in this new type of war are to bring the enemy to battle and to kill people, to disrupt the hierarchy, the command and communication systems and to destroy materiel.

That process, against the weapons the enemy is prepared to deploy and tactics it uses, takes time. But, even at the glacial speed at which the international community operates, no sooner have the opening phases of combat been rolled out and the pressure is on to bring overt hostilities to a halt. To enable the battlefield objectives to be achieved, therefore, the armed forces also have to win the propaganda war, to give them enough time to complete their tasks.

Collateral damage

In this war, the currency is collateral damage – dead babies and destroyed buildings, images of which have had more effect on the battle than the tanks and guns deployed by the IDF (for a more detailed discussion, see here).

Therein, like the British Army in Iraq, the IDF is using the wrong weapons and tactics. For it too, it is the "wrong kind of war".

Much has been said and written as a result about the limits of military power – much of it nonsense. Of course, final solutions require diplomatic initiatives and societal changes but, when you have any enemy with weapons who is attempting to kill you, there is only one response – to kill them. That means military action and, therefore, war – by whatever name you call it.

But it is how that war is conducted that makes the difference, and the difference is a matter of technology. The IDF currently is equipped for its previous wars, with superb armoured formations and a fleet of high performance fighter bombers that are capable of executing great slaughter of conventional forces. But they are the wrong weapons for this type of war.

On the one hand, in the style of the Fallujah-type operation, they need heavy but highly mobile armour to protect their troops as they provide targets for the enemy, in order to flush them out. And, coming into service is a new generation of artillery with rates of fire that are simply stunning. Capable of firing 40 or more shells a minute, these guns can also lay up to seven shells on a target to arrive simultaneously. Combined with unprecedented accuracy from GPS guidance built into the shells, these can intervene immediately with deadly but highly localised force on any terrorist foolhardy enough to attack.

For the Katyusha problem, what is needed is not fast jets with limited endurance and, therefore, loiter capability, dropping big bombs. The weapons needed are long-endurance UCAVs and platforms like the AC130 Spectre, with high-precision, small-warhead weapons. One such, in the process of development, is the Viper Strike which, with a 7lb warhead, can kill the occupants of a car without scratching the paintwork of the next car in line, or take out the occupants of a room in a building, without disturbing the neighbours.

Suitable platforms, guided by sensor arrays in satellites, UAVs and electronic warfare aircraft, can loiter the battlefield and, when a fleeting target appears, can launch instant but again highly localised death, making terrorist attacks near certain suicide.

Will we learn?

Since Israel is fighting for its very survival, the odds are that it will learn its lessons from the Lebanon campaign, and apply them. There is some confidence that the US forces will do likewise – they, after all, are developing the technology.

One casualty will almost certainly be the multi-billion dollar project called the Future Combat System (FCS). The plan here is to equip forces not with heavier armour, but lightweight, air-portable vehicles, relying for their protection on sophisticated sensors, the rapid exchange of intelligence and stand-off weapons to take out the enemy before he is within range and can do damage. But, when faced with an enemy that has the capability to deliver lethal blows and reveals himself only in the act of firing his weapon (or not at all in the case of an IED or mine), this system is fatally flawed.

Many knowledgeable commentators believe the US will scrap this system but, as a letter in the Sunday Telegraph reminds us, the British Army is still committed to a similar system, a £14 billion fantasy known as the Future Rapid Effects System (FRES), all geared to providing the European Rapid Reaction Force with its "teeth".

Should this go ahead, we will find that not only are the British forces currently equipped for the wrong kind of war, they will perpetuate the error, at enormous cost in money and – eventually – lives. For once, we should look further afield and watch very closely what the Israelis do.

COMMENT THREAD

Your bluff has been called

It always used to be said that those who can, do – and those who can’t, teach. Updating that pithy little saying, it seems now that people who can’t simply join the EU diplomatic corps (unless they’re already employed by the UN) and talk about other people doing things.

And no, just for once, I'm not talking about Lebanon – not yet at any rate – but Sudan. Believe it or not, we last wrote about this troubled region last April, a weary cry that predicted that nothing much would improve after the then attempt at brokering a cease fire.

Sure enough, nothing much has changed with the killing still going on and the EU bleating about the warring parties in Darfur needing to “respect” the latest, two-month old peace deal for the region.

It's funny how they always use that word "respect" when they surely mean "obey", but that word is too hard-edged for EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana. After all, if he did utter such a word, it might imply an "…or else", to which the answer might well be, "you and whose army"?

Any such defiance might be easily bolstered by the sight of the photograph we have published above, showing the latest French Army reinforcements storming into Lebanon to enforce the cease fire – all 49 of them.

Alright, that means that there are another 151 to follow – a prospect that, far from striking terror into the hearts of Hezbolla or any wannabe terrorist group can only invite mirth.

Yet, when I wrote about Darfur last, I suggested that:

…the greatest humanitarian need in this part of Africa is a body of disciplined men with guns and orders to shoot to kill … However, as long as the US is effectively neutralised by the Middle East, and by "world" opinion which would only condemn American intervention, the only credible force available must come from Europe.

That will not happen, since "Europe" has neutralised itself. It is incapable of finding the political will for muscular intervention, which means that hundreds of thousands more Africans must die. The tragedy is that, not only is the slaughter now virtually pre-ordained, much of it will be unreported while the "world" continues with its obsessive condemnation of the US as it tries to stop the slaughter in the Middle East.

And indeed, unreported it is, not least by this blog which, like so many others, has been obsessed with affairs in the Middle East.

That, perhaps, is the hidden cost of the recent and still unresolved Lebanon issue but the longer-term cost might be even greater. For all the world to see – and mock – on display is the hollowness of European military aspirations, naked in tooth and claw. When the chips are down, a Continent that once fielded armies of millions can only manage a rusty landing craft, a brace of armoured personnel carriers and 49 men.

Weep now Javier Solana – it ain't going to get any better. Your bluff has been called.

COMMENT THREAD

Faking it!

After much labour, Part 6 of our report, "The Corruption of the Media" is now finished. Each part more or less stands on its own, and this one contains considerable new material.

Amongst the gems we found was this (left), a photograph from Nicolas Asfouri (AFP/Getty Images) from Khurabah/Qana, showing the eponymous "Green Helmet Guy" helping a stretcher party negotiate some wreckage.

But, as always with the pictures coming out of this incident, nothing is what it seems. Asfouri's caption reads:

Rescuers carry a wounded man out of the rubble of a house after Israeli air strikes on the southern Lebanese village of Qana 30 July 2006…

However, our analysis shows that the scene is at the bottom and the right of the road we call "Stretcher Alley". The stretcher party is some 400 yards from the wrecked house, at the point marked by the red arrow.

Furthermore, they have come from around the corner to the left, from just beyond the mosque in the picture. If, like all the rest coming from the wrecked house, they had followed the road round (see below left), they would have found the going easy. But, under the guidance of "Green Helmet", they have swung wide onto a field of debris left from a previously bombed house, to make the shot look more dramatic.

Once again, "Green Helmet" is faking it. And that is a fact that must have been obvious to AFP's Nicolas Asfouri who not only went along with it but wrote up a false caption to cover his tracks.

Can I just remind you of what Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor, said on behalf of her agency, AFP and Reuters? It went something like, "Photographers are experienced in recognizing when someone is trying to stage something for their benefit". Patrick Baz, Mideast photo director for AFP, however, was "totally stunned" at the idea that any of his photographers might be taking shots of staged scenes.

Yeah… right!

Comments - use Green Helmet/AP thread

More on that international contingent

The egregious Mark Malloch Brown, our own particular super-tranzi, chaired a meeting yesterday to sort out those international troops that will join the Lebanese on the border with Israel.

There has, in the meantime, been a certain amount of disagreement on whether Hezbollah is keeping a low profile or not, south of the Litani river, as detailed by Fausta’s Blog, which has detected differing stories on the BBC and France-2. (And on the subject of Hezbollah's presence, little has been heard in the MSM about their colleagues from Fox News, apparently kidnapped by that peace-loving organization.)

There are touching pictures of the Lebanese soldiers moving into position held for the last couple of weeks by the Israelis (kind of) and children shaking hands with the soldiers. All very jolly except for the slight discrepancy in timing.

The Lebanese troops are being stationed in Tyre and other places for the first time in decades. So, um, who was there in the last five or six years, even assuming that the Israelis occupied much of that until 2000? Could it be Hezbollah, the militia that was supposed to have been disarmed several years ago? And what would the Lebanese military have done if the Israelis had not gone into the country three weeks ago? Carried on as before, one assumes. In other words, the IDF has made it possible for the Lebanese government to send Lebanese troops into parts of Lebanon. What do you know about that?

Hezbollah, in the meantime, has expressed anger at video tapes that show Lebanese and Israeli soldiers sharing friendly glasses of tea.

Still, Lebanon cannot protect its borders on its own while there is a well-armed and well-trained militia operating within its territory. A new version of UNIFIL is needed and, while there is some talk of various countries offering troops, little of it is official.

To start with, Britain and the United States are keeping to their previous refusals, agreeing, nonetheless, to supply logistical support (no doubt from Cyprus). France is sending 200 soldiers, far fewer than expected, though there might be some officers as well. The reason is that, apparently, President Chirac and Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie (who had always been a little leery of the whole proposal), have realized that Hezbollah is not going to disarm and may well start shooting at the UN, that is, French troops. Naturally, l’escroc Chirac had not thought of it when he pushed through the cease-fire resolution, promising French peacekeeping forces when doubts were raised by Israel and the United States.

Italy says it may well send as many 3,000 troops though it is not clear how that is going to be achieved, given the financial straits the country’s armed forces have recently found themselves in.

Germany, who was not going to send troops, no, no, no, has now decided that it might do so after all but there is no agreement on the subject. There would be a land and naval element to the German contingent but numbers are so far unknown.

A few other countries have already volunteered. As Al-Jazeera reports:

“Bangladesh, Indonesia, Malaysia and Nepal had each offered at least one battalion, and Denmark two warships, one official, asking not to be named, said on Thursday.”

None of this seems particularly substantial except for the Danish warships. The numbers might go up – there are always troops available in the other four countries - but how the whole force is to be co-ordinated remains to be seen.

Another problem has arisen. Two of the countries in the forefront of those offers, Malaysia and Indonesia, do not recognize Israel as a state and the Israelis have objected to those troops being used on the border. Curiously enough, the Malaysian foreign minister does not see any difficulties:

“"We're going to be on Lebanese territory ... We're not going to be on Israeli territory," Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar said.”,

adding that Israel should have no say in the make-up of the UNIFIL troops, an unhelpful attitude at best. Of course, if you do not recognize one of the countries involved, the question of territory becomes moot. Besides, the peacekeeping forces will have to deal with the possibility (put at its lowest) of Hezbollah firing yet more rockets into Israel. Would Malaysian or Indonesian troops, who have been told that Israel is not really a country and has no right to exist, be all that bothered by that?

All in all, another fine mess for the international community.

Getting there

Before I get back down to some serious EU-bashing and related matters later today, I will leave you with three links on the "fauxtography" issue, each of them well worth reading (if you haven't already done so).

The first is from American Thinker, the second from The Washington Times - a newspaper which is usually as good as the Washington Post is bad – and the third is from Ynet News on "the first Photoshop war".

Meanwhile, I've all but finished Part 5 of the "Qanagate" report, with the addition of some important new material, and should put some more parts to bed tomorrow.

COMMENT THREAD

What can you expect with those A-level results?

There is nothing quite so depressing for people who believe in the concept of constitutional democracy than having to read public opinion polls. The latest YouGov poll on what people think about British foreign policy and the fight against terrorism is no exception.

It is perhaps appropriate that the results of the poll should be published on the same day that yet another fantastic rise in A-level results is announced. In a year or so there will be more A grades at A-level than actual candidates, who are being sold a pup.

So it is in the education system that I prefer to look for the complete lack of logic in people’s responses to the questions they were asked while being fully aware that answers always depend on how the questions are phrased.

Soon after 9/11, as the war against terror (or, to be quite precise, against terrorists) began to unfold, Prime Minister Blair spent a lot of time running round the world, negotiating with all and sundry. At the time I thought that President Bush might have been mildly surprised by his friend and colleague’s behaviour. Not so the British media and public opinion.

It became almost axiomatic that the relationship that was being reinvented in the Bush-Blair scenario was that of Churchill and Roosevelt, that is Blair being the senior partner. Quite apart from that being a somewhat inaccurate description of the situation as it was by the time of Yalta, there was not the slightest likelihood of Britain with her inadequate military forces and rather confused view of the world, being the senior partner. And so it turned out.

As my colleague has extensively documented, the situation with the armed forces and their equipment is considerably worse than anyone had imagined. If one adds to that the confusion about the country’s position, what with the European Union and a complete lack of interest in the Anglosphere, as well as the steady drip of anti-Americanism fed by the media (including the Daily Telegraph) to the populace, the results of the poll become less surprising.

The gist of it, as we know, is the fact that the majority wants a tougher and more aggressive foreign policy and a much tougher fight against terrorism, including, if needs be, the abolition of the few remaining civil liberties, but, overwhelmingly, a policy that will break away from that of the United States and move closer to the European one.

I imagine if the same people were asked whether they wanted to integrate Britain’s foreign and defence policy into an EU one and send our soldiers out under French, Belgian or Luxembourgian command, to report back to the European Commission, they would shriek with horror and shout no, no, no. And yet that is what the EU is aiming at in its attempts to build up a common foreign policy.

Let us face it, in their dealings with Iran or Hamas or Hezbollah, the Europeans (with some exceptions) have not shown themselves to be particularly tough either internally or externally. Those European countries that have considered it necessary to join the world-wide battle are allying themselves with the United States. (Denmark, a supremely courageous country, springs to mind.)

So what does it mean to have a tougher and more aggressive foreign policy and a tougher stand on terrorism but having as little as possible to do with the United States? Should we bring our troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq and send them to southern Lebanon, where there has just been a surrender to the forces of terrorism?

Should we demand that the Americans leave and we handle Iraq or, at least, Afghanistan on our own or with our European “allies”? And where do we stand with relation to our other allies, for instance, the Australians? I suppose the people who do not want to have anything to do with Americans will welcome the Australian alliance. Kith and kin and all that, though, presumably, what is envisaged is a leading role for Britain. Somehow, I do not see Australia agreeing to that.

There was a sizeable majority in favour of longer detention without trial. Even allowing for the shock of the airline plot, that is an interesting view. I don’t suppose they teach them the history of liberty or constitutionalism in schools any more.

COMMENT THREAD

What will France do next?

As the post mortem continues about the latest war in Lebanon – and will continue until the next one starts, as Hezbollah has flatly refused to abide by the agreement so lovingly crafted by SecGen Kofi Annan (father of Kojo) – various interesting details emerge.

To start with, Lebanese politicians are getting worried, as well they might be. The country, if it can be called that, is now at the mercy of Hezbollah and its Syrian and Iranian sponsors. There is some evidence that the politicians and military commanders, having done nothing to disarm Hezbollah and prevent the importation of arms into Lebanon or about the creation of that state within a state, were thinking that perhaps Israel will solve the problem for them. Naturally, they would sit on the sidelines and cry foul every time the IDF bombed so-called civilian targets. The future looks considerably more bleak for them than for Israel.

Meanwhile the Beirut international airport has opened to commercial flights. Amid all the cheering there seems to be no mention of the fact that if it could be opened that easily it was presumably not bombed by those nasty Israelis, despite their well-known propensity to bomb everything indiscriminately.

The Lebanese army, having proved to be completely useless in the many months since Syria’s part-retreat from the country and having more or less sat the recent conflict out, is slowly taking up positions in southern Lebanon to prevent further attacks on and by Israel. Since they have already announced that they neither can nor will disarm Hezbollah, their achievements in this field are awaited with bated breath.

Another part of the whole arrangement that is awaited with bated breath is the appearance of the international force, for which there have been precious few volunteers. Past history of UN forces in the Middle East does not fill one with any great hope for a peaceful arrangement.

Who is to lead the contingent? The general assumption seems to be that it will be France and the BBC is terribly excited in a muddled sort of way about the prospect.

“Many see the French as natural mediators because of the strong historical ties between the two countries.

France's role in helping to negotiate the UN resolution allowed it to continue mending its relations with the US after the past divisions over Iraq.”

Those strong historical ties are not precisely that of equal partners, France having been the imperial ruler of Lebanon for a couple of decades until the Germans occupation of the former. Would the BBC advocate British meddling in Egyptian or Sudanese affairs because of the “strong historical ties”? I think not.

It is, of course, quite sensible for France to mend its relations with the US but the tortuous negotiations over the UN resolution that became a laughing-stock before the proverbial ink dried on it may not necessarily achieve this.

The same story points out that both President Chirac’s and Prime Minister de Villepin’s approval rating went up by 5 per cent but noticeably does not say what the figure had been before.

Still, even the BBC has to admit that the problems for France are only beginning. Exactly, what is it going to do in southern Lebanon? How many troops can it spare and who else is going in with them? They are already bogged down in Côte d’Ivoire and taking on Hezbollah will be a far harder test.

Public opinion in that country seems as incapable of thinking things through as it is in Britain, which is a comfort to those of us who have been somewhat depressed by the latest YouGov poll.

Seven out of ten, responding to a poll by the newspaper La Croix, are in favour of an international force and 53 per cent are in favour of sending French troops, because it is for peace, though it might bring terrorist attacks to France. (If it is only carbeques in the banlieux that does not count.)

The politicians, however, are worried.

“French Defence Minister Michele Alliot-Marie voiced concern about deploying troops without clearly defined goals.

"France wants the mission's rules of engagement to be clear and it to have real means," she told French TV.

"Sadly, all too often, the United Nations forces don't have the power that they asked for."

The main political parties share such reservations.

Jacques Myard, an MP in France's governing UMP party and a member of the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, told the BBC the last UN resolution
did not make it clear how France can act.

"I know that a lot of military, high-ranking officials in France are reluctant if this mandate is not very precise," he said.

The opposition socialists have also warned that "extreme vigilance" is needed, saying the UN resolution does nothing to address the conditions necessary for a political agreement that would guarantee the security of peacekeeping forces.

Above all, France wants to avoid a situation where its own soldiers find themselves having to disarm Hezbollah fighters.”

As it happens, Philippe Douze-Blasty has already announced that France has no intention of disarming Hezbollah, preferring to use “diplomatic methods”, whatever they might be in the circumstances. This, too, is known as speaking loudly but carrying a very small stick.

Still, there might be a solution to this problem: Turkey.

“Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, in Beirut yesterday for talks, reportedly received the message that "all sides are waiting for the friendly Turkish soldiers" to take part in the United Nations sponsored peace-keeping force in southern Lebanon. FM Gul noted that the final decision from Ankara would come following his upcoming Sunday visit to Israel.”

Let us not forget that Turkey, in her previous incarnation as the Ottoman Empire, also has strong historical links with all the countries in the region.

COMMENT THREAD

Sorted!

We do listen! For our core readers, and our very welcome newcomers, we have reorganised the site, putting in a permanent link on the sidebar for the Qana material. New material, on a daily basis, will be built into our report - accessible on the sidebar link - which is growing daily.

The change will allow us to post our core material, on the European Union and our relationship with the wider world, without it being swamped by the developments on the "Green Helmet" saga.

I have also re-organised the Qana report and we have considerable unused material to go in, which will strengthen the case even further.

It looks like, now, we're in for the long haul. There is so much additional material that, realistically, it is going to take another week or so to complete the report - or even longer. Thus, in order to keep the blog going with its core material, I will be splitting my available time fairly evenly between keeping the blog going and working on the Qana report, with my co-editor pitching in as and when the day job allows.

We hope this works.

COMMENT THREAD

This is getting ridiculous

You must read this. We know AP has a love affair with Green Helmet … but this is getting ridiculous.

Meanwhile, the Fauxtography scandal continues to grow. Michelle Malkin’s piece has been syndicated.

Comments - use the "Green Helmet/AP" thread

Now we can all sleep soundly

Anyone worried about the alleged terrorist plot and the ways of dealing with it should desist immediately. BAA may have caused absolute mayhem and showed that it has no plans for dealing with what is a very likely emergency. The Leader of the Opposition may have felt that he was called upon to pontificate in a wandering-aimlessly-round-and-round sort of fashion.

Fear not, the real work is being done. John Reid has chaired a meeting of five other EU ministers of interior during which various ideas were discussed as to how the situation can be dealt with.

As ever, when anything happens, the first proposal was to push faster towards an integrated anti-terrorist policy. Then it was reduced to a few more concentrated ideas:

“[John Reid] said the talks had discussed practical measures in four areas:
· Tackling liquid explosives
· Co-ordination of transport security
· Exchange of intelligence
· The nature of European Islam”

I am not really certain what any of this means. After all, liquid explosives are not precisely legal even now and how one tackles them remains something of a mystery, though both Franco Frattini and Wolfgang Schäuble have called for something to be done about them.

One assumes that there is exchange of intelligence and co-ordination of transport security is already in place and not just involving terrorism. In fact, last week’s operation seems to have been carried out with the involvement of many other security services, European and others.

As for the nature or European Islam, that appears to me to be much too wide and difficult subject for the average minister interior or his minions to tackle.

On the other hand, ministers of interior are getting above their station if the BBC report is to be believed:

“But he [John Reid] said the presence of five other interior ministers and top EU officials symbolised Europe's determination to stand together and defend their values.”

Clearly, “values”, undefined, is going to be the buzzword for a while.

Why the Left is worried

Belatedly, the Left is beginning to wake up to the danger of "Qanagate". But they're too late. They haven't even begun to realise how much evidence we already have, and how much more we have stashed away, ready to publish.

So far, the issue has been mainly the province of what are termed "right-wing" bloggers – such as our very own Little Green Footballs. And, to date, the stridency from the Left (not least in the hate-mail I have been receiving) has been focused on our critique as an example of pro-Israeli bias.

Only now that the cease-fire is in place in Lebanon (sort of) have they understood the real target – the liberal (not) media and its constant diet of lies and distortions in support of its favoured causes.

Thus, into the fray comes Huffington Post, with writer Michael Shaw declaring: "Qana was not staged", mounting what he thinks is a spirited defence of his beloved media.

To do so, he calls in aid free-lace photographer Tim Fadek, winner of the NPPA award for best still photography in International News in 2005 – who seems to specialise in faux art pictures from war zones – like the one above from Qana – which, of course, are not staged.

Tim, writes Shaw, "is recognised as one of the most respected photojournalists in his field" and, along with many of his colleagues covering the war in Lebanon, have become increasingly concerned over allegations fomenting in the States (particularly in the right wing 'sphere) about war photos being staged or "stage managed".

What we don't understand, you see – as opposed to those that were there like Fadek - is that "much is culturally lost - not to mention, politically filtered - in transit from East to West". Thus does Tim communicate this statement written by fellow photojournalist, Thorne Anderson on "how to understand the Qana photos". He writes:

Much of the debate about "staging" in Qana can be deflated a good deal by an appreciation of cultural differences. Among many Middle Eastern Muslims the display of the dead is very much a ritual part of dealing with death. Palestinian funeral parades, with or without media present, are a demonstration of this. While the display of the dead may appear callous and disrespectful to many western eyes, it is likely interpreted as a form of honor among those who actually display the dead - an attempt to give meaning to something senseless.

Photographing the display is not necessarily deceiptful (sic), but rather an honest record of the extraordinary ways people react in these terrible circumstances. And a rescueworker displaying a body does not a Media Mogul the rescue worker make. He/She is still a rescue worker. Though the caption for pictures from that portion of the event should read "Rescue workers display the body of..." rather than "Rescue workers remove the body of..."

Furthermore, the sporadic display of bodies at a scene like that shouldn't allow us to dismiss the event as merely a salvo in the "media war" being waged by "Hizbollah and their jihadi friends" in the "mainstream apologist media." And none of this changes the essential, and most important fact that a group of photographers put themselves at great risk to show the result of an Israeli air strike on an apartment building that left 28 people - among them 16 children - dead.

He adds:

I took a gut wrenching tour of LGF [Little Green Footballs] and a couple of other blogs that are super-hyping the "staging" issue to an audience of hundreds of thousands in what is a transparent and in some cases explicit attempt to deny the simple fact that an Israeli airstrike killed 16 children in Qana. That assault on the essential truth is a far more reprehensible act of overt media warfare (if there is such a thing) than any angry display of a dead body in the immediate aftermath of an airstrike. Reminds me of those who deny the Holocaust for political purposes.

So, it seems, in questioning the Qana photographs, we are akin to Holocaust deniers. And, to reinforce the point, Shaw devotes a post on his own blog, where he claims that the "firestorm" coming from "the Rathergate crowd", and doubts now spreading from the left wing (which rather unsettles him) "can start to feel like all reason is being subsumed by political hysteria."

But never mind. This time, Fadek explains it all.

When there is senseless death in this part of the world, it is completely normal to display the bodies. Whether in plastic or on blankets, it's done whether there are photographers there or not. The idea is to ready the public for what has happened - and also say, look what our enemies have done to us.

Regarding some of the images cited as evidence of manipulation, Fadek said: "a finer distinction is being lost in the West":

In Qana, rescue workers did not hold up a baby to set up a shot. They were not displaying them to the media, per se. Yes, it was not lost on these men that the cameras presented a window on the world. But these people were doing wrenching rescue work and are human beings. They were shaking and sweating. These instances [of holding up babies] were mostly spontaneous and momentary expressions of anger.

Fadek elaborates on the situation in terms of his own images, such as the "tasteful" one here (right), that he also took at Qana – which certainly, most definitely and absolutely was not staged. Although he felt the photo was more powerful depicted this way, he explained that a rescue worker did set down the body, briefly uncovering it for photographers to document.

For those inclined to consider the depictions as manipulated, Fadek also tells us:

Once removed from the collapsed building, these bodies were set on the ground to be taken down a hill. From this spot to the waiting ambulances was at least a four-minute walk. In this case, the two children were placed on this blanket where photographers had 1½ to 2 seconds to document them. Given the distance and the available manpower, the two bodies were placed on the same blanket to save effort.

In each case, we are told, Fadek's "understanding" was that the rescuers were doing something respectful, showing the victims in a manner reflecting a normal attitude toward the dead. "It's not a manipulation, it's a cultural distinction," claims Fadek. "It's the same as at a martyrs funeral, where faces are exposed, and the bodies marched through the streets. It's been done for years, media or otherwise."

Interestingly, that is exactly the line rehearsed by the egregious Kathy Gannon last Saturday, while Stern magazine last week also recruited Tim Fadek, who then told the magazine that he did not see evidence for a staging. He said:

Everybody was upset, it was quite chaotic. When they carried the bodies out of the basement, the workers themselves were finished. When they held a body to the cameras, it was nothing of a pose, but sheer distress and anger: look what they did to our children!

I don't know if Fadek actually believes this tosh but there is a common thread here, trying to pass off the "dead baby" incident (for that is what, obliquely, he is referring to) as a spontaneous display of "sheer distress and anger".

But what we already know – and have now documented - is that before the calculated posing to the camera with the dead baby, "Green Helmet" had already taken part in a carefully staged photo-shoot inside the wrecked basement. Furthermore, after the photo-shoot outside the wreckage, he went on to take part in two more, in different locations for two different photographers.

Then, in his artful description of the casualty evacuation process, Fadek tells us that photographers only had "1½ to 2 seconds" to document the dead children as they were laid in the assembly area, pending transport to the ambulances. But, if it was all so very tasteful and cultural, how does he explain the photo on the left or these?

What is more disingenuous (to be polite) is Fadek's failure to mention the staging area, the full role of which we ourselves have only recently understood (but, since we weren't there, we had to work it out).

Using the evidence we and our readers have gathered, and our collective analyses, we have learnt that, at the assembly area, there was a macabre selection process going on. "Normal" or unsightly corpses were marked up for despatch straight to the waiting ambulances. Those which were especially photogenic or with dramatic potential were sent to this "staging area". From there, the media circus was organised, and the "props" issued to the actors, for the displays of theatre that we have already recorded (and have more to come).

By the time we have finished collecting and collating the evidence, and produced our full analysis, we will have a dossier which so damns the media that not any amount of Huffington and Puffington will be able to counter. Nevertheless, not a few of our regular and faithful readers have written to us asking when we are going to get back to the issues for which this blog was set up. But, as my colleague points out, we never left them.

The point is that, while we all fight our separate battles, we all have a common enemy that protects our individual enemies – a lying, corrupt, wholly inadequate media. It does not just lie on the Middle East. It lies about affairs on the Beltway, in Whitehall and Brussels, and everywhere else that its malign presence is felt. So, when we see a weakness in the fortress walls, we should not go on hacking at our own little bit. We should all pile in and put our efforts into creating a breach. That's why we, with many others, "piled in" to Qanagate.

And that's why the Left is worried.

COMMENT THREAD

Speak loudly and carry a very small stick

Clearly much time and space had to be devoted to the unfolding of the Qana story. To those who think this has destroyed the blog and lost us most of our readers, we should like to point out that while the Qana story unfolded our daily hit rate went up tenfold as a minimum.

That in itself is not an argument for continuing the story for the time being. It is true that our blog is called EUReferendum and is, therefore, primarily concerned with matters to do with the European project. However, we pointed out some time ago in our manifesto that we do not consider freedom to be something that can be chopped up into pieces.

The enemies of freedom include anti-democratic transnational organizations, of whom the EU is the one attempt at a state; terrorists, often supported by the former; and the less than totally honest media. Somewhat belatedly the MSM and a number of left-wing blogs in the United States have rushed in to praise and defend Green Helmet and to assure the world that, despite all evidence, those pictures in Qana were not staged. They understand the importance of the story, though, thanks to my colleague’s vigilance and the work done by so many people, those sobbing paeans of praise to the wonderful civil defence/Red Cross worker have come a little too late.

One of the continuing themes of this blog has been the indolence and dishonesty of much of the MSM, whether on matters to do with the EU, where journalists show themselves to be incapable of finding out the most basic facts; or the mindless praise given to that nest of tyrants and kleptocrats, the UN; or the ease with which journalists have, at the very least, allowed themselves to become propaganda tools for terrorist organizations in the Middle East and, often, the Gulf.

Many of these themes have come together in the Qana story, which is intimately related to the other big news item of the last week: the supposed discovery of a huge plot to blow up a number of aeroplanes that were supposed to fly out of Britain to the United States.

Obviously, one needs to be cautious about the allegations as these have not yet been proven in a court of law. But, cautiously, we have to say that there seem to be reasonable grounds for believing them not least because the arrests in this country were followed by wide-ranging ones in a number of others.

The stunning part of the supposed plot has once again been the aspect that is unique to Britain: all the alleged participants are British-born and British bred; some converts, many descendants of Pakistani immigrants. Note, please, that none of them have the slightest connection with the Middle East or the Gulf. Even the madrassahs they attended and the training they are supposed to have received was in Pakistan.

The time has come, surely, to address this problem that is peculiarly British. As I said in a previous posting, it is preposterous to postulate that the way to address it is by changing the government’s foreign policy. Whether one agrees with Blair’s supposed mission in the Middle East or not – and he has not been particularly involved in the discussions about Lebanon, beyond pointing to the real initiators of the war, the terrorist Hezbollah – the idea that foreign policy should be dictated by supposedly “frustrated” and “disenchanted” Muslim young men, who threaten violence if their “demands”, ill-phrased and woolly-minded are not met.

In any case, as Farrukh Dhondy points out in today’s Wall Street Journal Europe, these arguments

“ignore the fact that 9/11 preceded Iraq, and that other unemployed communities haven’t resorted to mass murder. No, something else is happening. It is significant that 22 universities have been named as epicentres of jihadist recruitment. The leader of the latest terror attempt is alleged to be a biochemistry student. These educated young men have ventured the farthest from the enclosures of their communities: The well-fed bite the hand that feeds.”

A similar pattern can be seen with the leaders and many of the members of terrorist organizations in the Middle East and the Gulf, particularly those of them that direct their fury at the West. These people take it upon themselves to speak or to kill on behalf of the “wretched of the earth” while doing nothing to ensure that the latter climb out of their wretchedness.

Think of the amount of money, energy and human blood that has been wasted on the fruitless confrontation with Israel and the West. One quarter of it, properly directed, would have put many of the Arab countries on track to freedom and economic development. No-one who has actually looked at the map of the Middle East could possible argue that the possession of the small territory that is Israel would solve all the problems that cannot be solved by the possession of all the rest of it.

The closest parallel I can think of to this is the group of permanent student nihilists, radicals and terrorists that operated in Russia and abroad in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. They, too, spoke and killed on behalf of the peasants or the “dark people” who were, as it happens, immensely ungrateful to the people they saw as barchuki (little lords). The enemy was more clearly defined but the destruction of the whole society, their own society was the same.

Well, to quote one of those destructive radicals, Nikolai Chernyshevsky, “What is to be done?”. For, in some ways, the British aspect of it is a problem we have created. No, we cannot hand over the running of the British foreign policy to a bunch of dysfunctional youngsters. No, we cannot appease the so-called Muslim community (which does not exist, in any case) or its leaders by further segregation in education, business, let alone legality. Too much of that has happened already and must be reversed.

It is, however, clear and we wrote about it last July after the London bombs that one reason these groups are formed and the hate-preaching imams, who do come from the Middle East quite often, have such an easy time with the youngsters, is the lack of an alternative identity they can aspire to.

Some, as Farrukh Dhondy, try to emphasise the other non-Wahhabi aspects of Islam. Others, like Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester in today’s Daily Telegraph, rightly castigate multiculturalism that has effectively created whole ghettoes of young men, unable and unwilling to work, live and develop within our society.

Oddly enough, and it goes against the grain to say so, it was Tony Blair who came reasonably close to saying something important on the subject in his speech on August 1 in California. You have to hand it to Tony Blair – his speeches are such a pot-pourri that they appeal to everyone.

Much of the speech is the usual kind of “let’s please everyone” waffle with unnecessary references to Kyoto and it is obvious that he finds it hard to define what he means by “our values” that we need to emphasise in order to win the world-wide struggle. But, at least, he seems to have realized that this struggle exists and it is to be fought in the minds of the people as well as on the battlefields.

The problem is that the speech produced the nebulous concept of values and these are hard to define. The need for definitions is becoming more urgent, not only in the Middle East, but in Britain.

Last week an Israeli Arab journalist, Riad Ali, called on his compatriots to make a choice. For the sake of their future and their children’s future, he said, they must become first and foremost Israeli. While there are always problems with Israeli governments and many of the people, the Arabs of the country (who do not, incidentally, want to live in Palestine, should that ever be set up) must realize that hating a whole people is wrong and counter-productive. They must look at what Israel is like – a democracy with a reasonably free and developed economy – and become whole-heartedly part of it. The alternative was a dead end.

I have no idea whether those words will have any effect at all. The likelihood is that not for a long time as other Arab journalists, who had been too scared to say anything while the fighting went on, "celebrate" Israel's defeat by the cease-fire agreement. We have been here before and shall be here again.

But I do think that similar words must be spoken here and spoken loudly and urgently. The trouble is that while Israel for various reasons has developed a national identity (often at odds with itself but that is true for most countries), European countries and Britain, in particular, have been discarding theirs. In this they have been urged on by the European Union who has pronounced that nationalism was a bad thing and should be superseded by Europeanism. As in most cases, the EU is part of the problem and definitely not part of the solution.

Many of our readers will joyfully rush in here and utter loud hurrahs as well as loud condemnations. Instead of that, I suggest they think of how to define Britain’s national identity and how to convey it to all. (And please don’t tell me that being British is being kind and open-minded. That’s just plain silly as well as unattractive.)

What this rather long posting promises is another thread to be pursued over the next few days. At least, it will make a change from Green Helmet and White Tee-shirt.

I suppose he was on holiday

David Rennie is back from holiday (try to contain the excitement at the back) and has resumed his rather uninteresting blog. And what is his first entry? “Paper Tigers and EU foreign policy”.

“As so often, a real crisis has shown that all this talk of a common EU foreign and security policy is distinctly premature. Given that a genuinely common EU policy, based on the majority view of most EU citizens, would be firmly anti-American and anti-Israeli right now, conservatives may choose to heave a sigh of relief that the EU is proving a paper tiger once more.”

So our Master Rennie and his colleagues have noticed that the EU has not precisely made an appearance in this latest crisis? Maybe if they read EUReferendum here and here, they would have known it anyway.

I guess the man was on holiday, which is bad luck, as the biggest story of the year unfolded. But one rather wonders why he thinks that a genuinely common foreign policy would represent the majority view of most EU citizens? It would merely have to represent the common European interests of the member states, which is a complete impossibility no just something "distinctly premature".

We've found it

Many readers have been asking us to put up a map or satellite picture of Qana showing the location of the wrecked building and the other important landmarks. This has proved difficult, not least because the site is not actually in Qana. It is in fact the hamlet of Khuraybah, one mile to the north of Qana.

Anyhow, I've posted up a first, rather amateur version, showing some of the landmarks. We hope to improve on it in due course. At last, however, we have a clear idea of the route taken.

Comments - use the "Green Helmet/AP" thread

Planted?

Blink and you miss it... the very first frame (black arrow indicates the time) of a video report by Mazen Ibrahim on the Aljazeera channel, commenting on the coverage of the Qana "massacre" in western media. But it is quite definitely there and, equally definitely it is the body of a baby.

This is in the first stages of the rescue/recovery operation at Qana and, if there is one thing all the media reports agree on, it is that there was only one body of a baby recovered - and here is the recovery, by Red Cross workers.

The baby, as far as we know, is Abbas Ahmad Hashim, 9 months old, and the video record certainly meshes with the account by Tim Butcher in The Daily Telegraph of 31 July. He writes:

When ambulance crews arrived from Tyre, bravely covering roads on which they have been attacked in recent days, they began the grimmest search and rescue task, but without any real chance of rescue.

They found limbs sticking from a muddle of broken concrete and mattresses soaked with blood attracting the busy attention of swarming flies. For a few hours the more wreckage they moved the more bodies they found.

In one section they found 12 small corpses, all children, among them tiny Abbas.

Their bodies showed few cuts or scratches. It was as if they had simply drowned in a wave of soil and cement dust that overwhelmed them in an instant.

Yet, late in the afternoon (we know it is afternoon because UN troops are on site, and they did not get there until late), this photograph is taken. It is shot by Reuters' famous Adnan Hajj, the man who subsequently was found out doctoring photographs of the Beruit bombing and the F-16.

There was always something deeply suspicious about this picture - it looks obviously posed, and then there is the curious, even consistency of the dust in which it it buried, with no rubble and large pieces of debris around it. There is also the mystery of the apparently clean "pacifier" and, even more remarkable is the way, when Green Helmet takes the body out to parade it to the media, the dust shakes off the body (see here). Initially covered in dust, by the end, it is almost clean. Surely, some should have adhered to a live, sweating baby, buried by such an avalanche, and remained on the body after death.

But most curious of all is the positioning of Green Helmet's "discovery". As far as I can make out, cross-referencing Hajj's photograph with other frames and video footage, the location is roughly where indicated by the arrow in the frame (left). This area is trampled over by inumerable workers, cameramen and others, yet no one noticed a buried body until the afternoon?

So, was the body planted, ready for Hajj to come in and photograph it for the world? Would he do a thing like that?

Well, as we know from photographer Bryan Denton:

...I have been witness to the daily practice of directed shots, one case where a group of wire photogs were choreographing the unearthing of bodies, directing emergency workers here and there, asking them to position bodies just so, even remove bodies that have already been put in graves so that they can photograph them in peoples arms.

A man like Adnan Hajj who so carelessly doctors photographs would, it seems, hardly demur at a minor misdemeanor of photographing a staged scene like this.

Methinks Reuters have still got some explaining to do, as have the other agencies who are trying to bury this issue (no pun intended). The evidence is here for all to see and, at the very least, there are good grounds for suspicion that the "dead baby" was "planted" as a precursor to the grotesque photo-shoot that followed its supposed discovery.

Comments - use the "Green Helmet/AP" thread

The Corruption of the Media

As of 28 August, this is our definitive report on the media coverage of the "Qana" incident on 30 July 2006. This incorporates all changes and corrections since first publication on 23 August, including the addition of two new appendices. Please see links below for access to the parts.

An edited version of this report is also available in .pdf format (75 pages). It can be downloaded from here.

Part 1 - Introduction.
Part 2 - The "set".
Part 3 - Act 1: The dead baby.
Part 4 - Act 2: The Red Cross workers.
Part 5 - Act 3: The camera runs - Scene 1.
Part 6 - Act 3: The camera runs - Scene 2.
Part 7 - Act 4: Caught in the act!
Part 8 - Discussion and conclusions.

Appendix 1 - The "Stretcher Alley" mystery.
Appendix 2 - The "reburying" controversy.

COMMENT THREAD

Part 1 - Introduction

On 30 July 2006, at a time variously reported between 1 and 1.30 in the morning, an Israeli air strike (or strikes), launched on the southern Lebanese village of Qana, it was claimed, caused the partial collapse of a three storey residential building. In the basement were found the bodies of a large number of women and children and first reports from the scene indicated a death toll of sixty or more - many of them children. That figure was later drastically revised downwards to 28.

The name "Qana" had special significance as the village had been the location of a disaster in April 1996, ten years previously. Then, during an Israeli operation code-named "Grapes of Wrath", a UN-supervised building in the centre of the village had been shelled. This resulted in over 100 civilian deaths - an incident that was instrumental in precipitating the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon. Now, it looked as if history was repeating.

Curiously, though, despite the reports, the 2006 incident did not occur at Qana at all, but in a hamlet approximately a mile to the north of the village, called Khuraybah (also known as Al-Khariba). Nevertheless, it became "Qana" in most contemporary accounts. Hezbolla and its allies were quick to draw the historical parallels.

Addressing the account of events as dispassionately as possible, it is fair to say that no one can precisely determine what exactly transpired on and immediately before the raid, or in the hours immediately afterwards. There is no dispute that the hamlet was and is a Hezbolla stronghold (as indeed was Qana), and that the incident occurred at the height of hostilities between Israel and Hezbolla, effectively making the village part of a war zone. Since then, there has been no independent - or any - inquiry. There has been no forensic examination of the building to determine the cause of collapse, no post-mortems - that we know of - on the deceased, who have now been buried, and nothing like a judicial examination of evidence and witnesses that would draw out a proper and trustworthy account of events.

As to the relief efforts, details are still confused. According to documents released by the UN, the Lebanese Red Cross (LRC) received reports of the incident at 7 am local time and ambulances were despatched immediately. They tried to reach the location of the building "via several access roads" but were unsuccessful "because of the mass of rubble... and the intensity of the bombardment". They stopped approximately 600 metres from the building and the relief workers proceeded on foot.

UNIFIL claims to have been informed of the incident at 8.15 and despatched two medical teams to the site at 9.45, which arrived respectively at 10.15 and 11 am. An engineering team arrived later, possibly around 2 pm. UNIFIL also reports that Lebanese police, civil defence and Army elements arrived at the site at 7 am but were unable to commence operations until 9 am "because of the ongoing aerial shelling". By happy coincidence, that appears to have been the time when the media started arriving.

In the hands of the media, the events were often described in highly lurid terms, most often conveying condemnation of Israel. However, in such incidents as major air crashes, we often hear caution expressed that we should wait for the outcomes of the investigations become coming to conclusions. Yet, in this analogous situation, in a context where Hezbolla have been known to exploit and even magnify incidents for propaganda purposes, the media were - just a few hours after the event - presenting their accounts as definitive statements of fact.

In being the custodian of the record, the media - especially in democratic countries which profess to have freedom of speech - have a special responsibility to report accurately, to which effect they rely on the professionalism and integrity of the journalists in the field who provide the words and images. In this instance - by comparison with the reporting of other incidents in less fevered atmospheres - the dogmatism and unwarranted certainty was jarring.

Furthermore, the images being presented by the media did not look right. At the time, this was no more than an impression, triggered by the frequent appearance of an image of one particular figure, characterised by his green helmet and orange high-visibility jacket. For obvious reasons, he was dubbed "Green Helmet".

On further investigation, "Green Helmet" appeared rather more often than was typical of any one figure in normal disaster reporting. Not only that, he appeared in a wide variety of poses, most often bearing dead children and not uncommonly displaying considerable emotion. To the jaundiced eye of this observer, they looked staged. If that was the case, then this was a very serious issue. It had to mean that the media, on which we rely so much, was presenting us - wittingly or unwittingly - with false images. And, as I wrote at the time, if you cannot trust the images, how can you trust the words?

As we looked further, another character came to prominence, a man clad in white tee-shirt and jeans. Again for obvious reasons - since his name was not revealed in any of the reports - he was dubbed "White Tee-shirt". His images too were prominent amongst those presented, usually portraying a man emoting strongly, while bearing a dead child. These too looked staged - the emotion was evident in such a variety of locations and circumstances that we had difficulty in believing it was spontaneous.

Accordingly, we decided to carry out an investigation - not into the events at Qana pertaining to the air raid. We have no view on these. Our investigation is exclusively confined to the events during the relief effort, to determine whether some had been staged for the benefit of the media (and for the propaganda purposes of Hezbolla). Also, we sought to determine whether the media had been complicit in any staging.

After three weeks of intensive work, with the active assistance and co-operation of the internet community - often called the "blogosphere" - we now believe we have enough evidence confidently to assert that many of the incidents recorded in visual form by the media were indeed staged. In fact, we feel we can go further. In our view, the bulk of the relief effort at Khuraybah on 30 July was turned into a perverted propaganda exercise. The site, in effect, became one vast, grotesque film-set on which a macabre drama was played out to a willing and complicit media, which actively co-operated in the production and exploited the results.

Within the overall conduct of the operations, there were many examples of this ghastly play-acting but, for convenience, we focused on four main groups of examples. Reflecting the dramatic intent of the progenitors, we have ordered them into "acts", with the divisions labelled as "scenes". The first of the four Acts records the actions of one of the central figures, "Green Helmet", parading the body of a dead baby. The second deals with secondary but nevertheless important characters, Red Cross workers. The record shows that they actively participated in the drama. The third identifies what became the major theatrical production of the day, displaying the thespian talents of both "Green Helmet" and "White Tee-shirt" in what we call the "camera runs". The fourth and final Act now comprises two parts. The first, courtesy of the German television station NDR, shows "Green Helmet" in the act of giving stage directions in another of his perverted productions. The second portrays the showman again setting up a camera scene.

If this is worrying enough, of greater concern has been the response of the media and, in particular, the news agencies which employed many of the photographers at Qana. Fronted initially by the Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor of Associated Press, they issued an early denial without addressing any of the substantive issues we raised. Other media outlets have since joined the fray, including The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, through its web site editor, and the Washington Post.

Their tactics have been both predictable and wearyingly familiar. Instead of addressing our substantive points, they have concentrated on details, picking on our errors and false starts, arguing that such flaws irredeemably damage our case. Others have branded us "right-wing", "pro-Israeli" or simply "conspiracy theorists", as if that could explain away the evidence we have gathered.

Then, after we had assembled so much evidence that our case was becoming unarguable, Associated Press mounted a defensive propaganda campaign, issuing a release attempting to make out that "Green Helmet" was some kind of latter-day saint, the hero of Qana. Inexplicably, for photographs accompanying the release, AP chose to dress their hero in blue helmet and garb, which could only serve to confuse readers who were unfamiliar with the issue.

In response, we decided to draw together the totality of our evidence, which hitherto had been scattered throughout this site, and assemble it in one report, updating, expanding and clarifying our findings. We enlisted the assistance of the "blogosphere" and received an extraordinary level of support. This report, therefore, is as much the work of the internet community as it is of this author.

Our purpose in producing it is to provide evidence which will enable us to force the news agencies, and the media which rely on them, to recognise that the media conduct at Qana was unacceptable. And, inasmuch as this is an example of a much wider problem affecting the way the whole of the media operates, we wish to see them address the issues we raise and to reform their operations. Without that, we feel, there can be no trust in the accuracy, impartiality or professionalism of any of their output. This is not only a major inconvenience, but threatens the very health of our democracy. For, without objective reporting, there is only propaganda.

To draw attention to this, we have entitled our report, "The corruption of the media". Inevitably, given the continued cover-up by the media, it will also be known as "Qanagate".

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Part 2 - The "set"

Even now, it seems bizarre labelling the scene of what is variously described as a "disaster" and a "massacre" as a "set", borrowing the language of the theatre and film-making. But, since it is our contention that the site was turned into precisely that, a film-set for the benefit of both Hezbolla and the media - in the finest tradition of "Pallywood" - we will keep to this description.

As we noted in the introduction, though, the "set" is in the hamlet of Khuraybah, roughly one mile north of the village of Qana and about eight miles south-east of the port town of Tyre on the Lebanese coast. The above is a satellite image marked with some of the key areas that played an important part of the staged drama (double-click the image to enlarge).

Apart from aiding the narrative and the understanding of the reader, one of the reasons why it is so necessary to describe this "set" in some detail is to counter the wholly misleading information conveyed by the published photographs and their captions. Typifying the problem is this picture which appeared on the front page of The Daily Telegraph on the morning of 31 July. It shows the iconic figure of "White Tee-shirt" and the caption reads:

A rescue worker carries the body of a young girl from the ruins of the basement shelter where at least 57 Lebanese civilians, mostly children, were killed by an Israeli air strike on the village of Qana yesterday.

It is ironic that the web news editor of this newspaper has been amongst the most voluble critics of the claimed failures of this blog to carry out "fact-checking", yet much of the confusion in the early stages arose from demonstrably false statements such as this, in his own newspaper.

Any ordinary person unfamiliar with the details of the site would assume that the "rescue worker" had just emerged from the wreck of the basement shelter, and that the debris in the background was part of the wreckage. Only later did we fully realise that the "White Tee-shirt" is some 400 yards away and that the wreckage in the background is from a completely different building, destroyed in a previous air strike.

Once we realised this, the pieces started to fall into shape. With the additional detail that we have been able to find (and have been sent) we have been able to put together an analyses of how this and the equally iconic "Green Helmet" scenes were staged. The crucial points are the wrecked house itself, the assembly area for the bodies, outside the house, the "staging area" about 100 yards or so from it, and then the most important part of the "set", the piece of road we call "Stretcher Alley". In the following sections, we have a look at each.

The wrecked house

Curiously, for an incident that was so intensively photographed, there have been few clear pictures of the wrecked house actually published. Where shots have been taken, it seems that most of the photographers could not resist posing one or other figures in front of the building, presumably to give their creations a human dimension. Perhaps the best image comes from AFP, which, if we have located it correctly, seems to show the south-west face of the partially collapsed building, the opposite site from where the casualties were extracted.

From the satellite image, the main entrance to house itself, and therefore the front, seems to be orientated roughly south-west. This image (right) shows that face, the remains of what we are told was a three storey house, the three floors presumably including the so-called basement. The entrance and exit to the basement, used by the rescuers, is round the corner to the left in this view, on the north-west face, at which a UN excavator can be seen working.

In this frame, a video grab from the Channel 4 News footage, we see the upper part of the north-west face of the building, below which is the main entrance and exit to the basement area, just visible at the lower part of the picture. The top floor structure looks largely intact, with the central section walls having collapsed, dropping the top section onto the basement structure.

This is the lower part of the north-west face, showing the entrance and exit to the basement area where most of the bodies were found. The canted, fractured beam at the front is the edge of the floor slab to the upper floor, which is restricting access to the room. There is an un-made road in front of this and (behind the viewer, unseen) is a steep drop, much of the higher part being littered with wreckage.

Entering the basement, this is a view from right to left (with the entrance to the rear), showing the debris in the room. As can be seen, the structure is largely intact, but for the collapse of the left-hand wall (which is to the rear of the house), giving rise to a landslide effect. The debris is said to have smothered casualties rather than crushed them, which explains their lack of visible injury.

This view of the same room gives a better view of the structural condition and the scale of the debris slide - although some debris has probably been removed by the time this photograph was taken. Curiously, in the early frames of the rescue, many of the bodies are seen in the area where the group of men is standing, on top of the debris.

And this is a rare shot of the right-hand wall of the room, showing something that is hinted at in the previous frame by a glimmer of light in the general location. This is the second entrance to the room - possibly a doorway - which leads out to the front of the house (although the opening is not visible in the shot showing that face). Whether this opening played any function in the rescue/recovery is not known.

Continuing the "virtual tour" of the exterior, this looks to be the north-east face of the building, the side where the basement wall collapse and from which the debris slide entered the room.

This, therefore, is - presumably - the face exposed to the blast which precipitated the collapse, which presents something of a mystery. The figure to the right is standing with a group of others (unseen) on the veranda of a neighbouring house, the structure of which looks largely intact, although glazing seems to be absent. The veranda and that house is better seen in the next frame (below).

This frame shows the eastern quadrant of the south-east face, revealing the extensive partial collapse of the roof and the almost complete collapse of the middle floor structure. To the right is the veranda referred to in the previous frame, and the almost intact adjoining building. To the left, out of shot, is the front of the house, shown in the second frame of this sequence. This completes the "tour".

The assembly area

The next key area is the assembly area. This is the ground to the right of the main basement entrance/exit (as you face it), where bodies extracted from the wreckage were first laid out. At times - as in this frame - they were covered - at other times they were not. Throughout the period of recovery, a variety of people were photographed against this backcloth, this frame showing a character in a pale green shirt, described as a "local resident". He appears in many more frames.

According to one witness, from here the bodies were transported directly to the waiting ambulances. But this was not always the case. We aver that the assembly area served another function, that of a selection area. Bodies (and survivors) with the potential to use for staged photo-opportunities, were chosen here and sent to an intermediate "staging area", about 100 yards or so from the wrecked building. There, they were held as "props" while photo-shoots were organised.

The staging area

This, then, is the "staging area" seen in a still photograph from Getty Images, taken by Anwar Amro. It has a veranda structure in front of what appears on the satellite photograph to be a substantial building, the function of which is unknown. The view in this frame is in the direction of the route to the wrecked building. Much of the action takes place in the further end of the veranda, where the vegetation can be seen.

This is the same area, but taken in the opposite direction, towards "Stretcher Alley". The same box-like structure can be seen, this time in the centre foreground, with a stretcher party just embarking on its journey to the waiting ambulances. The figure under the veranda, just to the right of centre in the frame, is evidently giving directions to the party.

This is an external view of the same building, again looking in the general direction of the wrecked building. This particular scene shows "White Tee-shirt" setting off on his "camera run", of which we will see more in Part 6.

Evident from this view is the considerable size of the building, suggesting industrial usage or warehousing.

Stretcher Alley

From the "staging area" the next significant location is "Stretcher Alley", some 200 or so yards further one. It is approached via a convoluted route, the final phase of which culminates in a sharp right hand turn, which we call "Stretcher Corner". It is illustrated here in a photograph (left) published by AFP, showing the alley from the lower end, with a stretcher being carried round the corner onto the alley itself. Up the rise, at the end, you can see the area where ambulances and media vehicles are parked.

This second view, sideways on, is about halfway up the alley, again showing a stretcher party making laborious progress up the rise. What is clearly evident is the ruined mosque and jumble of wreckage and debris from previous bombing, which obstructs the progress of vehicles - hence, we are told, necessitating the carriage of casualties.

It has to be stressed that it is only this section which impedes access. Beyond this, right up to the site of the wrecked house, there is a clear roadway, the width more than adequate to take ambulances and even heavier traffic. Beyond this section, up to the ambulance waiting area, the road is also relatively clear. Furthermore, this is not heavy debris but largely lightweight building blocks originating from the collapsed wall of the mosque alongside.

From this view, we see "Stretcher Alley" taken from the top end, the vantage point slightly below and to the right of the parking area. Again very evident is the jumble of wreckage, but the top end of the road (just visible) looks quite clear. At that end is what appears to be the wreckage of a car or some other vehicle and, at the lower end, you can see the corner building, from round which the casualties and their bearers emerge.

And this is what it is all about: this stage of the route becomes a vantage point for the media - a clear line of sight and an impressive backcloth of wreckage against which to frame photographs. In this picture, the journalists can be seen corralled together in one spot, awaiting their next photo-opportunity. For other shots, they congregated on the left, just up from the ruined mosque.

But for the blockage on "Stretcher Alley", ambulances would have been able to travel virtually to the scene of the wrecked building. One effect of that, however, would have been to deny major photography opportunities.

Nick Blanford, working in Lebanon for twelve years for The Times and Time magazine, and one of the first on the spot says, is cited in Stern magazine (translation here) saying that "the ambulance (singular) had no chance to get to the destroyed building." Thus, he claims that the rescue workers had to carry the bodies over a distance of 500 metres. "That's the reason there are so many pictures of rescue workers with children in their arms," he claims.

However, shown here (left) is another video "grab", originally broadcast by Channel 4 News, the full sequence showing an ambulance making its way slowly down "Stretcher Alley". In the footage, we see no more than four men clearing a path for the vehicle. The colour tone of the film is confusing as suggests fading light, which we interpreted in the first draft of this report as indicating dusk conditions. However, from an assessment of the angles of the shadows, the timing looks to be between 10 and 11 am.

Thus, it seem, no serious attempt was made to clear the road until late morning and the obvious question is that, if the roadway was so easily cleared, why was it left blocked until after the "camera runs". Also, given that carrying the casualties absorbed considerable manpower and, for most of the time, there seems to have been plenty of spare labour, why did no one organise the clearance?

For want of definitive, authoritative answers, the most obvious conclusion is that it suited both the journalists and Hezbolla to keep "Stretcher Alley" blocked to vehicular traffic, precisely because its continued closure maximised the photo-opportunities. By this means, it became a grotesque film set, exploited by a cast of actors parading their "props" - the bodies of children - for mutual benefit of both audience and players.

However, there may be an even greater mystery to the saga of the blockage, as satellite maps indicate that there was an alternative route, which by-passed "Stretcher Alley" altogether. We deal with the implications of this in Appendix 1.

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COMMENT THREAD

Part 3 - Act 1: The dead baby

In the first stages of the drama at Khuraybah, the central figure, "Green Helmet" seems to have spent most of his time digging out bodies. That, at least is the case if you believe the legend, promoted by amongst others, Kathy Gannon, AP's staff writer at the scene. With a dateline of Qana on 30 July, she wrote:

Abu Shadi Jradi pulled bodies out of wreckage for hours - two toddler girls wearing tiny gold earrings, a small boy whose pale blue pacifier still hung from his neck. Somewhere in the middle, Jradi slumped beneath a tree and wept.

By 11 August, in yet another story written by Gannon, "Green Helmet's" name seemed to have changed, but the story survived almost intact:

After hours of digging in the blistering heat, Salam Daher emerged from the wreckage with the body of a 9-month-old baby, a blue pacifier still pinned to its nightshirt.

However, this is one of the most-photographed events in modern times. there are possibly thousands of still photographs and hours of video footage, much of which output has been placed on the net. In this footage, we see plenty of digging, mostly by people dressed in Lebanese Army uniforms, aided occasionally by men in civilian dress. We also see footage of Red Cross workers clearing away debris in order to move bodies from the scene.

Intriguingly, in what looks like the early stages of the "rescue", we even see this bizarre scene. A man in a pale green shirt (described in other footage as a "local resident") is sitting inside the wrecked building, actually on the mound of rubble under which people are buried, conducting a prolonged conversation on his cell phone. We see quite a lot of this man in other scenes but his demeanour in this photograph is somewhat at odds with the another legend built round the event, that the building was in danger of imminent collapse.

The one thing we do not see in any footage though - including the extensive coverage of the scene inside the wrecked building - is "Green Helmet" doing any digging. We see him everywhere on the site. In addition to his starring roles, and finding time to slump beneath a tree and weep (curiously unrecorded on film on a site that was saturated with photographers and video cameramen) he is filmed giving interviews to the media (as in above left), inspecting the bomb crater and even helping carrying stretchers.

We also see him in this cameo role (above right), dragging out in some haste the body of what is believed to be a ten-year-old boy, apparently illustrating the urgency of the casualty evacuation in view of the impending collapse of the building. What we see of this scene, recorded on video footage, is that "Green Helmet" enters the wreckage specifically to take part in the removal of the body. Up until then, he has not been involved in its recovery.

It would not be untoward to suggest that the man is in fact posing for the cameras, the frame on the right recording him giving yet another television interview. On the basis of the photographic evidence, it would be very hard to define "Green Helmet's" role in terms other than of a "front man", functioning essentially as media liaison and the "face" of the rescue effort, posing for all manner of operations.

Act 1, Scene 1

And it is here, in Scene 1 that we see egregious examples of the man posing. The first photograph, taken by Ali Haider for epa/Corbis, clearly demonstrates this. There are all sorts of odd things about the scene, not least the uniform consistency of the dust in which the body is now half-buried, but what can also be surmised without hesitation is that it is obviously staged. Look at how the soldier-figure is holding the head up to the camera and how the other figures are lined up against the wall, with "Green Helmet" as the central figure.

Then there is this one (right). It is shot by Reuters' Adnan Hajj, the man who subsequently was found out doctoring photographs of the Beirut bombing and the F-16.

Apart from the fact that the lighting is a lot less even and there is more shadow in this shot, what is evident here is that the baby's body has been excavated more completely, or "Green Helmet" has pulled it from the dust. Certainly, there is more of the body visible than in the previous frame. Of special note, though, is that of the two faces visible in the shot, both are looking up to the camera rather than down at the body which they are pulling from the debris. This is clearly and unmistakably posed.

Furthermore, in the foreground, the hand of the Red Cross worker is seen to be blurred, indicating movement. The hand to the left, belonging to the soldier-figure seen in the previous frame - is sharp, without blurring. It is being held still - again suggestive of posing. Now look at "Green Helmet's" left foot. It has moved from the position shown in the previous frame, from about a foot away from the body's head to right next to it. The two shots are separate - not the same scene - taken at different times by different photographers.

This apart, both the poses and the circumstances of the discovery of the body seem contrived. This has given rise to suspicions that the body might have been discovered earlier and held back for a staged event in order to maximise the publicity impact of the discovery. We have explored this issue in Appendix 2.

Act 1, Scene 2

If we can call the previous sequence "Scene 1", the next scene starts as "Green Helmet" emerges from the wreckage carrying the body of the baby. We have numerous shots of this "set" (see left), with many views of rescue workers either clearing up debris or carrying out bodies. Logically, this being the entrance and exit to the disaster scene, it needs to be kept clear, and by and large it is. But not, it seems, when Green Helmet emerges with the body of the dead baby.

In this shot, credited to AP's Kevin Frayer, we see a group of nine people outside, all gathered around "Green Helmet". All of those with their faces visible are looking up to the camera in a composition that can only be contrived. And far from "Green Helmet" merely "displaying" the body, as Gannon puts it, he holds it up triumphantly, like a trophy.

And where is Frayer? As can be seen from subsequent shot, his is taken from an elevated position. He has climbed up onto some vantage point to get his picture - hardly an example of a spontaneous shot.

The next shot is by Reuters' Adnan Hajj. He has already taken a shot of the body being unearthed in the wrecked building but he has time to come out and position himself ready to take another shot of "Green Helmet" as he poses with the body outside the wreckage. And this is posing.

In Frayer's shot, "Green Helmet" is looking up and towards the camera. In this shot, with the camera position lower and to the left, "Green Helmet" is still looking towards the camera. Clearly, these are not simultaneous shots taken from different vantage points. They are posed separately, the two photographers each being given their own unique shots.

Even with these two photographs, however, the "shoot" is not over. In the previous two shots, the head of the baby's body is tilted backwards, most noticeably in the second of the two shots. For this picture, though - original source and attribution unknown - the deficiency is remedied. It appears that one of the men in a dark blue tee-shirt has moved behind the corpse and is tilting the head forwards with his hand to give the photographer a better shot.

And here we have another of the "dead baby" shots, this one taken by the AFP photographer. Again, "Green Helmet" is facing the camera, presenting the photographer with a clean shot. In this frame the body's head is lolling but, what is remarkable is that you can see at the bottom of the frame, dust actually being shaken off the body.

That the body was shaken violently is confirmed by a short clip of video (published here), which shows "Green Helmet" virtually throwing it into the air, a gesture which accords with some witnesses' accounts of it being a gesture of "defiance and despair".

The same effect is seen here, in a photograph taken by Nabil Ismail for Xinhua Press/Corbis. These last two frames were probably the first of the sequence of shots. Whatever, this makes at least four and possibly five (if not more) still cameras shooting the scene, plus at least one videocam.

And, as a final note on this issue, prominent in the photographs is the blue "pacifier" (we call it a "dummy" in the UK). There has been much speculation on the apparent cleanliness of this item, with suggestions that it might have been "planted". However, in the original shot where the body is unearthed it can be seen attached to the body. As to its apparent cleanliness, we are dealing here with low-definition photographs and it would be unwise to rely on them for the finer points of detail. What might not be visible on these photographs might be very obvious on the high definition copies which - so far, the agencies have not released. Further speculation, therefore, is a route down which we do not want to go.

Act 1, Scene 3

In her eulogy for "Green Helmet" - to which we refer in the introduction and will deal with more fully later - Kathy Gannon wants us to believe that an AP photographer just went "click" with his camera, taking just one, opportunist shot as "Green Helmet" momentarily lifted the baby to show to the waiting media.

That, we can see, was not true but, if there is any doubt as to the lack of spontaneity, this - Scene 3 - also seems to be highly contrived. Furthermore, it is an AP exclusive comprising three photographs in all, taken by Kevin Frayer. This one on the left - from the positioning - seems to be the first of the sequence, played out (as we illustrate in Part 2) round the corner from the opening to the wrecked basement, in front of the house.

Judging from the angle relative to the window of the house, "Green Helmet" is in roughly the same position as the Red Cross worker in the picture above. He is in the company of a sizeable group of people and facing what appears to be (from other footage) a senior Red Cross worker. Crucially, from the photograph above, we know the direction of travel and "Green Helmet's" body is not facing that way. That, with the rather fortuitous composition, suggests that the shot is contrived, with "Green Helmet" once more posing for the camera.

Now, as an additional detail, look between the heads of "Green Helmet" and "Striped Tee-shirt". You will see a sliver of very distinctive blue - it looks like part of a UN soldier wearing a flak jacket.

This frame, again judging from the angle to the window, seems to be the next in the sequence. The party has moved on, senior Red Cross Worker is no longer visible and the man with a striped tee-shirt is displaying what appears to be some emotion. Once again, "Green Helmet" is facing away from the direction of travel and looking directly towards the camera, holding the body of the baby aloft. The indications are, therefore, that this again is a posed shot.

Recalling the sliver of blue in the previous frame, this can no longer be seen - perhaps concealed by the group in the foreground. But we see the same blue on the uniform of the soldier on the veranda. He is, however, in a completely different position - in front of the window opening - facing away from the camera.

Now we come to what looks to be the final frame of this sequence. "Green Helmet" has moved on, the man in the striped tee-shirt remains by his side and senior Red Cross worker has re-appeared on the opposite side. But revealed now is a line of UN troops up on the veranda of the wrecked house. In roughly the same position as the soldier in the previous frame with a bright blue flak jacket is one of the UN soldiers with a green uniform. "Bright blue" is nowhere to be seen.

The indications from this and other background changes (look at the relative positions of the man in the white tee-shirt in the first two pictures of the sequence) it does not seem as if "Green Helmet" and his various companions are walking continuously down the lane. More likely, it appears, they are moving progressively to slightly different locations and stopping to be photographed each time.

These three photographs, though, conclude the Frayer sequence and, effectively, Scene 3. But what are we to make of this picture, on the left. Published by the Italian press agency Ansa, it is actually taken by Ali Haider for epa/Corbis. It shows "Green Helmet" with the baby but with a completely different cast of characters, bar the familiar, white-haired Red Cross worker. He is stepping down what appears to be a low ridge of earth. The background is unrecognisable, but it does not match any of the other scenes. We already have three separate sequences, in three different locations, in which "Green Helmet" poses with the baby. Now it looks as though there was a fourth. How "spontaneous" is that, and how many more sequences were shot?

Actually, there were three more that we know about. This one is taken - we think - somewhere between the wrecked house and the staging area. In sharp contrast to the "camera run" scenes, where the bodies of two girls each are carried respectively by "Green Helmet" and "White Tee-shirt", the body of baby Abbas Hashem is afforded a stretcher with two bearers, and is covered by a blanket. But, once more, a Red Cross worker cannot resist the opportunity for a pose, peeling back the blanket to allow the shot to be taken. Th man shown seems to be in charge of the Red Cross detachment, and he has already inspected the body while it was in the arms of "Green Helmet" (seen in Scene 3).

This is in the back of an ambulance, presumably at the top of "Stretcher Alley". We see two Red Cross workers in again what is clearly a contrived pose. One is holding the head of the baby to the camera.

Whatever else, this cannot have been a spontaneous shot. From the angle, the photographer seems to be inside the ambulance - partially at least - what is effectively private and certainly controllable space. Had the workers wished to exclude photography, they could have done so. Instead, they posed for yet another shot, and the "snapper" willingly took it.

Even then, they have not finished. In some news reports, there is a mention of there being so many bodies that a refrigerated meat delivery vehicle had to be pressed into service (despite the large number of ambulances that attended the scene). And, to illustrate the point, the body of Abbas Ahmad Hashem is once again recruited for a pose to the camera. And once again, an obliging Red Cross worker is the foil, against which the grotesque display is mounted.

Through its progress from the wreckage to the ambulance, therefore, the baby's body is exposed to seven identifiable photography sessions. This, even allowing for what some claim to be the different cultural values of the Middle East, is not normal.

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Part 4 - Act 2: The Red Cross workers

In this Act, there are three scenes. Two first two are very similar, the main changes being the actors.

To see how these first scenes are played out, we must go to the wreckage of the house where a body of a girl - clad in orange pyjamas - is being recovered. We see this in the photograph on the left, with a bearded Red Cross worker handling the body, alongside "White Tee-shirt".

In this next frame, a video grab from the Aljazeera news footage, we see the same Red Cross worker emerging from the wreckage to the outside, still carrying the body of the same girl. The hand in the right-hand section of the shot indicates that someone is reaching out to take the body. In the top left corner can be seen the edge of the collapsed wreckage, marking the exit point from the basement, which we have seen in earlier shots.

The video record now stops, so we cannot see precisely, from this source, what happens next. But we do see a still photograph (left), which shows a Red Cross worker holding the dead child, with the arm of another person gesticulating downwards (body out of shot) indicating - it seems - that the body should be positioned on the stretcher in view, already occupied by another body. The inference from this shot is that the body of the child is about to be placed on the stretcher. Of interest here, incidentally, is the number of photographers in view, plus a video camera operator.

This photograph, however, is almost certainly posed as, from other footage (4:56 minutes in), we actually see a Red Cross worker rushing round the corner with "orange pyjamas" on his way towards the ambulances. In this frame we see him being stopped by "Green Helmet", who is gesturing towards the stretcher alongside which he is standing. There could be, of course, an innocent explanation for this, with "Green Helmet" simply pointing out that there is no need to carry the body when there is room on the stretcher. But another construction is that "Green Helmet" has uses for the body.

For whatever reason the instruction is given, the Red Cross worker stops, turns round and obeys it. We see him here starting to place "orange pyjamas" on the stretcher". "Green Helmet", on the other hand, seems to be signalling to someone out of shot. A possible inference is that "Green Helmet" himself is obeying directions from someone else.

In this the third of our "grabs" from the sequence, we now see the Red Cross worker actually place the body on the stretcher. Although the definition is poor, it is clear enough for it to be seen that the stretcher is already occupied by the dead man in the white shirt.

This means we have two separate sequences of the same body being placed on the same stretcher, but with a different cast of characters. As we later see the body being carried down the lane by a Red Cross worker, if this scene is genuine, the other must be staged.

Now we see this photograph. "Green Helmet" has been joined by the man in a baseball hat - we shall refer to him as "Baseball Hat". This type of hat is often the badge of Hezbolla and we see this man in many frames elsewhere, apparently directing operations and giving what seem to be orders. Tied in with the previous frames, it is evident that the pair is removing "orange pyjamas" from the stretcher.

Let us now remind you of the evacuation route for casualties laid out in this area. This can be seen from the video and a composite of four "grabs" shown right (double-click to enlarge). The route is straight down the hill to a corner, where the bearers turn left and then continue down a route which takes them to the "staging area" and eventually "Stretcher Alley" (see satellite image). This, however, is not to be the immediate fate of "orange pyjamas".

Act 2, Scene 1

In this next sequence, in what is the start of Scene 1, we see "orange pyjamas" back in the arms of a Red Cross worker - and there is something odd about the location. The worker is, in fact, over the edge of the slope, away from the opening of the wreckage from which the body was recovered. This is in the opposite direction to which he would have to go if he was taking the body to the ambulance area.

In this, the first frame of the Aljazeera footage, we catch him stationary, looking down to his right, evidently under the direction of the photographer closest to him. Note also the other cameraman (extreme left), the two behind him and the one in the centre of the frame, partly down the hill. The Red Cross worker is obviously at the centre of a staged photo-shoot.

In this next "grab" taken from the sequence, we see Red Cross worker stride forwards - still under the direction of the cameraman closest to him - providing ample opportunities for a series of shots showing off his trophy. He is receiving close attention from the photographer in the foreground, who seems to be taking close-up shots of the burden carried by the worker.

Then, as the Red Cross worker continues forwards, we see revealed yet another camera operative (this looks like a video camera), demonstrating the extent of the shoot. Note also - from this and the previous picture where the Red Cross worker has been set slightly down the rise - he is climbing uphill over the rubble. In this frame, he is about to step onto the level ground. Crucially, note that the worker has red sleeves to his uniform.

Now we see the figure in a still photograph, supplied by Reuters. This is very much clearer than the video footage, and - suitably cropped to take out the photographer climbing the rise in the background - was used to illustrate a "professional doing his job". The picture is not "faked" in the ordinary sense - there is no photoshop doctoring - but the scene is nonetheless false. It has been wholly staged for the benefit of the camera.

The scene above is followed by another still photograph, this one taken by Mohamed Messara for epa/Corbis. It shows the full figure of the Red Cross worker, his expression bemused, if anything. Behind him, one presumes, is the bomb crater resulting from the Israeli air strike, which may be the reason why this location has been chosen for the shot.

In the background, this time to the right of the central figure, just visible under the body of "orange pyjamas" is the photographer seen in the previous frame. He has positioned himself for a shot and appears to be in the act of taking it.

Now we are back to the Aljazeera video footage. The video sequence shows the Red Cross worker has entered the lane without turning, which puts his original location - where the photo-shoot started - opposite the lane. Also revealed here is "Baseball Hat" who is acting for all the world like a stage director, giving directions and orders to clear the way so that the remaining photographers can get their shots. Is this Mr Hezbolla managing the scene?

Here, in the final "grab" I have taken from the sequence - although there is plenty more footage on the video - we see our man having moved on a few steps to reveal yet another photographer. To the right of Red Cross worker is yet another, and there is another worker up ahead. We see the two later in the video sequence joining up together, marching down the lane towards until they are out of camera-shot.

Act 2, Scene 2

For whatever reason, the photo shoot with "Red sleeves" was not enough for the assembled journalists. In this second sequence (although it may have been staged earlier - we do not have a time-frame we can use) the whole shoot is re-staged, but this time using a different Red Cross worker holding the body - distinguishable by his white sleeves. This is Act 2, Scene 2, starting off from a slightly different point. Here, though, from these sequences, we can see the clearest evidence of staging.

Firstly, the Red Cross worker is placed at the location. Only once his "minders" are satisfied with the positioning does the bearded man in the white shirt - acting as the "Prop master" - hand him the body of the child. Another Red Cross worker to his side takes hold of the head in what is evidently a pre-arranged pose, the pair acting as a duo.

Now that the actors are in place, with the "prop" suitably position, "Baseball Hat" moves in to check the arrangements and give last minute instructions to the actors.

Note the two video cameras behind the actors (this and the next frame) and what appears to be a still cameraman, patiently waiting for the action to begin.

With everything evidently to the satisfaction of "Baseball Hat", the cameras roll and the party sets off - one Red Cross worker bearing the body, the second tenderly supporting the head - with the "Prop master" watching anxiously. The scenario, the apparent concern, and the ludicrous posing of two workers carrying one body has been set up for the benefit of the cameras.

One of the beneficiaries is Nicolas Asfouri of AFP/Getty (image reference #71539658 - the same photograph also seems to have been attibuted to AP's Nasser Nasser). Here the Red Cross party has taken a few steps forward, well onto the level ground. You can see from the background (with the peach-coloured beam) that the worker is just below the exit from the wreckage, from which point the girl's body was extracted.

One would assume from the still photograph that Asfouri has snapped the party as it passed him, but - once again - the video record gives the game away.

Here in this "grab" we see the party, but it is stationary for quite a few seconds, posing for the photographers. In this frame, we see "Baseball Hat" hovering in the background giving directions, but he clears the scene - standing in the background looking away - to give Asfouri a natural-looking shot.

Note, incidentally, the man in the background, to the right of the frame facing away from the camera, with the tee-shirt embossed with a number "3". In Asfouri's shot he is also in the picture, but some distance away, about to enter the wrecked basement. This gives you some idea how long the pose was held.

Confirming through the still photography the fact that the pose was held, we have another frame (attribution unknown) which virtually matches the video picture. The young man in the numbered tee-shirt and "Baseball Hat" are in roughly the same positions. No one who witnessed these sequences could come to a conclusion other than these shots were quite deliberately staged. Nor indeed could any picture editor, in receipt of both frames, be under any illusions.

Somewhere in all of this, the carrier of the body manages to break away for a solo appearance - unless this was done separately, before or after the dual shoot. A jaundiced eye might consider the pose somewhat contrived, but reference to the other frames would readily demonstrate that it had been wholly staged.

This is the last of this sequence, for which we have records - this one by AP's Nasser Nasser. It appears to be further on in the staged journey, taken with a wider framing to encompass much more of the wrecked building. Again, it is not a faked shot in the ordinary sense. What Nasser recorded did actually happen, but the action was staged. Furthermore, there can be no doubt that he and others participating were fully aware of what was going on. No-one at this point can pretend that they were unaware that the scenes were being set up for the cameras.

Sequel

Between the point where visibility is lost and "Stretcher Alley", however, it seems that, whichever Red Cross Worker was last carrying the "orange pyjamas" must have tired of his burden. It is in this next photograph, by Nicolas Asfouri (ADP/Getty Images), that we see the girl's body again. It is alone on a stretcher (very similar to that on which it was originally deposited) - uncovered for the benefit of the photographers - and transported up to "Green Helmet's" waiting ambulance. The first of the stretcher bearers could be "White Tee-shirt", but we cannot see enough of him to be certain.

We know the girl's body is eventually placed in the ambulance because we also see shots of it being posed with a variety of other characters such as this one, in the uniform of a Lebanese soldier.

The picture, by AP's Lefteris Pitarakis, is particularly unpleasant as the man has the body by the scruff, treating it with less dignity than one would a rag doll. But, perhaps, this is no different from using the body as a prop by a succession of actors, all to gratify the needs of the photographers and their editors who so skilfully decided that they photographs they used were not staged. Somehow, though, that Red Cross workers were involved, who do represent that long tradition of impartiality, makes Gannon's mendacious publicity puff for "Green Helmet" seem all the more tawdry.

Act 2, Scene 3

Strictly speaking, this is an "act" all on its own (or part of the "Stretcher Alley" sequence) but, for convenience, we have included it here as it is also an example of Red Cross workers play-acting.

This scene is illustrated here from a sequence of "screen grabs" from a video taken reportedly from Aljazeerah. It starts with "Green Helmet" being interviewed about the disaster. Speaking in Arabic, in a remarkably high-pitched voice, we are told he says there are about 210 casualties in the wreckage. the point to watch, however, is the mid-point between "Green Helmet" and the interviewer, at the end of "Stretcher Alley".

Into view then comes a stretcher party, coming round the base of the building at the bottom of the slope. They come from the left, which is from the general direction of the wrecked building, from which the casualties are being recovered. As the party starts up the slope, the interviewer and "Green Helmet" pause to look at the group. Then "Green Helmet" dashes off down the slope to intercept it while the camera operator concentrates on filming the group.

As the camera focuses on the stretcher party, and it is clear that they are uniformed Red Cross workers, with photographers in attendance – two of which we can see in the frame. Although the picture is blurred, note that the leading stretcher-bearer is wearing his helmet at a slightly raked angle. The cameraman on the right has taken a shot and is changing cameras to get another shot.

Now, fully in view of the cameras up the hill (which we see in other shots is "Stretcher Alley" - having been staked out by the media), the stretcher party starts to walk slowly up the hill. Then, for no apparent reason (that we can discern), it suddenly comes to a stop. The workers put down their load, with one of the photographers hovering close by, over the stretcher. We can only guess, but perhaps they have been asked to stop by the photographers.

The sudden stop gives the nearest photographer the opportunity to take a close-up picture of the victim. Now, this is a highly charged situation at a disaster scene, with all the tragic implications. But of more concern to the lead stretcher bearer is his appearance - or so it would seem. He adjusts his helmet, putting it on straight, nice and neat for the cohort of camera crews and still photographers further up the hill. There is no sense of urgency and no rush. The pace is leisured. But then, inexplicably, the Red Cross worker repeats the gesture - both hands up to his helmet - apparently to put it straight again. This, in the context, is so unnatural that it could actually be a signal.

If this was a signal, one interpretation could be: "I am about to start". And, with the photographers having completed their work on the stretcher in place, the bearers immediately picked up their load and resumed their journey. Further up the hill, duly warned, the photographers are ready and waiting. Thus do the stretcher bearers progress in a leisurely fashion. In the sequence, they are then joined by "Green Helmet" who hovers around self-importantly. All the time, there is no sense of urgency or rush.

This completes Act 2, Scene 3.

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Part 5 - Act 3: The camera runs - Scene 1

It took us a long time to work it out, but the "camera runs" did not start at the wrecked building. They started at the staging area (see satellite image), set down the lane.

But, before the runs could start, the "props" had to be delivered. We can see what might be an example of this from this frame. Initially, we thought that this first shot was the tail end of the Red Cross worker staging detailed in Act 2, Scene 2 but, if you compare the two scenes, they are different. In the earlier of the two, the workers had respectively red and white sleeves, and only one body between them. In this shot, both have white sleeves, and each is carrying a dead body. We cannot be certain, but these could be the bodies used in this Act.

However, interpreting the shots was difficult as, in one instance, Red Cross workers seem to have made their own "run", carrying the bodies of children. Curiously, that event seems to have been little recorded although this might be a photograph of one of the workers making the run - located at the bottom end of "Stretcher Alley". However, that may not be the case as this worker has red sleeves. Others (below left), we see apparently starting out on a run, had white sleeves.

Further confusion prevailed as we had difficulty identifying the precise location of the "staging area". Originally, therefore, we put the location of this frame between the wrecked house and the staging area - thus believing it to be part of a delivery sequence. In reality, this should probably have been placed shortly after it, although we are still not quite sure of the precise location. We think they may be making their own run.

This could be the start of that run, seen on high-definition footage from Aljazeera, showing the route that will eventually lead to "Stretcher Alley". The workers have to turn left just before the houses in the background, going round a tight dogleg, before they descend a steep incline.

Interestingly, to the right of the frame, under the canopy of the staging area, we see a man talking on a two-way radio. Is he notifying people further up the route that the workers have just left?

We do see more of this run, with the workers escorted by the man in the pale green shirt - the same who spent his time in the wrecked basement on the cell phone. For just a "local resident", he seems to have a particularly active role in various aspects of the drama.

Again, we are not precisely sure of the location, although it is probably at the top of the hill. Wherever it might be, after this, we have no record of the journey - neither on still photography nor video footage, so we cannot say what happens to the men or their burdens.

Anyhow, returning to the staging area, we see what appears to be a delivery by Red Cross workers. They could, of course, have continued straight to the ambulances. They are young men and presumably fit. If there was any urgency, surely this would have been the logical thing to do.

But this is clearly not part of the game plan. You see one of the workers depositing a body on a stretcher and by this means do we have delivery of the "props", ready for the start of the "camera runs" by the stars, "Green Helmet" and "White Tee-shirt". They do not, as we first thought, carry the bodies all they way from the wreckage. The props have been conveniently deposited closer to the "set" for them to pick up and strut their stuff.

In the arrangements, the bearded man in the white shirt seems to play a key role. As he did with one of the staged shots in Act 2, he seems to be acting as the "prop master", parcelling out the bodies to the actors. For ease of identification, we shall call the body of the first girl "Blue pants" and the second, "Pink pyjamas".

Intriguingly, the one thing we do not see in these staging area scenes is "Green Helmet". We do see, however, a man with a two-way radio (top right of the frame) and we know that "Green Helmet" has one as well. Is this how the photo-shoots are being co-ordinated?

Anyhow, before even the bodies were parcelled out, they had already been exploited as grisly "props" with a different cast of actors. The first appears to be here (right), where the body of a girl named Zaynab is the central figure in a clip broadcast by Aljazeera television. This is a scene from within the wreckage where we see the body being lifted from the mass of bodies (curiously unburied) recovered in the first phase of the relief effort.

Then there is this one (right). We see the man in the pale green shirt - whom we have also seen sitting in the wrecked building, on top of the debris, conducting a prolonged conversation on his cell phone. He appears in a number of different poses with the dead and now is now posing with the body in the staging area, displaying his grief to the camera.

Not to be outdone, we also have the shadowy figure, the bearded man in the white tee-shirt. Is he Hezbolla?

This frame looks to be showing him in the act of handing over "Pink pyjamas" to "White Tee-shirt" (out of shot to the right) and we see again a display of emotion. Having seen "White Tee-shirt's" expression during his run, it looks eerily familiar. (The photograph was taken by Mohamed Messara for epa/Corbis).

The run starts

This then brings us to the first of the two shots taken as screen grabs from a film sequence shown on BBC television's Newsnight. These mark the start of "Green Helmet's" run. As we noted when we first published the shots, the bodies are not treated with any care or dignity as they are handed out. On the video clip, there is a great deal of shouting going on, and the transfer is conducted very quickly. The video sequence can be seen here (from 0:00-0:25 minutes).

The key frame of this sequence, however, is this one (left), which shows entering from stage-right "Green Helmet", the "star" of the first scene in this Act.

Without any ado, he literally grabs the first of the girl's bodies (Blue pants). There is none of the apparent tenderness that we see in the full glare of the media. In the subsequent frames in the video footage (not shown) he then lifts the body and cradles it to his chest before moving out of shot. He is ready for the media scrum - the first of the "camera runs" up "Stretcher Alley", with "Green Helmet" putting on the performance of his career.

From Al Manar TV, we now have the opening phases of the "run", as "Green Helmet" walks out from the staging area, carrying his "prop". As can be seen from this "grab", he goes directly towards the television cameras (another lens can be seen to the right of the frame), which are stationed across the road, offering them the maximum opportunity for clear shots and a full face view. At this stage, though, he is showing no great emotion.

In this second "grab" of the sequence, "Green Helmet's" strategy becomes clearer. On leaving the staging area, he has to turn immediately to travel towards "Stretcher Alley", but he is delaying this until he is directly in front of the cameras, giving them some close-up shots of himself and his burden. Here, we see how close he is to the cameras before he executes his turn.

The strategy clearly works. As he swings round, he presents his burden to the camera. The operator is ready and focuses on the bundle, showing a scene writ large with emotion and pathos.

To the left of the frame, we can see part of the body of another journalist, the word "press" emblazoned on his flak jacket. This looks to be a still cameraman, in the act of taking a shot.

This, we believe, is the first published still frame (of which we are aware) of "Green Helmet's" run. We had enormous difficulty placing this in any sequence. It is tightly cropped, with no easily recognisable landmark or reference point in the picture. All we get is a backcloth of what we would call dry-stone walling, and a bundle of sticks on a blue, 40-gallon oil drum. There is no wreckage in sight, and no other visual clues that would enable us, from this shot alone, to position "Green Helmet".

To pin down the location, we turn to a shot of "White Tee-shirt" making his camera run. Although shot from a slightly different angle, to the extreme right of the frame (arrowed) is a small section of dry-stone walling and a bundle of sticks on top of a blue, 40-gallon oil drum, although the latter is indistinct. Below the wall is blurred but the colouration is light brown, and above that to the rear, we see some vegetation edging the picture. There is clearly a match.

Now we pick up the man again. He has turned right, around the dogleg and is coming down the hill, alongside the building we originally thought was the staging area. We have marked his location on the satellite image here. Apart from the photographer following up the rear and the one taking the picture, there seems very little media presence at this stage. We certainly have no video footage of this leg of the journey. And, at this stage, "Green Helmet's" expression is very little different from that in the previous shot.

In this frame, taken by AP's Nasser Nasser, "Green Helmet" has now progressed perhaps a hundred yards or so, down the hill and round a left-hand curve (from his orientation). When we first studied this photograph, the buildings in the background were unfamiliar and there was no sign of wreckage. Given the initial confusion - created by the media - about the distance from the wreckage to the ambulances, we thought this must have been posed separately, at a different time from the final "Stretcher Alley" photograph.

We thus had enormous problems pinning down the location. It seemed to stand out on its own, with no continuity or relation to any of the other sequences we had then seen.

To solve the mystery, we were able to relate it to video footage of "White Tee-shirt's" camera run. There, we see him in a similar location, referenced by the same buildings in the background. And, as he walks forwards, all was revealed. The staging area is back behind the left-hand bend in the distance. In this shot. There is a white van in the near background. "Green Helmet" is roughly alongside this van, as he has his photograph taken.

The evidence thus far, therefore, is unequivocal. "Green Helmet", having collected the photogenic corpse of a young girl from the staging area (after it has been delivered there by someone else) has walked down the road approximately 100 yards and round several bends, where photographers were waiting for him. Spontaneous this is not.

Now an Aljazeera video camera picks up the run and we see our actor very close to "Stretcher Corner", shortly to turn right into "Stretcher Alley".

There is very little coverage of him at this stage either. The footage we have seen lasts but a few seconds. And "Green Helmet's" demeanour still seems restrained. His best performance is yet to come.

Round the corner into "Stretcher Alley" itself, and the first photographer that seems to pick up the figure is from AFP. Certainly the corner is in the near background, so it is very early in "Green Helmet's" journey up the rise. He does not seem yet to have got into his full emotional stride which is perhaps why the focus in on the child's body rather than its bearer.

In this frame, though, "Green Helmet" is going up "Stretcher Alley" in full view of the waiting media. Framed against the rubble, with the girl's body in his arms, only now - when the media is assembled in full force - does he display the intensity of emotion that make this a front page picture. This intensity of emotion we have not seen in him before and the combination of this, the child's body and the location makes for the iconic shot which is published throughout the world.

And it is a fake - courtesy of AP's Nasser Nasser.

Out of shot, the route is marked out by Red Cross workers and others, redolent of marshals on a race route. It has the feel of a highly organised film set, which is precisely what it is. In this frame, "Green Helmet" co-ops one worker into the theatre to provide the media with another photo opportunity. The picture itself is ambiguous - the Red Cross worker could be guiding "Green Helmet", but there seems more to it than that.

In this next frame - for which we have no attribution - a hand-over seems to be taking place. The Red Cross worker is actually grasping the arm of the child's body as if to take it. Does the hand-over actually take place? This we do not know. Curiously, although the video cameras work "Stretcher Alley" intensively, we have seen no footage of this part of the run. The outcome of this scene, therefore, remains a mystery. Was it "take one" of a hand-over, or did "Green Helmet" brush past the Red Cross worker and continue on his way? We simply do not know.

What we do know, though, is that "Green Helmet" does not complete the journey to the waiting ambulance. Past the cameras, it now seems as if the body has served it purpose. Certainly, "Green Helmet" has no further use for it. He dumps it on a gurney (litter), leaving it in the care of the worker we have called "the man in black".

The impression is that there are other photo-opportunities in the making and, to "Green Helmet", these are clearly his priority. The pictures we have do suggest that there is some urgency, as "Green Helmet" appears to depart the location with some haste, without even waiting to see the body properly secured. We next see him in the greater drama of Scene 2. But, as we will see from the pictures and narrative we offer in our exposition of that scene, some important inconsistencies emerge.

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Part 6 - Act 3: The camera runs - Scene 2

In this second scene of Act 3, the central player becomes "White Tee-shirt", a brooding, enigmatic figure, also described as a "local resident" and in some photograph captions as a "rescuer". But, in the same way that we do not see "White Helmet" doing any digging, neither do we see "White Tee-shirt" doing any rescuing.

The cameras catch him around the site occasionally, but there is no hint from the poses that he is much more than an interested by-stander, although he seems to have unprecedented access to the wreckage. He is clearly a man of some standing, as his right of access does not seem to be challenged, even though he is not in uniform and has no apparent formal role in the rescue.

Here he is again, this time inside the wreckage and again he is not actually doing anything but watching. But it seems he is doing more than that. We get the distinct impression he is looking for particular bodies. The one in the arms of the Red Cross worker, the body of the "girl in orange" is not one of them. Mr "White Tee-shirt" takes no interest in it and shows no emotion.

A rehearsal?

However, there is certainly a hint of his star quality in what could well have been a rehearsal for the main scene. This starts, as does the main scene, at the staging area. Centre of the frame (left), sitting - rather uncomfortably it seems - on a gurney (or litter), is a middle-aged, male "survivor" of the bombing raid - that, at least, is the assumption. No one is paying much attention to him and his wounds (or wound, evidenced by the blood stain on his shirt, on his left shoulder) have not been attended to.

Here (left), we see the same man, now all but lying down on the padded litter. But this time he is being transported by three stretcher bearers - two in front and one at the rear. We know from previous frames that this is some way down from the staging area, just before "Stretcher corner". Note the tee-shirt of the front-left (as we view him) stretcher bearer and, just visible behind the group, the helmet of a Red Cross Worker.

From Aljazeera footage, we see exactly the same trio, further down the route, just short of "Stretcher Corner" (see satellite image). This time they are being followed by another video camera operator, recording their progress. The patient is almost sitting up and he is certainly taking a keen interest in proceedings. One wonders quite how injured he really is especially as, even now, he has had no obvious medical treatment.

Now, however, we have the stretcher party emerging from "Stretcher Corner", turning to walk up the rise, over the debris. The backdrop is unfamiliar as the photographer seems to be virtually at the corner, shooting at a roughly 45-degree angle to the line of the Alley, catching the buildings seen at the lower end.

Crucially, there are now four and not three bearers, although the addition is not the Red Cross worker that we saw in the first of this sequence of frames. It is "Green Helmet" sharing the load. It could of course be argued that he was simply lending a hand as the the ground got rougher.

That would be a simple enough explanation except that, around "Stretcher Corner", we know the road is fairly clear (see right). The party is deliberately taking the corner wide, on to the debris field alongside the road, to make for a more dramatic shot - and the photographer, AFP's Nicolas Asfouri, could hardly have avoided knowing that they were faking it. But he went along with it and issued the photograph, adding a false caption that read, in part:

Rescuers carry a wounded man out of the rubble of a house after Israeli air strikes on the southern Lebanese village of Qana 30 July 2006…

And even that was not the end of the deception.

In this view, we see the same "survivor" on the same litter, but this scene is being played out further up "Stretcher Alley" in full view of the media scrum. Replacing the front two stretcher bearers are a more photogenic Red Cross worker and "White Tee-shirt" (behind the reporter). Note that the bearer formerly at the front-left has been "demoted" to the rear. This is the third combination in less than 100 yards and, unless there were two separate runs, the switch must have happened in full view of the media. Now look at the expression on the face of "White Tee-shirt". We will see something like this again.

The run begins

Rehearsals apart, courtesy of Al Manar television we now have a complete record of the first stage of "White Tee-shirt's" camera run - continuous footage which opens with "Green Helmet" starting off with "Blue pants". In the frame here, we see "White Tee-shirt", slightly left of centre, being called by the bearded man in the white shirt, who is holding "Pink pyjamas". "White Tee-shirt" is beginning to turn in response to the call.

In this frame we now see the start of the hand-over, filmed not only by the camera through which lens we are looking, but also by the camera on the left, just visible in the frame.

Possibly of significance, we can just see to the right of the frame, what looks to be the body of yet another child. Is this part of the "stock" held by the bearded man, ready to issue to his band of thespians?

Anyhow, it is the turn of "Pink pyjamas" for the spotlight and in this frame the hand-over is nearly complete.

This may be the shot in which the bearded man is caught on film emoting, but it is not yet the turn of "White Tee-shirt" to do likewise. Despite the blurring, we can see that his expression, at the moment, is relatively neutral as he concentrates on the task at hand.

And now we see "White Tee-shirt", in full possession of the child's body, turning away to step out into the road where other cameras are waiting. This is the start of his own camera run.

Once again though - even despite the poor quality of the picture - we can see that his expression still is relatively neutral. There is no great display of emotion.

Here, with "White Tee-shirt" a few yards into his run, the full vista opens up. He has cameras to the front, side and rear, with what looks like a "minder" signalling to the cameras the direction "White Tee-shirt" will take. This is clearly an arranged "shoot" with the cameras pre-positioned to take the shots as the subject appears. There cannot possibly be anything spontaneous about this.

The above was from France 2, but from a different source, taken directly from the website. Here, "White Tee-shirt" is now flanked by his minder, who has moved to the left to allow the still photographer a clear shot. You can now see the beginnings of an emotive expression developing on "White Tee-shirt's" face as he gets into his stride. Partly discernible from his pose, but clearly evident in the video footage, he is walking extremely fast, just short of a full run.

A few strides on and now "White Tee-shirt" is assuming an anguished expression. This intensifies with every stride. His mouth opens and he starts to shout passionately, as he steps onwards, his swiftening stride conveying a sense of urgency. Yet, the urgency is false, part of the act that he is putting on for the benefit of the media. There is nothing urgent here. The child is dead and the progress of its body to the ambulance has already been delayed to allow the photo-shoot to be set up.

Well into his stride now and emoting freely, a few yards on from the staging area, "White Tee-shirt" is producing iconic material, captured by Zohra Bensemra of Reuters/Corbis, who describes "White Tee-shirt" as a "Lebanese volunteer". This picture makes the Daily Telegraph website and many other dailies. Again, the combination of the photogenic corpse and the "raw emotion" make the picture irresistible. It is a bravura performance, even if the result lacks the essential touch of the background wreckage.

Round the bend he goes, losing sight of the staging area. Aljazeera television now picks up the run, "White Tee-shirt" emoting less freely. He is met by another posse of photographers, ready and waiting to grab action pictures. He has only a few dozen yards to go now, with the Aljazeera cameraman still in attendance, before he reaches "Stretcher Corner" where he will perform his last leg of the run.

And here he is actually at "Stretcher Corner" with yet more photographers waiting to capture their shots.

The wreckage-strewn rise of "Stretcher Alley" can be seen to the left of the frame and it is up this rise where "White Tee-shirt" will deliver his most memorable performance, a performance which will get his image on the front pages of newspapers throughout the world.

Round the corner, this is what is waiting for him - a scrum of press photographers, ready and waiting to catch the show. In this video "grab", their interest is taken by Red Cross workers carrying a stretcher, but this is precisely the position from which they will also capture "White Tee-shirt's" performance.

And he is about to give the performance of a lifetime - a heart-wrenching display of raw emotion.

A problem

In earlier analyses, our narrative assumed that, of the two camera runs, "Green Helmet" started off first - which indeed he does - and there was then some delay before "White Tee-shirt" set out. What the Al Manar footage shows, however, is that the delay is only a matter of seconds. Furthermore, while "Green Helmet" sets off at a fairly sedate pace, "White Tee-shirt" is all but running.

Given the relative speeds of the two men, and the distance from the staging area to "Stretcher Corner", it seems inconceivable that "White Tee-shirt" had not caught up by then. Yet, as we know, "Green Helmet" is able to do a solo run, up "Stretcher Alley". Not only that, as we see in Scene 1, he deposits his load on the gurney, turns round and goes back to meet "White Tee-shirt", whence they perform a duet, running together for the last part of the second camera run. The timings thus seem to be wrong.

We have no photographic or other evidence to suggest what might have happened, but it seems reasonable to speculate that, at some point, "White Tee-shirt" paused to allow his partner to complete his phase of the run. But we have near-continuous video coverage of "White Tee-shirt" from the moment he leaves the staging area to the point where he arrives at "Stretcher Corner", and there is no record of him pausing along this route.

Whatever happens, therefore, also happens in full view of the media. However, what is interesting is that, while we do have this continuous video coverage of the first leg of the run, the record stops at the corner. So far, no video footage has emerged for either "Green Helmet" or "White Tee-shirt" progressing up the slope. The record in this section is captured entirely by still photographers. This is curious and may be significant. Would video footage have shown the extent of the staging?

The second leg

Continuing with his journey, in a picture from AP's Nasser Nasser, we now see "White Tee-shirt" making his solo debut up "Stretcher Alley". As far as is evident, he is on his own, with no sign of "Green Helmet". He makes an appearance shortly, having completed his delivery to the gurney at the top of the rise.

The snappers are doing their business here, but "White Tee-shirt" has not yet been able to replicate the performance he gave in the first leg. His stride is too purposeful. He looks soulful but his head hangs and there is no passion or drama in the pose. The rubble is bit too messy and amorphous and there is nothing to draw the eye to add contrast to the lonely figure marching up the litter-strewn slope. As a picture, this simply doesn't gel.

Whether he was truly by himself in the above shot is difficult to judge, but there is some confirmation from this, the photograph used on the front page of The Daily Telegraph. The same picture is also used by The Daily Mail on its front page and its website, the caption here inexplicably reading: "A father carries a little girl from the ruins of Qana".

Attributed to Lafargue Frederic of the Gamma agency, this picture again shows "White Tee-shirt" on a solo run, with no sign of "Green Helmet". We can assume that "White Tee-shirt" is most likely on his own. But this is the last shot we see him like this.

By now, "Green Helmet" has got in position for a dual shot, although from this angle you can only just see the crown of his helmet over "Tee-shirt's" left shoulder. He must either have been waiting for his partner to catch up, or he has rushed down to meet him.

As to "White Tee-shirt", his pose is now magnificant - the head thrown back in anguish, the body clutched to the bosom and the soulful expression all combine to give just the note that is needed. Many editors find this is just right and rush to print it.

Perhaps in this one, "White Tee-shirt" is overdoing it slightly, but it isn't a lot different from the previous frame. What really spoils it is "Green Helmet" peering round "Tee-shirt's" shoulder, as he strides along to catch up with is co-star in order to take an equal role in the drama. But his presence at such an awkward angle breaks up the symmetry of the pose and creates a distraction. Nevertheless, Nicolas Asfouri for AFP-Getty Images labels the picture, "A man screams for help as he carries the body of a girl killed in the Israeli strike on Qana on July 30". It gets used by Newsweek, amongst others.

As a dual shot, this next one is unusable. Look closely at "Green Helmet" and - although he most certainly isn't - he appears to be smirking. The combination of the exertion and trying to present the appropriate gravitas is proving too much for the man. But, if the effect is grotesque, "Tee-shirt" is delivering. So out come the scissors (or the crop button) and "Green Helmet" is history. The result is perfect for the front page of The Independent.

But everything is coming right. Without moving from their positions, all the snappers have to do is let the stars come to them. Now the angles are right, the pair complement each other and the expressions are spot on. With an imaginative caption "man screaming for help...", this one goes straight on the front page of The Guardian, another shot from Nicolas Asfouri, AFP-Getty Images. This is award-winning stuff, except the prize should really go to Hezbolla - it is all staged and the scenes have been faked.

The sequel

With the pictures in the bag, "White Tee-shirt's" body is so much dead weight. Like "Green Helmet", he dumps it on the gurney, leaving it to the good offices of "the man in black" to strap it in and organise the load. Nevertheless, it provides a poignant photo-opportunity and the snappers do not miss out. The trouble is that the shadows are wrong and the face of "Blue pants", the body he was in such a hurry to deliver, is partially obsured. This does not really score as a top-rate picture.

Neither does the next, but as a picture, it is worth a thousand words. The starring duo, having got what they wanted from the bodies, putting on their display of raw emotion and all the rest - to the delight of the assembled media - have completely lost interest in their props. The "man in black" is left to struggle unaided with the burden, heading over rough, wreckage-strewn ground to the ambulance. This can be seen in the distance over his left shoulder, past the nearer, more modern-looking vehicle. "White Tee-shirt" as gone on ahead, without offering any aid, not looking at the gurney. He has other, more pressing things on his mind, as we will see shortly.

For all his trouble, the "Man in black" is at least rewarded - he gets to pose with one of the bodies discarded by the stars. A noble giant standing at the back of the ambulance, the tiny figure in his arms, there is a certain majesty and gravity to the man. Nevertheless, he clearly lacks the star quality, the ability to project raw emotion, a deficiency that condemns him to looking after the props after they have been discarded and playing the bit part after the stars have left the scene.

Even then, one of the stars could not resist a repeat performance. It was obviously hot work running up and down the hill, and back up again, so off comes the trade-mark helmet, the radio, the flak jacket and the fluorescent waistcoat. "Green Helmet" au naturelle poses once more with his prop. But he is only going through the motions when it comes to projecting emotions and he lacks conviction.

And at last the body of the poor mite that was once a pretty child is laid rest temporarily in the back of the ambulance. Even then, her mortal remains are publicity fodder, providing a poignant reminder of the tragedy, without the artifice of poses. This is the only natural pose in the whole sequence, but it lacks the drama the editors need. The picture ends up as a filler for internet archives.

The man from Hezbolla?

While the dead rest at last, we now see why "White Tee-shirt" was so anxious to get away. He has to return home to be interviewed by a France 2 reporter. He starts by showing the reporter round the house, well furnished and far from modest. This is no poverty-stricken man, embittered by deprivation. Even by European or American standards, the house is comfortable.

But what is so evident are the pictures of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah - even a calendar. This is not a dwelling - it is a shrine to Hezbolla, the party of God. But "White Tee-shirt" is not Hezbolla, oh, no! That is what he tells the young reporter, saying that it is the Israeli aggression that is radicalising Muslims and driving them into the arms of Hezbolla.

Make up your own mind. Is this a Hezbolla member, or a mere supporter? He lives in a Hezbolla stronghold, a location from which the IDF claim over 150 missiles have been fired. And our "White Tee-shirt" has a house full of Hezbollah material and is not a member - was not all day driving that agenda forward? Was he simply an ordinary Joe, overcome with emotion at the death and destruction around him, of which he was entirely innocent?

As a coda, we then see "White Tee-shirt" at Tyre hospital, in front of the now packaged bodies. He has finally changed his tee-shirt but is unmistakably the same man. The photograph, taken by AP's Mohammed Zaatari, is labelled, in part: "A Lebanese man, comforted by a Lebanese rescuer, cries in front of the body of his son who was recovered from under the rubble of a demolished building that was struck by Israeli warplane missiles at the village of Qana...".

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COMMENT THREAD

Part 7 - Act 4: Caught in the act!

To this Act, originally of one scene, we have added another, both of which conform to the descriptive title, "caught in the act". In each case, the intended video sequences look natural enough and it is only when you see the full, uncut footage that you realise what is going on.

Scene 1



For this short first scene, the investigative work has been done for us. In the early stages of the investigation, this blog was very much doing the running, posting evidence of staging as we uncovered it. But then the German television station NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) ran a short piece of footage, repeated on the German Zapp video magazine. Thus has subsequently been uploaded onto the "U-tube" site and the link to the video is above.

The video shows raw footage taken at Qana on 30 July and, unlike our work, which relies on making inferences from material assembled from different sources, this single piece actually showed "Green Helmet" staging a scene in front of the camera and giving directions to the camera operator.

Briefly, because the full scenario can be seen on the video link, the Act starts in the area above "Stretcher Alley", where a body in a stretcher is being loaded into the back of an ambulance. Interestingly, in the right foreground is that familiar figure, the man in the pale green shirt, watching the proceedings while "Green Helmet" is in the centre of the picture, his orange jacket just visible, slightly to right of centre.

As the sequence develops and the stretcher is loaded, "Green Helmet" is told that there is a television crew filming. In this shot, he walks towards the camera, giving directions to the crew, an unmistakable circular motion with his finger, instructing the operator to "keep on filming".

Such is the deceit of the man that he then seeks to disguise the instruction by continuing his hand upwards, pretending to adjust his glasses.

Once he has the crew's attention, "Green Helmet" returns to the ambulance and an empty litter is produced. The body - which we later see to be that of a young girl - is then withdrawn from the ambulance and transferred, completely unnecessarily, to the empty litter. Once this process is complete, "Green Helmet" then obligingly clears onlookers out of the way and beckons the camera operator to come closer.

As the camera continues filming, "Green Helmet" then pulls down the blanket covering the body to give a clear shot and a close-up opportunity.

Interestingly, in the previous "grab", we see the actions being witnessed by a man in the background dressed in a white helmet and blue flak jacket, with a "press" label on the front. In this frame, he has turned away, but he and the rest of the onlookers must have been well aware of what was going on.

In the final frames of the sequence, we see the camera zooming in for a close-up. As the subtitle indicates - added by the "Zapp" magazine, roughly translating the German - this is the abuse of a dead child.

Crucially, it also shows "Green Helmet" to be opportunistic and totally without scruples. He knowingly exploits the camera presence to displaying his grisly trophies. His actions betray a media awareness that strongly supports a contention that the man knows exactly what he is doing in front of a camera and contradicts any suggestion that the poses we see in the previous parts are merely spontaneous displays by a concerned rescue worker. We see here a cold, calculating man and nothing at all spontaneous in his actions.

Scene 2

The same cynicism and calculation is seen in this second scene. What you are meant to see is the first frame, where the television camera lingers on the abandoned body of a man, as scene pregnant with pathos, so laden with symbolism that even the hardest of hearts could not fail to be moved. The Arab TV station which showed this scene, however, was perhaps too enthusiastic for its own good. In a long clip, of over seven minutes, it then went on to show this separate sequence, starting at 6:45 minutes.

The sequence opens with "Green Helmet" leading a stretcher party towards "Stretcher Alley", comprising himself and two others. As he does so, he spots the camera and stops the party in its tracks. Facing the camera, he appears to give the operator a signal while he and his colleagues lower the stretcher to the ground. There can be no mistaking the deliberation in the act - "Green Helmet" is quite clearly looking directly towards the camera.

Thus we see the party lay the stretcher on the ground, "Green Helmet" all the time keeping his gaze on the camera. There is no verbal sound track to this film (it is overlaid with Arabic music) so we cannot tell if "Green Helmet" gives an order - not that we would have understood it anyway. But what happens next cannot be spontaneous.

With extraordinary rapidity, the three stretcher-bearers disperse. The "man in black", or so it seems, heads off at the run in the direction whence he came. The young man breaks left at high speed and "Green Helmet" heads at similar speed in the direction of the camera. The indications are - and the effect certainly is - that they are trying to get out of camera-shot.

No more than a few seconds into the sequence and their high-speed dashes are paying off. All the figures are now nearly out of camera-shot. The "man in black" looks as if he is about to run all the way back to the wrecked building - that is the direction he is going. The others, we cannot see as they run past the camera out of view.

Now we are but a fraction of a second from the pathos - another iconic shot, showing the abandoned body. "Green Helmet" is just out of view, the young man has disappeared and the "man in black" is now so far up the road that he will not appear in any close-up shot. And a few seconds of a close-up shot is all it will take to make a powerful point.

Context, of course, is everything. And innocent explanation would be that the stretcher party had arrived at its destination. The "man in black" was rushing off to pick up another body and the other two were rushing forward to take on other vital tasks.

However, we know exactly where this is, from the footage of "White Tee-shirt's" camera run. This is the middle of nowhere. It is some distance from the wrecked building and even the staging area, and well short of "Stretcher Alley" and the ambulances. There is no activity here and, if for some reason "Green Helmet" and his team had suddenly tired and decided to take a rest, they would surely have remained with their burden. There can be no explanation for their behaviour, other than they are determined to get out of camera-shot to give a clear view of the body.

Once again, the showman scores.

Scene 2 added 24 August

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COMMENT THREAD

Part 8 - Discussion and conclusions

For whole sections of the international media, the "Qana massacre" at Khuraybah was a godsend. It provided tangible support for the narrative they had been running ever since the re-opening of hostilities in Lebanon - and before - that Israel was the pitiless aggressor which would stop at nothing to get its way, including "murdering" innocent women and children.

Thus did newspapers like the British left-wing Independent revel in the pictures produced so obligingly by the agencies and staff photographers, this newspaper devoting its whole front page (left) to "White Tee-shirt's" iconic expression of agony. The only problem for it, and the hundreds if not thousands of newspapers and TV channels that reproduced this and many other images, was that they were fake. Not fake in the sense that they had been doctored - as in the infamous photographs taken by Reuters' Adnan Hajj - but in the very real sense that the scenes has been staged. They were artificial, devised entirely to create shots that the media would lap up - a grisly exercise in propaganda by a terrorist organisation which had its own agenda. And the media did lap them up.

Yet, despite good evidence produced by this blog - and relayed by several thousand other websites - seen by millions of readers (over a million on this site alone) -this issue has not been addressed by the media, either on the ground or back in the comfortable, air conditioned editorial offices, thousands of miles from the action. There, pictures of death are a commodity. It does not seem to matter under what circumstances they were gained, and to what purpose the actors paraded their emotions. Another forest-load of dead trees conveyed the story and a few dead children were exploited to provide pictures and add drama.

To an extent, this is understandable. Pictures are a commodity and, in the rush of producing a newspaper, they are treated as such. Those from "trusted" sources, like the main news agencies, are largely accepted uncritically and used freely as needed.

Quite how much of a commodity is revealed by a note from AP to its "staffers" leaked to Little Green Footballs congratulating Beirut-based photographer Hussein Malla, AP photographers Nasser Nasser, Lefteris Pitarakis and stringer Mohammed Zaatari, and Kevin Frayer for their "powerful images". The note in particular observed:

Nasser's most haunting image showed a man emerging from the rubble carrying the lifeless and dust-covered body of a child. Calm, morning light shone down on man and child, highlighting them against an almost monochrome background of pure rubble. ... Nasser's image ran on the front pages of at least 33 newspapers, including the San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, The Philadelphia Inquirer and the New York Post. It also won a double-page center spread in The Guardian of London. Lefteris's image (above left) of a resident weeping next to a row of bodies made the front of The Washington Post, among many others.

For their work, the "team" shared the week's "$500 Beat of the Week award".

But what is neither understandable nor forgivable is the response of the main agencies when their work was questioned. Only a day after this blog had first published evidence that the photographs had been faked - although how comprehensively and cynically, even we were not fully aware - Associated Press fronted a "rebuttal" on behalf of itself, AFP and Reuters, using its established and privileged relationship with the media to distribute a "rebuttal" of our claims. The news agencies stood by their photographs, we were told.

As other media organisations piled in with their condemnation - some overt like the Washington Post, and others feline like the British Guardian and even the supposedly right-wing Daily Telegraph website (re-named by us, The Daily Hezbollagraph), the agencies maintained a lofty silence. Even on issues which could have been resolved by information only they had, they were silent. But, as the evidence piled up, we issued a direct challenge to the agencies - to refute our findings or come clean and mount an inquiry, publishing their own findings.

They did neither. Instead, the self-appointed leader of a group of organisations that has become purveyors of lies responded to that charge by producing yet more lies. That was Associated Press, which produced a faux eulogy of "Green Helmet", picked up by Little Green Footballs, amongst others

The picture produced with the story, itself was another lie. Divested of his trade-mark green helmet, and orange high-visibility waistcoat, Salam Daher, as we then knew him, was shown with blue helmet and flak jacket. This, as any observer of the scene would have known, is the garb adopted by media personnel in the field (and especially in Lebanon), which made it highly probable that "Green Helmet" had been loaned the kit for yet another staged shot by an AP photographer.

At least, in this instance, the caption admitted the picture had been posed, with the words "sits to be photographed", but the fact remained that this was obviously a calculated rejection by AP of the charge that its staff had been complicit in the staging of scenes at Khuraybah on 30 July 2006.

AP also offered another photograph of "Green Helmet" (right), this time an internal shot where he was fully kitted up in the borrowed rig. Readers unfamiliar with the background to the story must have been puzzled as to why he was called "Green Helmet" when he was so splendidly decked out in a blue helmet.

Anyhow, this outrageous "puff" followed the initial denial of 3 August, when Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor for Associated Press, claimed that she had personally spoken with photo editors, who had dismissed the idea of any wrongdoing. Furthermore, she said, "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described." She also claimed that photographers were experienced in recognising when someone was trying to stage something for their benefit.

It was this, as we indicated in our introduction, that convinced us we should respond with a comprehensive post, pulling together all the evidence of the "staging" at Khuraybah which was then scattered throughout this blog, presenting it as our definitive work. In the ensuing period, much of the information came from readers, and the narrative was informed by the thousands of comments that poured in (2-300 e-mails a day, plus hundreds of comments on our forum). This is the result - no longer an individual effort but a joint production of the "blogosphere".

One of the things we did was take a brief look at the egregious Kathy Gannon. Described in the Green/Blue helmet piece as an "Associated Press Writer", she was and is much more than that. Between 1986 and 2005, she was a correspondent for the Associated Press in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She is currently the Iran Bureau Chief-designate.

Her work has been published in Foreign Affairs and The New Yorker. "I is for Infidel" — on the history and politics of Afghanistan during her years working in the region — is her first book. In 2002, she was the recipient of the International Women's Media Foundation's Courage in Journalism award and in 2004, she was the Edward R. Murrow fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. This was no lowly staff hack doing a routine filler. This was the "big guns", out to do a hatchet job. And thus did she attempt to turn the cynical, manipulative and totally unscrupulous "Green Helmet" in to a latter-day saint, the "hero of Qana", a man who spent "hours of digging in the blistering heat".

This, in fact, was her second attempt at so doing, the first on the day of the incident itself where, awarding the man a different name, she wrote for AP:

Abu Shadi Jradi pulled bodies out of wreckage for hours - two toddler girls wearing tiny gold earrings, a small boy whose pale blue pacifier still hung from his neck. Somewhere in the middle, Jradi slumped beneath a tree and wept.

Not least, with the same man being given two different names, one might ask what happened to this famous fact-checking.

Returning to the point, however, if there is one iconic scene which to us sums up the cynicism of the "rescue" effort, it was not Lefteris Pitarakis's image of a resident standing next to a row of bodies weeping but the shot of the same man sitting inside the wrecked building - the one which was supposed to be in imminent danger of collapse - actually on the mound of rubble under which people were buried, conducting a prolonged conversation on his cell phone. This he did while Red Cross workers moved round him, pulling bodies from the wreckage.

Crucially, Gannon, with a Qana "dateline" to her first piece, was there at the time - and lied. In her second piece, on behalf of her employer, she constructed a total fabrication, the like of which Orwell would have been proud. What is more, having been there and thus not having to rely on second-hand accounts, she must have known she was lying. And we have found her out.

Our case against the media

As to our evidence, we have for convenience organised it into four "Acts" which form the core of our report. Turning to these, in chronological terms, the first dealing with the "dead baby" staging was probably the last. This must have occurred some time after midday, while the main recovery effort started shortly after 9 am and, from the photographic evidence, many of the bodies were probably extracted very quickly indeed.

Nevertheless, in technical terms, much of the pictorial evidence we have is far from satisfactory - largely low definition reproductions of still photographs and poor quality television videos. With such low grade material, there is a limit to how much analysis of specific frames can be done - or is advisable to do. Crucially also, we lack detail of the timings of individual photographs and video sequences, which would have assisted our work. Much of that information must be available to the originators of the material - including the agencies. While they have been critical of our attempts to work out timings, they themselves have furnished no information on these key issues.

However, as to Act 1, it is not the finer detail on which we rely, but on the evidence of that the baby's body was exposed to seven identifiable photography sessions, in which "Green Helmet" was the central figure in four. Yet, Tim Fadek, a photographer who was at Khuraybah on 30 July, claims in Stern magazine that he did not see evidence of staging. "Everybody was upset," he says:

...it was quite chaotic. When they carried the bodies out of the basement, the workers themselves were finished. When they held a body to the cameras, it was nothing of a pose, but sheer distress and anger: look what they did to our children!

Curiously, Michael Shaw, writing in the Huffington Post also recruits Tim Fadek in a piece headed: "Qana was not staged". Fadek claims that photographers only had "1½ to 2 seconds" to document the dead children as they were laid in the assembly area, pending transport to the ambulances. The man relies on his innate authority of having been at the site, but he clearly has not accounted for the torrent of images that has been produced. Any number of these (not least the one above) give testament to the opportunities available to photographers and the lengths to which rescue workers went to ensure that they got their pictures. There is no way that Fadek can be telling the truth. Like Kathy Gannon, he too is lying.

As regards "Green Helmet's" displays of the dead baby, certainly, anyone seeing just the one episode when he came out of the wrecked basement and held the body of the baby aloft - in a session that was probably over very quickly - might have come away with the impression that this was a spontaneous gesture by a man displaying "sheer distress and anger". But the totality of the evidence indicates otherwise.

Firstly and indisputably, there was the pre-emergence photography session with "Green Helmet" posing inside the basement, with the body of the baby being unearthed. That he offers two different poses to two different photographers destroys any idea of spontaneity - the man discovering the body and rushing out to display it to the media. Secondly, there are the two additional photography sessions - one clearly posed - involving "Green Helmet". If by any measure the emergence scene can be considered spontaneous, these subsequent sessions cannot.

Arguably though - and it is arguable - a relatively small number of journalists witnessed the "dead baby" display scene and unless they had also seen the other scenes they may not have realised the extent of the staging. However, as we observed, these scenes came later in the day. Before that, and probably first in the chronology, were the first two scenes involving the Red Cross workers, included as the second Act of our report. Not only was the first quite obviously staged, but it was repeated with a different Red Cross worker. In these scenes, a not inconsiderable number of photo-journalists and cameramen actively participated. No one present at either of them could have come away from Khuraybah saying that there was no evidence of staging.

Then there was that extraordinary episode of the Red Cross stretcher party coming round the corner into "Stretcher Alley". They set down their burden and then, after the first bearer had made what appeared to be a signal, picked up the stretcher and resumed their journey.

We have focused on these three scenes in particular, but throughout the day it seems that Red Cross workers were willing and active participants in staging other scenes for the benefit of the media - which raises very real questions on the impartiality of the Red Cross.

This picture (above) is one we have not used before was taken by Ali Haider for epa/Corbis. It is indisputably staged: the location is around the corner from the basement opening, in front of the wrecked house, and the stretcher party has actually left the road and is partly down the bank, facing away from the direction of travel. Highly significant is the number of press photographers in the background. Could any of those say - with any honesty - that this photograph (showing the same body that was so intensively photographed as it was brought out of the wrecked basement - see above) was not staged?

Moving on, it is appropriate at this point to deal with Act 4. The first scene deals with the NDR footage which shows "Green Helmet" actively giving camera directions and, quite cynically, staging a photo-opportunity for the television camera. This footage is largely self-explanatory and provides powerful evidence, not only of staging but also of "Green Helmet's" involvement. And, as we observe, the staging was witnessed by a number of journalists. Then there is the "abandoned body" sequence. Seen in the context of the NDR footage, this is yet more evidence of the cynical opportunism of "Green Helmet".

This brings us to Act 3, the "Stretcher Alley" camera runs made by "Green Helmet" and "White Tee-shirt". We have examined both scenes exhaustively and there can be no doubt that the events were staged. Even ignoring the possibility that traffic was sent to the top of the blocked alley, when use of the alternative route could have allowed emergency vehicles direct access to the wrecked house, there were many other factors that strongly support our thesis.

Firstly, there the apparent selection process in the assembly area. We find it very hard to believe that the choice of the two bodies - the remains of two photogenic young girls - was accidental. Ample evidence elsewhere demonstrates that Hezbolla have mounted a very effective propaganda campaign, not least in their ability to "tap in" to the western mind and "press the right buttons". Choosing these two "props" could easily have come into that category, giving the western media subjects for their photographs which would not be too offensive to their readers' sensibilities - unlike the "dead baby", images of which were little used in the west.

Then there was the dark role of the "staging area". By no means, in the efficient handling of the bodies - arranging their transfer from the wrecked building to the ambulances - could this intermediate area have been considered necessary. Just in terms of efficiency, its use invited double-handling. Then, at the area itself, the conduct of affairs was self-evidently, well... stage-managed.

Above is another video "grab" of the area. The man in the foreground, wearing a green helmet of the same design as that worn by the eponymous "Green Helmet" was last seen - in the context of this report - posing with "Green Helmet" in the wrecked basement, as baby Abbas Hashem is uncovered. In the clip, he is seen apparently signalling to the man with the walkie-talkie. Also present are other figures who have played a key role in staging scenes, not least the man in the pale green shirt. All the signs are of preparation for a highly organised, choreographed production.

Next is the choice of the "actors". There is no obvious, logical reason why either "Green Helmet" or "White Tee-shirt" should have been involved in the transfer of the bodies to the ambulances. There were plenty of idle hands in the staging area itself - present long before either of the two actors can been seen - and then there were the two Red Cross workers who transferred the bodies from the wrecked basement to the staging area (with their escorts of empty-handed "minders"). As we have observed, there was absolutely no reason why these Red Cross workers should not have continued their journey past the staging area, direct to the waiting ambulances.

Crucially, there was then the assembly and marshalling of the press corps. Their positioning and the sheer numbers of photo-journalists and television cameramen lining the route - in just the right places for the "iconic" shots - again cannot have been accidental. Their presence, and the signalling systems that gave them advance warning, were clearly part of that highly organised, orchestrated effort.

That the two "actors" left separately is also inexplicable, except in terms of their phasing their departures to maximise the photo-opportunities. That the bodies were carried rather that stretchered again is only explicable in terms of the opportunities this option afforded for photography. There was, after all, a stretcher available at the other end. If there were none at the staging area, this could have been brought down. That the bodies were not covered also lends support to our thesis.

Finally, as actors progressed through their performances, we see their remarkable abilities to switch on their displays of emotion, just where the camera density was highest, to switch them off again and then to re-display for the second tranche of cameras. Given the total lack of spontaneity, it is startlingly clear that these displays were false.

Against this huge weight of evidence, what do we have? The bland denials of the agencies, the flawed testimony of Tim Fadek and then Nick Blanford. There have, in fact, been two journalists who have put their heads above the parapet and specifically denied the charges raised by this blog. Blanford who, we have been told, has been working in Lebanon for twelve years for The Times and Time magazine, was one of the first on the spot. He claims:

The Red-Cross people carried the bodies out of the basement one after another. In the beginning, the ambulance had no chance to get to the destroyed building. The rescue workers had to carry the bodies over a distance of 500 metres. That's the reason there are so many pictures of rescue workers with children in their arms.

This, against the weight of evidence we have produced, does not even begin to address the issues raised.

Could they have known?

All this notwithstanding, the evidence we have produced is the fruits of considerable labour by many people. The case made, we feel, is very clear that the journalists on site must have been aware of the staging and were complicit in it. Some may even have helped organise some of it.

However, it is one thing to demonstrate that those on site knew what was happening - it is another to argue that their knowledge was shared by the agency managements which employed them, and by the picture editors and journalists who used their output.

As far as the agencies are concerned, though, this is not a central issue. From AP's own statement of news values and principles, re-issued last on 16 February 2006, the staging of photographs by AP staff is forbidden. Neither are they allowed to use photographs of scenes which third parties have staged, without recording that fact. And if those are the rules, they should be enforced. The question is, therefore, whether "due diligence" was exercised. We see no evidence that it was.

On the other hand, what we do see from Qana is the sheer scale of the staging - not the occasional picture of the many. The majority seems to have been either posed or staged, or both. Given the large AP team present, this suggests that we are looking at more than just a rogue photographer - the malpractice seems institutionalised as normal practice. In the nature of things, this does not happen suddenly. It builds over time before it gets to the stage where wholesale departure from institutional norms becomes standard practice. The presumption must be that local management, at the very least, had broken down - and with it any pretence of quality control.

What then of the newspapers who used the images and the staff who had to make judgements of whether they were acceptable? All they have to go on initially is the photographs themselves and their captions. But, from Deborah Howell of the Washington Post, we get this, in an article written by her about the issue:

Post photo editors are cautious about Middle East photos. "You can't take things at face value. Some freelance photographers lack journalistic training. They are not operating under the same standards as most photographers throughout the world," said Joe Elbert, assistant managing editor for photography. Editors look for manipulation and balance. "We worry about that all the time," he said.

This is fair comment and perhaps articulates the concern that all responsible editors in the western media must feel about output from the Middle East. But then, what of the output?


The editors may be thousands of miles from the action but when you get three separate photographs from the same incident, showing quite evidently the same man, each in completely different locations, yet the same man is apparently emoting over the same victim, are there not grounds at least for some suspicion that some or all of the pictures might be staged?


When you then see a different man, in very similar circumstances, again in two wholly different locations, again emoting strongly - in virtually identical poses (in one accompanied by a man who has also been posing thus), would not any reasonable person have some doubts about the authenticity of what they see?

It was precisely these images that raised our suspicions in the first place. And, as many have been quick to point out, we are not the experts. Those experts are the picture editors and the news editors who, we assume, are or should be on their guard against fakes. And they spotted nothing untoward? Nothing? Nothing at all?

Well, Deborah Howell of The Washington Post again cites Joe Elbert and his deputy, Keith Jenkins. They and she, or so she claims, reviewed many photos from Qana. And, she says, "Only one photo, not published, looked staged - of a rescue worker holding a dead child up for the camera. Who took it? Adnan Hajj."

The Washington Post itself used for its front page the picture of the "local resident" in the light green shirt, emoting over the line of corpses outside the wrecked house. Howell must have been satisfied that this was not staged. But did she not stop to ask herself how, in the midst of a frenetic rescue effort, the background in the shot suddenly, miraculously cleared of people - right where the rescue effort was at its most intense. Did she not compare this shot with the many others taken at this angle of the scene and see the buzz of activity? Did she not have the slightest doubts?

The Washington Post also published this picture (left). It is still up on its website, here. Taken by AP's Lefteris Pitarakis, its original caption, in part, reads: "A Lebanese Red Cross volunteer rushes to the rubble of a demolished building…". Presumably, Deborah Howell and her colleagues checked this photograph as well.

But, if you look closely at the picture (double-click to enlarge) you will see the surface over which the Red Cross worker is positioned. Does it look like he could be "rushing" anywhere, without real risk of injury to himself? The pose is so obviously implausible that it has to be staged.

It is our contention, therefore, that even on the limited evidence of a few of the photographs widely in circulation on the day, there were grounds for suspecting a degree of staging. At the very least, some form of investigation should have been conducted. There was certainly time – the images came though from 9 am onwards local time and given the times differences in both Europe and the US, there was no rush at all.

Furthermore, unlike us – where we needed weeks to gather and evaluate the evidence – the newspapers had the resources. They had easy access to a much wider range of photographs than do we. They had the time-stamp information. They had the high definition images. They had the facilities and expertise to evaluate photographs and, all importantly – as customers - they had privileged access to the agencies, whose staff they could question and from whom they could demand further information and explanations. Given the will, any one of the great newspapers who used these images could have found out in hours what we took weeks to establish – that, indeed, the majority of the photographs were staged.

If any of them did carry out any investigations, then clearly the results did not prevent the publication of false images.

Conclusions

Thus, at last, we offer our conclusions. In so doing, we pose the questions that pervade this report, and answer them. Firstly, were many of the scenes during the rescue/recovery effort at Khuraybah on 30 July 2006, staged? The answer has to be yes.

Secondly, were journalists (with or without cameras) aware of the staging and complicit in it? Again, the answer has to be yes.

Third, did the media (the western media in particular) accept the images uncritically, without in any way inquiring as to their authenticity - even though there were good grounds for suspicion? Here, the answer almost certainly has to be yes.

Finally, has there since been a cover-up by the agencies and other media organisations which produced or used the material, and a sustained campaign by them either to ignore the issue or neutralise criticism? Once again, the answer has to be yes.

In defence of the media, if it can be considered thus, one can only postulate that staging scenes such as these is so common a practice, and so deeply embedded in the whole fabric of photo-journalism (and not just locally in the Middle East), that no one at the incident saw anything wrong with what transpired. Either that or, so familiar were they with the techniques used that they simply did not register what was happening. As for the others, in their air-conditioned offices, hundreds and thousands of miles away from the action, did they care one way or the other? After all, as Shane Richmond of The Daily Telegraph implied, the greater truth was being served. "Is the child dead?", he asked. "Was the child killed by Israeli bombs?" Thus, did he say:

If so, the picture illustrates the story. If the picture does not alter the truth of the story, we're not being disingenuous. And the truth of the story is this: Israeli bombs killed several civilians in Qana, many of whom were children.

That is the nearest to an admission we have that it is acceptable to stage photographs.

But, by their actions and inactions are the rest condemned. Meanwhile, "Green Helmet" has entered the political vocabulary and the name "Qana" is now associated in the minds of perhaps millions of people with a media that seems to have lost its moral base and has forgotten entirely the purpose for which it exists.

Before preparing this report, we offered a challenge to the news agencies at the centre of this affair, calling for them to admit the wrongdoings carried out in their names, and to clean up their acts. Their response to that has been silence. This is our response. It stands as testimony to their failures which, if they are not addressed, will come back to haunt them.

We will be waiting, and watching.

Richard North PhD
Bradford, England
28 August 2006
(Revised version)

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COMMENT THREAD

Appendix 1 - The "Stretcher Alley" mystery

If the reasons for "Stretcher Alley" staying blocked remain unanswered, there is an even more bizarre mystery: there was more than one route into Khuraybah. Furthermore, the alternative by-passed the blockage and potentially allowed traffic, including ambulances, access right up to the wrecked house.

As can be seen from the satellite photograph (left), this route comes off the Tyre road (from which most of the rescue teams came) before reaching Qana, going direct to the hamlet (Double-click the image to see an expanded view of the road).

Whether or not that route was blocked, we do not know for certain. However, via Fred Fry, we see that the UNOSAT post conflict assessment (Inset #6), using the Ikonos Satellite, shows a large part of the road and no signs of damage. Perversely, there is one bomb strike on a road marked - on the main Tyre road a few yards north-west of the junction with the alternative route. If that had impeded traffic, it would have affected access to Qana from Tyre as well - from where "Green Helmet" and many of the rescue teams came.

What is possibly significant, however, is the footage from tele-journalist Kevin Sites, whose journey to the wrecked site is recorded as he arrives some time after midday - possibly between 1 and 1.30pm. The quality of the shots is very poor as the camera is hand-held and the operator is running. But, in this frame, recognisable enough is shown the buildings opposite "Stretcher Corner". This positions Sites at the bottom of "Stretcher Alley".

The camera then swings to the left as the operator takes the turning around "Stretcher Corner along the route which will eventually lead to the wrecked building.

The shot is included here for continuity, showing the damaged buildings recognisable - and the car to the right of the frame - as at the bottom of "Stretcher Alley".

Now, as the camera swings round in the new direction, revealed are two vehicles, in UN markings and colours.

These are most likely part of one of the two convoys carrying UNIFIL medical teams from Tibnin and Naqoura, which arrived respectively at 10.15 and 11 am.

In this shot, the camera operator is now further along the lane, just past the truck. This is the same route taken by the stretcher parties, and "Green Helmet" and "White Tee-shirt" on their camera runs. We see another two vehicles, part of the same convoy - a van or people carrier and (although indistinct) an armoured vehicle - parked up alongside the edge to the road.

And this is the armoured vehicle type, a Finnish-built Sisu XA-180 armoured personnel carrier equipped as an ambulance. This, however, is parked just to the east of the lower end of "Stretcher Alley", the other direction from "Stretcher Corner". It may be one of the vehicles from the other medical convoy.

Now, the important point about these scenes filmed by Sites (or his camera operator) is that all the vehicles in the convoy are pointing away from the wrecked building and towards "Stretcher Corner". This is a convoy which, in the words of the UN press release, was sent "to provide medical and humanitarian assistance to the local population and the victims of the aerial bombardment".

Effectively, it was an emergency mission. It is seems unlikely that, on arrival, all the vehicles in the convoy should have turned round and parked facing the direction from whence the came. More logically, they would have parked pointed in the direction they had been travelling when they arrived. In other words, there is a possibility that they had taken the alternative route, rather than travel through Qana and down "Stretcher Alley". If that was the case, to be in the position observed, they would have turned right when they arrived at Khuraybah, before parking, for them to be seen in the position Sites records.

However, there is also this picture, taken by AP's Lefteris Pitarakis, which shows a UN Sisu XA-180 travelling down "Stretcher Alley".

While it is difficult to be precise, shadow analysis indicated the time to be shortly after 12 am. Therefore, the vehicle could belong to either of the two UN medical convoys, each of which could have taken a different route to Khuraybah. Tibnin, is to the east of Qana while Naqoura is to the south-west, on the coast. See map here.

Thus, the two convoys would be expected to take different routes and, for the Naquora convoy, going through Qana would be the most direct route.

We also see here another picture of a Sisu XA-180, positioned at the bottom of "Stretcher Alley", facing up the hill. One possible explanation for this and the previous shot is that the vehicle was being used as a shuttle, delivering casualties to the ambulances at the top of the hill. In that case, the picture above could be the vehicle on a return journey.

What is very evident, though, is that - by this time - the road has been cleared. We also know, however, that through the course of 30 July a variety of plant reached the wrecked building. First, there was this JCB-type equipment, which was at the site during the "dead baby" display. We do not know how or when this equipment arrived, but it could already have been on the site, or been driven from a close by under its own power. It could have been this equipment which was used finally to clear the road to the standard we see in the picture of the Sisu on "Stretcher Alley".

Following this vehicle, additional plant arrived, a UN tracked excavator and bulldozer. These would not have come under their own power but on the backs of low-loaders. They arrived with a team of Chinese engineers who would have had additional vehicles. This picture shows the equipment in use at the wrecked building which confirms, if it was needed, that the roadway was wide enough for vehicles such as ambulances to travel.

And we now have a photograph of the tracked excavator arriving. It is shown travelling down "Stretcher Alley", on a road that is completely clear of debris.

There is a problem here, though. Once it turned left past "Stretcher Corner", it would have - presumably - been confronted with the parked convoy seen in Stiles' footage, on a lane which looks scarcely wide enough for it to have passed. And if the excavators managed, it is unlikely that the bulldozer would have got through. Without doubt, it did - so there may have been some interesting manoeuvring of vehicles.

Finally, there was a wheeled excavator on site, a large piece of plant which, equally, had to gain access by some route or another. It would also - most likely - have been brought to the site by a low loader. Its passage was not recorded via "Stretcher Alley". And, while the markings on the digger arm suggest is it UN equipment, its presence on site is not mentioned in the official reports.

All of this, therefore, leaves completely unresolved the issue of whether the alternative route was open. The route could have been open and, if it had been, it would have been the logical way for "Green Helmet" and his team to have come. One source which could tell us what went on is the UN, but it has been unhelpful on this matter. We are, therefore, unable to pursue it further at this time.

return to Part 2.

COMMENT THREAD

Appendix 2 - The "reburying" controversy

The scenes which we record in Part 3, Scene 1, where "Green Helmet" discovers the body of baby Hashem take place, as far as we know, later in the relief effort. This we can ascertain from the frames in Scene 3, where UN troops are present. These arrived from 10.15 onwards, so baby Hashem cannot have been amongst the first to have been recovered. From the way the previous sequences are presented, his body seems to have been amongst the last, separate from the rest.

Given the way the UN troops are deployed, standing around on the veranda of the wrecked house, with apparently no particular direction or urgency to their mission, it is perhaps not untoward to speculate that they have been there some time - on the basis that the immediate-response medical teams might have been actively engaged in the relief effort. Possibly, therefore, the discovery of baby Hashem may not have occurred until around 12 midday, or even later.

In that we calculate, from shadow analysis, that the bulk of the casualties found in the early phase of the relief effort were evacuated around 9 am in the morning - that being roughly the timing of the "camera runs" conducted by "Green Helmet" and "White Tee-shirt" - there is a possibility that as much as three hours or more elapsed between their discovery and that of the body of baby Hashem.

The problem is that this does not seem to fit with the account of the relief effort by Tim Butcher in The Daily Telegraph of 31 July (We can discount the narrative of Kathy Gannon as being irredemably flawed). He writes:

When ambulance crews arrived from Tyre, bravely covering roads on which they have been attacked in recent days, they began the grimmest search and rescue task, but without any real chance of rescue.

They found limbs sticking from a muddle of broken concrete and mattresses soaked with blood attracting the busy attention of swarming flies. For a few hours the more wreckage they moved the more bodies they found.

In one section they found 12 small corpses, all children, among them tiny Abbas.

Their bodies showed few cuts or scratches. It was as if they had simply drowned in a wave of soil and cement dust that overwhelmed them in an instant.

From this account, the indications are that baby Hashem's body was found with others, and not separately as the photographic record would appear to indicate. The suspicion arises, therefore, that the body, after its initial discovery, was held back for the staged photo-shoots that we have examined.

In exploring this possibility, we have examined all the relevant photographic and video records available to us and, despite our suspicions remaining, the study has been inconclusive.

In rough chronological sequence, our study started with the Aljazeera channel footage. There, we saw presenter Mazen Ibrahim commenting on the coverage of the Qana "massacre" in western media. The opening sequence of the film accompanying his commentary showed numerous Red Cross workers moving bodies out of the wreckage, from a pile in which they are heaped. And, in the first second of the sequence, fleetingly visible is a worker lifting up the body of what appeared to be a baby.

Identifying this figure has presented us with considerable problems. We felt it could be baby Hashem, the only baby to be recovered from the site and the video record certainly meshed with the Butcher account. Then, further indications come from the Al Manar video which, like the Aljazeera film, covered the early recovery scenes inside the basement. This frame (right) shows the same location, but from a different angle. The Red Cross worker is digging down into the debris, apparently finding something buried there. The focus of his attention is indicated by the arrow.

This activity apparently attracts the attention of the cameraman, who moves closer to the scene, saturating the local area with light, for which he does not compensate - hence the "white-out" effect on this frame. But clearly, if fleetingly becomes visible the head of a very small child or baby. This can be seen for several seconds until the worker bends over the figure and it is lost to sight, whence the filming of this scene stops. We do not see the figure lifted out from the debris in this sequence.

However, additional Aljazeera footage is much clearer.

Here, we see the same area being filmed, with the Red Cross worker digging in the debris. The camera focuses on a head cradled in the hand of the worker. There is an object obstructing the full face, though, so we do not see it clearly, but the scale and definition indicates that it is very small, entirely compatible with it being that of the body of a baby.

Then the Red Cross worker lifts the head slightly towards the camera, to give the clearest image of all three sequences of television footage. The head is still not completely unobscured, but the definition is better than in any other television footage. Colour balance is not as distorted in other footage, showing the grey colouration of the head, in contrast with the colour of the Red Cross workers' uniforms.

As the worker continues digging, the full body becomes visible. another worker joins in and clears the legs, which he starts to lift from the debris, revealing the body. It appears to have the same low-neck singlet that clothes Abbas Ahmad Hashem's body, and the legs appear to be bare, compatible with the shorts seen in those frames.

Here, is a slightly enlarged cut-out of this frame, we see arrowed, a thickish line extending vertically upwards (as viewed) ending in an indistinct blob with a hint of blue colouration. This was too indistinct for certainty, but it looked like the blue "pacifier" seen in the still frames.

Then, there was this still frame. Taken by Mohamed Messara for epa/Corbis, it was tantalisingly clear but lacked that essential confirmatory detail. Certainly, the positioning seemed the same as in the video sequences, but all we can see is the upper end of the torso, while the Red Cross worker's hand obscures the head. Even then, the white of the singlet seemed not dissimilar from that seen on the body of baby Abbas Hashem. An enlargement of the photograph appeared to show a sliver of flesh between the worker's hand and the singlet, indicating that it might be sleeveless, with the same grey-toned flesh seen in other pictures.

However, we found this Getty image, which appears to show the same general scene from a different angle, but from above the subject. Despite the logo in centre frame, the detail is clear enough to show that the subject is definitely not baby Hashem.

Then we came across this photograph on an obscure website after a reader posted the link on our forum. We had no detail on its origin, but this did look as if it could be the body of the baby being uncovered. Much of the detail looked consistent with the images we have seen of the body displayed by "Green Helmet" but the quality was so poor that, once again, a definitive identification was not possible.

However, we also had this image, which shows the same scene, but less detail of the subject. What does appear, though, is that the helmetless Red Cross worker is handling the body. In this frame, though, the legs appear to be clothed.

More helpfully, there was greater location detail, showing what turns out to be the key datum. This is marked by the arrow - the cement filling of the closed-up opening - which we can see in another picture. From this, and cross-referring with other photographs, it is almost certain that the body is a few feet away from the right-hand wall of the basement and lying parallel to it. The other figure was lying at right angles to the wall and was further out - closer to the leg of the half-buried woman. They are thus different bodies.

As to the location of this latter body compared with the positioning of the "Green Helmet" discovery, by reference to the blocked-off doorway (arrowed) they appear to be roughly the same - not quite the same but nearly so, to the extent that they may overlap.

By examining the markings on the wall blocks, and their pattern, the height of the debris seems to be much the same in both key pictures. In other words, there has been no substantial excavation in this area between the two pictures. Then, in the very first picture, there is a shallow trench extending beyond the body up to the foot projecting in the top left quadrant of the picture (that belongs to a photographer - so another picture of this event might exist). A similar trench can be seen in the "Green Helmet" picture.

Now, bringing this study up-to-date, we were sent a medium-definition frame of the picture above (double-click to enlarge). This shows clearly that the image is not that of baby Hashem - demonstrating once again the perils of trying to over-interpret detail from poor quality pictures.

However, the story does not end there. In the upper left-hand quadrant of this photograph, we see in more detail the shallow trench and the foot of what we know to be a photographer. This is almost exactly at the location where, subsequently, "Green Helmet" discovered the body of Baby Hashem. It does not seem possible that the body could have remained here, undiscovered, in these circumstances.

Therefore, as far as we are concerned, the issue remains unresolved as to whether "Green Helmet's" discovery was genuine. We continue to be highly suspicious of the scenario and consider it a possibility, at the very least, that the body was discovered earlier and re-discovered at a later time. This would have been guaged to allow photographs to be staged and the maximum publicity impact to be gained. "Green Helmet" - not seen digging in any other scene - would, under this scenario, have been called in for the posing and subsequent display of the body.

The question is, whether this latter scenario is tenable. We are helped here by the knowledge that Adnan Hajj was one of the photographers in the "Green Helmet" scene. We can drawn guidance from photographer Bryan Denton, who writes in a forum for professional photographers:

...I have been witness to the daily practice of directed shots, one case where a group of wire photographers were choreographing the unearthing of bodies, directing emergency workers here and there, asking them to position bodies just so, even remove bodies that have already been put in graves so that they can photograph them in peoples' arms.

A man like Adnan Hajj - who, as we know, so carelessly doctored photographs which he then sent to Reuters - seems hardly likely to demur at a minor misdemeanour of photographing a staged scene like this.

Clearly, there is further work to do here but, throughout our inquiry, Reuters and others have tried to ignore this issue. Thus, we thought it appropriate for our readers to see the evidence we have, and draw their own conclusions. It may well be, though, that this issue remains unresolved.

back to Part 3

COMMENT THREAD

Breaking news

"Two rescue workers, including the chief of the Lebanese Red Cross in Tyre, Salam Daher (aka "Green Helmet"), were wounded by shrapnel during raids near the hospital where they had been rushing to help extinguish the fire, police said." (AFP)

We have an exclusive picture of him being rushed to hospital (Taken by AP - photoshopping by Reuters).

Another great idea from the Finnish Presidency

There are so many problems with the notion of an EU common foreign policy, one doesn’t always know where to start. But one obvious reason why it can never work is that nobody knows precisely who speaks for the EU on matters of foreign policy (never mind what that person might be saying). Is it the egregious Javier Solana, the High Panjandrum or the CFSP? Is it the relevant Commissioner, at present the Austrian Benita Ferraro-Waldner? Is it the various foreign minister, together or separately? Or is it, as Judy Dempsey puts it in her article in today’s International Herald Tribune, the European Presidency, at present held by Finland and, specifically, the Finnish Foreign Minister, Erkki Tuomija?

Well, he thinks he is the one to pronounce. Unabashed by the EU’s failure to come to any conclusion as to what its policy might be and by the clear lack of any influence the organization and its members might have in the Middle East, he

“said the EU was respected in the region for its "soft power" approach to the Middle East conflict, in other words using diplomatic, humanitarian and economic means instead of U.S.-style military might”.

Even Ms Dempsey seemed a little sceptical about this.

“Asked what the EU could achieve in concrete terms as the United States and France wrangle over the terms of a cease-fire in Lebanon, where more than 1,000 people have died over the last month of war, Tuomioja said that the 25-member bloc was already doing a great deal by providing humanitarian assistance.”

According to the article “public opinion across Europe that is highly critical of Israel's bombardment of Lebanon”. Since, if true, that is largely the result of the MSM’s somewhat one-sided and slap-dash reporting (see postings on this blog and others, much too numerous to mention) it is not surprising that Ms Dempsey obviously thinks that public opinion is right to be so.

So does Foreign Minister Tuomija who hastens to add that no blame must be apportioned. What the EU wants is a permanent Middle East settlement, though, one assumes charitably not the kind suggested by Iranian President Ahmadinejad.

Well, apart from humanitarian aid, which is not apparently getting through although 100 million euros have been committed since the fighting had begun and the rebuilding of the infrastructure, which cannot be done till it ends, what is the EU soft power proposing to do?

Mr Tuomija

“speaking for the European Union presidency, called Thursday for direct talks with Hezbollah, which is regarded by the United States and Israel as a terrorist organization responsible for the latest Middle East crisis.

"Obviously, if you want an end to the fighting and have any lasting political agreement, Hezbollah has to be a party to it," Tuomioja said in a telephone interview from Cairo. "Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese Parliament and government."”

Since the French are playing their own rather devious game at the United Nations, now co-sponsoring a draft resolution with the USA, now moving away from it; since foreign ministers from France, Germany, Italy and Spain have been shuttling between the relevant capitals, all with different ideas and messages, it is very questionable whether Mr Tuomija really is speaking for anybody except himself.

Nevertheless, one rather wonders who, in his opinion, should be holding those direct talks with Hezbollah, a terrorist organization, proscribed in many countries. Should it be Israel? The United States? The European Union? And if the last of these, what exactly will the talks be about?

What will they do if they return?

Nearly 170 MPs, at least half of them Labour, George Jones, the Political Editor of the Daily Telegraph, tells us, have signed a letter to Jack Straw, Leader of the House, strongly suggesting that the reported break-up of a large terrorist plot by the police and security services with the full co-operation of their colleagues in other countries indicates that Parliament should be recalled.

Or as a particularly fatuous letter in the same newspaper puts it:

“Sir – The Middle East is on fire, and the effects were being uncomfortably felt here yesterday as our airports shut down.

At the same time, our Prime Minister is on holiday in Barbados, and our almost non-existent Foreign Secretary is “shed-dragging” in France.

Parliament must be recalled.”

The author of this letter lives in Somerset, which is not the back of beyond. It is, therefore, a little surprising that she (oh yes it is a she) thinks that those airports were somehow shut down by the fire in the Middle East. Surely they get news there of Al-Qaeda cells, jihadists and Londonistan, all of which was in existence long before 9/11, never mind the Iraqi war.

Of course, the Middle East was on fire before but, strangely, none of the men arrested yesterday hail from there and neither do their families.

Setting all that aside, there is the question of what will Parliament do if it is recalled. Iain Dale suggests that they should spend one day debating the Middle East and another the terror plot in the UK.

Then what? If memory serves right, Parliament was recalled three times in 2002 in the run-up to the Iraqi war. Apart from a great deal of inconvenience to the staff (whose salary is between a quarter and a third of that of MPs’ incomes and who get no travelling expenses) what did that achieve? They are still complaining about not being consulted properly or not being told everything.

At least, that was a question of British troops going into war. What precisely can Parliament do now? Is Diane Abbott, one of the signatories, going to suggest that we send British troops in to sort matters out? I think not and, in any case, we do not have the men or the ships or the money.

What will Ian Gibson or Glenda Jackson or Shahid Malik say when informed by the Prime Minister that it is all in the hands of the UN?

What of the terror plot? What can MPs do about that? If it turns out that the whole plot is non-existent then there will have to be discussions about our and others’ intelligence services. If, as seems more likely, it turns out to be entirely correct then the presence of MPs is entirely superfluous. We do not need more legislation. In fact, the alleged plot seems to have been uncovered without there being any ID cards, an entirely unnecessary, stupid and wrong-headed proposal for a law.

As some of us have always said, it is intelligence work that will destroy the various organizations, not endless, ill-conceived legislation. Where do politicians come into intelligence work?

If not legislation then what? A debate just to hear their own voices? I very much fear that is so. This is not another argument about the growing unimportance of Parliament but about the overwhelming self-importance of its members. Neither the war in Lebanon, over which we have no control and in which we have no involvement, nor the alleged terrorist plot, uncovered by the various security services, have anything to do with MPs but they cannot bring themselves to believe that. Sadly, there seem to be many other people in this country who are in the same mental fog.

One can only surmise that those 170 or so politicians are bored and the joys of spending time with their families evaporated very fast. Alternatively, their families would like to get rid of them. So they want to come rushing back despite the fact that all this flying to and fro is very bad for the environment, global warming and climate change, and stomp around Westminster, the one place in the world where they can pretend that they are of use and importance.

COMMENT THREAD

More news

EU Referendum has learnt within the last hour that the doctoring of the Reuters' photographs was authorised at the highest level in the agency, all to conceal a greater and stunning intervention by Federation forces. For the first time, we reveal exclusive photographic evidence of what was really going on in Beirut that fateful day. However, sources say that Reuters' chiefs are totally unconcerned by the new revelations as, after the Reutersgate scandal, no one believes Reuters photographs any more.

Meanwhile, we have also learnt that, after reading her own organisation's statement of news values, Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor for Associated Press, had decided to carry out her own personal investigation into the media conduct at Qana on 30 July. Again, we have acquired an exclusive photograph from the Reuters news agency, showing Mz Carroll re-staging events at the scene.

And finally, we have learnt that the Daily Hezbollagraph's web news editor, Shane Richmond, is to apologise for making such a fool of himself on his clog.

Nah… we made that last one up.

COMMENT THREAD

Great news

Thanks to one of our readers we have acquired a GREEN HELMET. No, it is not the famous one, now somewhat disfigured by all that white tape that was put on for camouflage when John Simpson got in on the act. But it is a green helmet, nevertheless, that resembles the one displayed in all those photographs.

We are discussing how we may utilize this splendid object in our campaign against the MSM while it continues its role of being a bunch of useful idiots (and that's the best explanation); the various transnational organizations (tranzis) of whom the EU is the most immediate foe; and all those who support our most ferocious enemy, the Islamist terrorists.

Watch this space.

The horrors of war

Yesterday, I had an amiable chat with Patrick Barkham of The Guardian, the results of which may appear in the Monday edition.

Amongst the things discussed was the underlying reasons why hacks seem incapable these days of reporting accurately on issues like the war in south Lebanon, a subject to which I have given a great deal of thought.

At the root of the most egregious failures, I believe, are three fundamental flaws – all to do with the basic mindset of the journalists involved. The first, it seems to me, stems from the way history has been taught in schools for some decades, where the focus on past wars is presented in terms of the horrors and suffering, with very little factual information as to why and how they were fought.

To a very great extent, therefore, children finish their education imbued with the idea that "war is bad" – violence is bad, without in any way understanding the historical contexts in which wars have been fought, or realising that, bad though it most certainly is, there are worse things than war.

Secondly, within modern journalism, there is a current vogue to couch "stories" in terms of "human interest", which means that nothing is news until a human face can be found on which to base any account. A simple, factual account of events is not longer acceptable – there must always be a human dimension.

While this was always the case, to an extent, the balance has now tilted so far that "human interest" now dominates the news, so much so that factual content has virtually disappeared.

Thirdly, now coming through the system, we have a generation of journalists who have never seen military service and have thus no experience, from the sharp end, of warfare, nor of military affairs from the inside. This tends to be combined with an anti-militaristic viewpoint, carried over from their education, which means that your average hack is usually ignorant about the conduct of warfare.

This is the sort of person that can just about – with a little schooling – tell the difference between an armoured personnel carrier and a tank (although they often have trouble distinguishing either for an MICV) and such is their level of ignorance that they are rarely able interpret what they see, or provide intelligent comment.

And, being unable to understand what is going on, they prefer to stick with what they know - burbling about the "horrors of war". And, in the current operations in southern Lebanon, where it is in Hezbolla's interests to emphasise precisely that point, they find in the western media, people who are admirably conditioned to serve them.

By some cruel irony, in today's Daily Hezbolagraph, we have a superb example of the genre, with Tim Butcher filing a stunningly ill-informed piece about operations on the Lebanese border.

Since military issues have been in the news of late (although overshadowed by other events) – not least Afghanistan and the "overstretch" suffered by British forces – I intend later today (early evening, British time) to publish a post explaining why Butcher's story is so wide of the mark, together with an analysis of the current Israeli military operation, and its implications for both US and British forces in the war against terror.

COMMENT THREAD

Keeping it in the family

It may be old news but it is interesting to note that AP's Kathleen Carroll, executive editor and a senior vice president is on the Pulitzer Prize Board. It is also interesting to note that AP has in the past gained 29 photo Pulizers, more than any other news organisation.

And, through the wonders of science and Photoshop, we can bring you a picture (taken by Reuters) of next year's award ceremony, with a celebrity guest accepting another photo Pulizer on behalf of AP, awarded for its moving and creative coverage of the Qana disaster.

Kathleen Carroll was unavailable for comment.

COMMENT THREAD

A little photo-manipulation

It seems that when little Shane Richmond gave us an earnest lecturette on how "responsible" newspapers like his own Daily Hezbollagraph selected "disturbing pictures" to illustrate both paper and website, he was not adverse to doing a little photo-manipulation of his own.

Demonstrating how and why the choice was made, he puts up two photographs, the right-hand one being the one of the Red Cross worker, who is rejected because he is not emoting enough.

Now, if you look to the left of the worker, you will see part of a figure in the background, indistinct and easily ignored. But, if you look at the full framing (right), as supplied by Reuters, you will see the whole figure. From this, it is clearly evident that this is a press photographer which, of course, little Shane would not want you to see. Thus it is, he has cropped the picture rather tightly, to ensure than you focus only on that which he wants you to see – "a professional doing his job".

Needless to say, little Shane did not realise that this photograph had also been staged – not that he bothered to find out – and nor did he realise that the scene had been enacted twice, with two different workers. The opening sequence of "scene 1, take 1" we have already shown you, here, but we have now found an out-take of "scene 2, take 1".

And who is standing next to our compliant Red Cross worker, seemingly giving him stage directions? Why, our old friend Mr "White Tee-shirt" (Correction - a WTS "clone" - using a cloning tool?). "Green Helmet" and "White Tee-shirt" must have been busy elsewhere, staging their own photographs.

COMMENT THREAD

More filth from AP

This picture and report from AP photo-journalist Adel Hana, "grabbed" from Yahoo, tells a tragic tale. The caption reads:

A Relative carries the body of Rajaa Abu Shaban, into Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2006. An Israel air strike against Islamic militants in Gaza City on Wednesday killed three people, including 5-year-old Rajaa Abu Shaban, and wounded two more, Palestinian officials and witnesses said. The Israeli army said its forces attacked a 'terrorist training camp' in Gaza, but gave no further details. (AP photo/Adel Hana)

As so often, the caption defines the picture. In fact, the girl was killed falling off her swing, just before the raid. Read the full account on Little Green Footballs.

Meanwhile, the cracks are beginning to appear.

COMMENT THREAD

Liars!

They hunt in packs, they film in packs and they lie in packs. And their bosses, sitting in their air-conditioned offices, thousands of miles from the action, back up their lies. And the liar-in-chief is Kathleen Carroll, senior vice president and executive editor for Associated Press.

Unlike Reuters' who have at least admitted their photo-fraud and started their own internal investigation, Carroll's hastily-produced "rebuttal" of the staged photographs at Qana, written by staff hack David Bauder, still stands. It is Carroll who claims that she has personally spoken with photo editors and, she says, "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described." Photographers are experienced in recognizing when someone is trying to stage something for their benefit, she claims.

She is supported by Tim Fadek, who is said to have been working in Qana for picture press agency Polaris. He claims he did not see evidence of staging. Well, if he did not, he was either blind or, like Carroll, is a liar. Nick Blanford, working in Lebanon for twelve years for The Times and Time, and one of the first on the spot, also denies any staging. He too must either be blind or a liar.

In normal times I am uneasy about making such a direct accusations, but the quality of my own work, my own motivation and my good faith has been questioned, and even mocked by that patronising little slime Shane Richmond while his employers in The Daily Hezbollagraph have studiously avoided reporting on the Reuters photographs withdrawal. Meanwhile, the bulk of the US and UK media has gone into denial mode, hoping the issue will go away.

Even up to press, with my latest piece, setting out how the the photographs were staged, and merited an honest re-appraisal of the Qana footage by the agencies and their media customers. Now, however, with the publication by the German Zapp video magazine of raw footage taken at Qana on 30 July, the evidence of staging is now indisputable. Against the claims made by "Green Helmet" in the Stern magazine, it also brands him as a pathological liar and the editors of the magazine as fools or worse.

Here, the uncut video footage, taken by the NDR (Norddeutscher Rundfunk) agency, clearly shows "Green Helmet" giving directions to the camera, a circular motion with his finger instricting the team to "keep on filming", and so conscious of his own deceit is the man that he attempts to disguise the signal as an adjustment to his glasses. Later, we see this ghoul stage the unnessesary shipping of a child's body out of the ambulance in which it has been put, its transfer to another litter and then Green Helmet obligingly clears the way for the film crew and then exposes the corpse for a close-up view.

This, as "Zapp" quite rightly observes in its subtitles, is the abuse of the body of a dead child. But the "abusers" included the camera crew, who willingly went on with the charade (although someone along the line has a conscience and has released the footage) but it especially includes the likes of AP's Kathleen Carroll. Her and her ilk must have known what was going on. They have access to the raw footage of countless videos, they have access to vastly more photographs than we bloggers have been able to collect, and they have the time stamps which would help piece the story of the "abuse" together.

But instead, they sit on their dunghill crowing, denigrating us bloggers and branding us "conspiracy theorists" and worse, covering up what we now know to be widespread malpractice that has been going on for a long, long time. Do they think we are all that stupid?

So, what about it Kathleen Carroll? I have called you a liar. I will do it again. You are a liar. That is a direct challenge. Deliver the evidence to me to prove I am wrong (my e-mail link is on this site) or withdraw your rebuttal and admit - like Reuters - that there are problems in your agency, and start cleaning it up. The same applies to AFP and all the others who conspire to stage photographs and abuse the bodies of dead children. You are liars all, and we are sick of your lies.

COMMENT THREAD

Who is to run our foreign policy?

This is not another discussion about Margaret Beckett of Ye Olde Caravanne or whether Tony Blair has any real foreign policy ideas. As a matter of fact he does, but they are often rather muddled as most liberal foreign policy is.

What we need to think about quite carefully is the real question: who should be running our foreign policy and then, quite separately, look at what that foreign policy ought to be.

The media reaction as well as that of the great and the good to the reported events of this morning has been interesting but predictable. On the one hand, there has been a singular reluctance to specify which religious and cultural groups the 21 arrested belong to; on the other hand there have been the usual calls not to demonize the entire Muslim population of this country and, of course, the usual whining about us being targets because of Tony Blair’s foreign policy.

If we did not support the United States in Iraq and, even, Afghanistan; if we were only to demand an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon (though how we would achieve that remains something of a mystery) none of this would happen. We would not be a target to Al-Qaeda or to any of our home-grown little jihadists.

If this plot is real (and there are those, including at least one member of the forum, who think that this is merely an attempt on the part of the boys in blue and MI5 to prove that they are useful members of society), it must have been hatched for some months. How very prescient of the alleged terrorists (alleged is the right word as nothing has yet been proven in a court of law) to know exactly when the Israelis would go into Lebanon after Hezbollah and how even more prescient of them to realize exactly what Tony Blair’s policy might be, though one could argue that it would not matter to them: whatever it is, he is in the wrong, if he does not accept that Israel must be destroyed and Sharia law introduced everywhere. I exaggerate but only a little.

Furthermore, there is very good evidence that Al-Qaeda and jihadist cells have been growing steadily in this country since some years before 2001, never mind 2003. The idea that this is all a response to the post 9/11 policies, with all their corkscrew-like bends, is casuistic, to put it mildly.

Beyond that, there is the question of who decides on foreign policy and what is one to do if one disagrees with the government. There were various bitter comments about the lack of democracy in this country because the 1 million people who marched through London against the war in Iraq, shouting “Not in my name” were ignored.

1 million or even 2 million, many of whom were not British, do not a majority constitute. They are entitled to their opinions and allowed to express them in any way they like, as long as there is no violence towards others involved. But that is all. They do not write and ought not to write the foreign policies of this country. If they want to go and work for Respect, that is up to them. At least, that is an accepted method of changing policies in a democratic state.

The war was not in their name? Well, too bad. They were not marching in my name.

Even less can we have our foreign policy, regardless of whether we agree with it or not, be dictated by terrorists or would-be terrorists. For that is what is implied when somebody says that if we just changed our foreign policy, we would not be a target. Not only is this incorrect but it is a denial of the democratic process.

It is fair to say that in Britain, unlike the United States, Parliament has no say in the declaration of any war or involvement in any hostility. This may require urgent reforming (and is a far greater constitutional anomaly than the presence of a few hereditary peers in the Upper House), though that will not be necessary once this country is fully integrated into the EU’s common foreign and security policy.

However, the answer is not to give in to the half-baked demands of some misguided would-be suicide bombers. As these people are all British-born, one must assume they have gone through British schooling. In which case they do not even know where Lebanon, Israel, Iraq or Afghanistan are. And even if they go on holiday to Pakistan regularly, I doubt very much whether they could find Islamabad or Karachi on the map or tell you about the country’s history. You get on a plane, you fly, you get off the plane and you are there.

For better for worse we have an elected government. In fact, it has now been elected three times. I know all the arguments about people staying at home rather than voting for one shower or another but that is irrelevant. Three times running Labour under Tony Blair got more votes and more seats than the opposition. Therefore, he and his government are there to decide on our foreign policy.

You do not like it? Fine. Start campaigning against it, join a party that opposes it and try to give it a bigger profile, formulate arguments against it. But do not expect anything to change. If you go beyond it and try to change policies through violence, expect the law to bear down on you (though that has become a bit of a lottery).

Neither is our foreign policy to be decided by our media, who, though unaccountable in a political sense (and in the case of the BBC in every sense), has taken upon itself to pontificate on all matters and demand changes in government policy on its say-so.

In itself, that does not matter. The media has always given itself airs. (There is a story, which I have never checked out that in the mid-thirties, as the show trials were under way in the Soviet Union, Kingsley Martin, then editor of the influential New Statesman, wrote an agonizing article on the subject, ending it with the words: “Mr Stalin must explain.” I bet the old tyrant was shaking in his shoes.)

As I have mentioned before the MSM became very powerful in the sixties, in the United States especially but in Britain, too. Post-Vietnam, post-Watergate, the assumption was that it and it alone should decide on foreign and domestic policy and, as things stand, those decisions tend to be left of centre and not on the side of the West or of a democratic country, named Israel, that is fighting for its survival.

If the people, in their lack of wisdom elect somebody who does not agree with the media’s stated position then that election is ever after viewed as a political coup. That was true about Thatcher and Reagan and is even more true about Bush.

The bias and the assumption of superiority to all other mortals and, in the case of the British media, to all other specimens of journalism are so ingrained that they are no longer seen as bias.

During a recent conversation with a friend who works in BBC radio and is really quite sound on most subjects, I realized that said friend quite literally could not understand that there was something slightly wrong with equating Israel and Hezbollah.

The same media finds it impossible to understand that violence is not an abstraction that is simply a bad thing and, therefore, everyone involved in it is equally bad with the only criterion being the number of victims (though that does not seem to apply to Iraq). The idea that some groups initiate violence and others defend themselves, sometimes through pre-emptive strikes, simply does not enter their world-view. Yet they are the people who want to impose their views on the rest of us and insist that the duly elected government follow their instructions.

The appallingly low standard of the British MSM became clear once again over the Qana pictures and the saga of the Green Helmet Man. It is true that Stern and Die Zeit have produce articles to prove that the story as uncovered in the first place by my colleague is wrong. On the other hand, we had the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Bild, Süddeutsche Zeitung as well as the Austrian Der Standard and the Neue Zürisches Zeitung covering the story in detail from a very different angle. And it is a German TV company that has produced the short tape of Green Helmet directing the filming of events in Qana. In other words, the German-language media is sitting up and taking notice of the staged films and photographs. Where is our superior media? Still blathering away in the shape of Shane Richmond and his self-regarding platitudes or congratulating itself, like the BBC, on publishing the corrected figures of the dead in Qana. What else had they intended to do?

The war against terrorism, whether it is fought in the Middle East, the Gulf or Europe is our war and in the course of it some startling truths have emerged, not least the fact that there are a great many people in position of some authority in this country who neither know nor care about what a constitutional democracy is. By a strange coincidence many of them are supporters of the EU. But not all, and that is frightening.

COMMENT THREAD

Green Helmet exposed

Look at it for yourself.

here.

Our analysis to follow.

It's all the same war!

See here for our post, "Qana – the director's cut".

The news will, quite rightly, be dominated by the airline bombing plot, and we will see wall-to-wall coverage of this. However, as we remarked earlier, there are two wars going on out there, "the shooting war" and the propaganda war. Already, Al Beeb has had a faux "security consultant" on the screen, declaring that the reason for the bomb plot is that our "aggressive" foreign policy has made us a "target" for terrorists.

The inference, which will be seized on by the "anti-war" rabble, is that if we pulled all our troops out of Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, all those nice little Moslem terrorists would leave us alone and go and slaughter some other poor, innocent victims (like in Madrid?).

In this context, therefore, exposing the Qana staging is as much part of the "war on terror" (albeit a small part) as all the many other activities against the terrorists. With its friends and fellow-travellers in the media, Hezbolla has shown itself adept at fighting the propaganda war and its activities here can negate the more solid achievements on the other fronts.

With that in mind, we will continue - for as long as it takes - exposing the lies and distortions of the propagandists, to which effect we post here a rough translation of the Stern article, which we flagged up earlier:

According to Conspiracy theories in the internet, the massacre of Qana found international attention just because the Hezbollah skilfully exploited the tragedy. During the Air raid on the south-lebanese village of Qana died according to latest figures 28 people. The house where they sought shelter had collapsed after being hit by a bomb.

Bloggers now state that a rescue worker who is being seen on many pictures is not a rescue worker but a public relations professional of Hezbollah. "Stern" printed a picture of the Lebanese last week, too. The man, who is nicknamed "Green Helmet" by the blog community because of his green helmet, wasn't there to recover children, but to present the dead bodies to the cameras. As evidence they state he ran across the scene with the same child for more than one time. An important indication for conspiracy theorists is that pics of him with an identical corpse were shot at different times.

Bizarre? Indeed.

The time evidence is nothing but that. The pics have not been shot at different times – the photographers just submitted them at different times via satellite to their agencies. None of the photographers or journalists present had the impression that they were part of a Hezbollah staging. Nick Blanford, working in Lebanon for twelve years for London Times and Time and one of the first on the spot says: "The Red-Cross people carried the bodies out of the basement one after another. In the beginning, the ambulance had no chance to get to the destroyed building. The rescue workers had to carry the bodies over a distance of 500 metres. That's the reason there are so many pictures of rescue workers with children in their arms."

Tim Fadek, working in Qana for picture press agency Polaris, did not see evidence for a staging. "Everybody was upset, it was quite chaotic. When they carried the bodies out of the basement, the workers themselves were finished. When they held a body to the cameras, it was nothing of a pose, but sheer distress and anger: look what they did to our children!"

And "Green Helmet"? The alleged Hezbollah agent?

"Green Helmet" is called Salam Daher. He is 38 years old, lives in Marjayoun, has three sons and has been working for the Lebanese civil protection agency for ten years. He is not a member of Hezbollah. Usually, he helps with forest fires, car accidents or other catastrophies. He was informed of the Qana incident one o'clock in the night, but he wasn't able to get there before seven o'clock in the morning, because Israel's warplanes shot at the roads. Being asked by Stern of allegations of having staged everything, he said: “That's ridiculous. I pulled more than ten children out of the remains, I was close to breakdown in the end. There were photographers everywere, you nearly couldn't work. Once I held a child into the lenses so everybody was able to make a shot – but just to get rid of them and continue my work.

The bloggers see it as an indication that Daher was being photographed with a dead child in his arms ten years ago after an Israeli air raid on an UN refugee camp in Qana. It was April 96, recalls the rescue worker. More than 100 died then. "In the wreckage I found a small child without a head. At first glance I thought it was a puppet. When I recognized it was a human body, I was shocked".

Meanwhile, the rumors spread. The Hezbollah trapped the victims of Qana in the basement, some blogs are writing, quoting anonymous sources – and with a second explosion they made the building collapse eight o'clock in the morning. Bizarre, say rescue workers who were actually there.

But where does this conspiracy theory come from?

Eureferendum.blogspot.com is one of the most active sites in this field. The author, a brit called Richard North, is a former RAF-officer, ex-consultant and today "political analyst", according to his own words. As a freelancer he publishes books critical to the European Union. In addition he is member of the conservative think tank "The Bruges Group". He doesn't deny his sympathy for Israel. When he was young, he lived in a kibbuz for a couple of months. "Media is always alleging they were independent", he says, "but I don't think this is possible. I for myself admit it: I am not."

Meanwhile, we have been sent the "Zapp" footage, which shows Green Helmet acting, quite overtly as a stage director. We'll post on this later today, in with other developments.

COMMENT THREAD

The religion of peace

The news coming in of the plot to blow up UK flights in mid-air is devastating. This is a salutary and important reminder that the "war on terror" is not a figment of the imagination of the Bush-Blair axis but a reality. Congratulations to the police and security services for intercepting the terrorists.

Despite the bleating of the BBC, the news agencies and their fellow travellers, there are some evil bastards out there and they aim to kill US – that is you and me, men women and children, without discrimination and without a shred of remorse.

Apparently, as many as ten British Airway flights from the UK to the United States had been targeted and the chilling thing is that liquid chemical explosives were to be used, defying normal airport security measures.

The plan was, we are told, was to blow the aircraft up over deep water so that there would be no wreckage or evidence, creating maximum fear, uncertainty and confusion, with the aim of bringing the air transportation system to a complete halt.

This is your enemy people, and he lives in our midst. But he takes his solace, his funding and justification from events in Iraq, in Palestine and in southern Lebanon. These are the people, members of the religion of peace, who regard death as a commodity, to be exploited, people who have no morals, no scruples and no mercy. And there is only one thing you can do with people like this – you root them out and, where necessary, kill them.

Michelle Malkin is picking up the threads, and providing onwards links.

COMMENT THREAD

I'm no Hezbolla guy

We are informed that Stern Magazine in Germany is running a long story tomorrow, carrying an interview with "Green Helmet". The contents page entitles the piece:

LIBANON Wie ein Rettungshelfer aus der Stadt Kana als Hisbollah-Agent verleumdet wurde. Die Spur führt nach England.

Translated, this is:

LEBANON. Rescue worker from Qana smeared as Hezbollah Puppet. Allegations trace back to England.

Apparently, his name is Ist Salam Daher and, according to a one report from a reader, he claims to be have been a rescue worker for ten years. He is a father of three children and claims he is "no hezbollah-guy". We are told he says that he showed one dead child to the photographers in Qana "in order to get rid of them."

We've been promised a translation of the article and we'll reserve comment until we've seen it.

Meanwhile, Michelle Malkin has some superb examples of staging photography, plus links to other sites.

COMMENT THREAD

Compare and contrast

Time to widen the anti-BBC front, methinks. At present, their fighters are hiding among civilians, such as the Russian Service or the Entertainment Section, in order to fire missiles of misguided news items at the public, who, to make matters worse, is forced to subsidize these jihadists of the air.

Allow me to put next to each other two headlines: Israeli cabinet mulls offensive and 11 soldiers killed as Israel plans expansion. A slight difference in emphasis, wouldn’t you say?

The first is from the BBC World Service Website and the piece, though a very long one, does not mention those Israeli casualties. There is, however, a long list of Israeli attacks, none of which seem to have produced many casualties. Even the BBC is becoming a little wary, perhaps, about inflating those figures.

“At least six people were killed when a two-storey building in the town of Mashghara in the eastern Bekaa Valley was hit and collapsed on top of them.

Medical sources told Reuters news agency a local Hezbollah official lived there.”

At the end we get these rather doubtful items:

“ International Committee for the Red Cross chief Jacob Kellenberger was forced to take refuge in an air-raid shelter during a Hezbollah rocket attack soon after crossing the border from Lebanon to Israel

Al-Arabiya TV reported that four Israeli soldiers had been killed in a rocket attack in southern Lebanon. There is no confirmation from Israeli sources

At least five Hezbollah rockets landed in a border area of the West Bank. No-one was hurt”

Well, all right, there is a bit of attacking going on there but, honestly, why do we need to worry?

How different from the much-maligned Al-Jazeera, which, with all its faults, appears to model itself on the BBC World and External Service of long-distant memory.

“Aljazeera has reported that 11 Israeli soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah as Israel's government debates on broadening its offensive in Lebanon.

The Israeli army declined comment on the reports that said the soldiers were killed near the Israel-Lebanon border.

But it had said earlier on Wednesday that 15 soldiers were wounded in overnight clashes, without specifying on Tuesday or Wednesday.”

The rest of the piece gives a fairly balanced summary of what has been happening in the last 24 hours, quoting both sides where necessary. Now, tell me again, why the BBC has such a high reputation.

Meanwhile Stephen Pollard quotes from an internal BBC memo, sent to him by a friendly mole. It seems, we are all wrong. Everything the BBC has done during the Lebanon crisis has been first-rate, wonderful, superlative.

“As the conflict between Israel and Lebanon enters its fourth week, our coverage stands out from our competitors because we continually give context.

...Excellent reporting on the ground from large number of people and Services, in very difficult circumstances. Jim Muir in particular was singled out for his outstanding work.”

And Qana? You will be glad to know, that, too, was an example of the BBC’s excellence:

“The lowering of the Qana death toll last week was a reminder of the need always to attribute fatality figures. We were right to report the revised figure...”

They were not the first to report the lowered figure by a long chalk but that comment does make me wonder whether they had intended to bury that particular bit of news. (Pun intended)

Stephen Pollard says that this reminds him of Soviet news reporting: “our industrial production of pig iron is once again the highest in the world”. Somebody else in the comments section said that, having grown up under Communism, she could only compare it to the comedy films she had seen.

As for me, I should like to remind everyone that George Orwell based his Ministry of Truth on the BBC.

COMMENT THREAD

All the world's a stage

On Sunday, we showed you a sequence of photographs, four in all, depicting an incident in which it was claimed that a civilian driver of a vehicle carrying bread had been targeted by an Israeli air strike.

Above, now, is a fifth photograph in the sequence, with the body being photographed in Tyre hospital. It rather speaks for itself. Including the person who took the photograph, I count no less than ten "snappers" (or their cameras) in the frame in what could not be a more obvious example of a staged photo-opportunity.

Note, as always, the presence of "Green Helmet", managing the scene, and the active complicity of a Red Cross worker who, once again, is so obligingly posing for the photographers. I am sure that Red Cross donors will be delighted to see their money so well spent.

It is as well, therefore to remind ourselves of the "rebuttal" issued by Associated Press on 1 August, after this blog had questioned the veracity of the Qana photographs, suggesting they had been staged.

Said Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor, "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described."

As far as I know, that "rebuttal" stands. But isn't it time Kathleen Carroll followed in the footsteps of Reuters and ate her own words?

COMMENT THREAD

Lights, Camera, Action!

This post has been superseded by our latest report . We have left this one in place for archival purposes only.

It is a given – or used to be – that in the fields of conflict, the one organisation that could be relied upon for its impartiality and dedication to humanitarian values was the Red Cross, whether the umbrella organisation, the International Red Cross or the national organisations which used the name.

And, as the fighting intensifies in Lebanon, the Red Cross is highly visible, sending ambulances and vehicles to the region, while its uniformed aid workers are to be seen everywhere in south Lebanon. They were highly visible at the Qana incident, in their orange overalls and white helmets with red crosses.

The assumption of impartiality was certainly relied upon by no less than the vacuous Shane Richmond who, in laboriously explaining to us how he chose a photograph of the Qana incident to illustrate the Daily Hezbolagraph website, showed us the picture on the right. This one, he intoned,

…shows a rescue worker carrying a child's body. The worker is displaying no emotion. He's a professional doing his job. Perhaps the emotional impact won't hit him until later, perhaps he has simply learned not to show his emotions. Whatever the reason, his lack of reaction means that our attention is directed wholly towards the child's body.

Instead, Richmond chose the staged picture of White Tee-shirt in full emotional flow, explaining that in this one, the man was reacting "very emotionally to what is happening". Thus, wrote the fount of all wisdom, "not only does that make for a more powerful picture but it also takes some of our focus away from the body".

But, it now transpires, had he opted for the Red Cross worker, Richmond would simply have gone from one stage-managed picture to another. Far from being a "professional doing his job", this was simply another actor in the grotesque production set up for the benefit of the photo-journalists who had gathered to record the disaster.

To see how this played out, we must go to the sequence at the start, where the body of the girl in Richmond's picture - clad in orange pyjamas - is recovered from the wrecked building. We see this in the photograph on the left, where a bearded Red Cross worker is handling the body, with "White Tee-shirt" in attendance although, in this scene, not taking a great deal of interest.

In this next frame, a video grab from the Aljazeera news footage, we see the same Red Cross worker emerging from the wreckage to the outside, still carrying the body of the same girl. The hand in the right-hand section of the shot indicates that someone is reaching out to take the body. In the top left corner can be seen the edge of the collapsed wreckage - a pale peach colour. This is an important reference point which we will see again in other frames, providing a marker by which we can judge positioning.

The video record is now stopped, so we cannot see precisely, from this source, what happens next. But we do see a still photograph (left), which shows a Red Cross worker holding the dead child, with the arm of another person gesticulating downwards (body out of shot) indicating - it seems - that the body should be positioned on the stretcher in view, already occupied by another body. The inference from this shot is that the body of the child is about to be placed on the stretcher. Of interest here, incidentally, is the number of photographers in view, plus a video camera operator.

Although we do not actually see the body being placed on the stretcher, it seems the inference is correct because in this photograph we see the child's remains in place. The scene actually shows a very familiar character, "Green Helmet", and a companion in a black baseball hat. This type of hat is often the badge of Hezbollah and we see this man in many frames elsewhere, apparently directing operations and giving what seem to be orders.

There is some ambiguity in this frame, as to what precisely is happening - whether the body is being placed or lifted - but, if we assume that it has already been placed by the Red Cross worker, then the logical inference is that "Green Helmet" and "Black Baseball Cap" are lifting the child up, off the stretcher.

Now we must digress slightly to show the normal evacuation route for casualties laid out in this area. This we can illustrate from video footage taken from Arab TV, showing a Red Cross worker carring a different body. As can be seen can be seen from the video and a composite of four "grabs" shown left (double-click to enlarge), the route is straight down the hill to a corner, where the bearers turn left and then continue down a long road. (Eventually, they come to another corner, whence they turn left again which brings them to "Stretcher Alley".)

Returning to the girl in orange pyjamas, we find her body in the arms of a different Red Cross worker - and there is something odd about the location. The worker is, in fact, down the hill from the opening of the wreckage from which the body was recovered but, instead of turning left round the corner, he has turned right, to stand on a pile of rubble. In this, the first frame of the Aljazeera footage, we catch him stationary, looking down to his right, evidently under the direction of the photographer closest to him. Note also the other cameraman (extreme left), the two behind him and the one in the centre of the frame, partly down the hull. Red Cross worker is obviously at the centre of a stage photo-shoot.

In this next "grab" taken from the sequence, we see Red Cross worker again, still under the direction of the cameraman closest to him stride purposely forwards, providing ample opportunties for a series of shots showing off his trophy. The resulting picture, from the angle, must be the one rejected by Shane Richmond, shown at the beginning of this sequence, which means we are probably seeing one of the Reuters photographers.

Then, as the Red Cross worker continues forwards, we see revealed yet another camera operative (this looks like a video camera), demonstrating the extent of the shoot. Note also, from this and the previous picture, the Red Cross worker has been set slightly down the rise, and is climbing uphill over the rubble. In this frame, he is about to step onto the level ground.

And here is our Red Cross worker again, this time taken by a still photographer. This time he is a few steps forward, well onto the level ground, still surrounded by cameras, and you can see from the background (with the peach-coloured beam) that he is just below the exit from the wreckage, from which point the girl's body was extracted.

But what is this? Oh woops! This is not the same Red Cross worker. The one in the video frames has red shirtsleeves. This one has white shirt-sleeves and is a completely different person. The above photograph, and this one (right) are part of a completely different sequence, played out in exactly the same location for the benefit of the photographers - with a completely different cast of actors. But, of course, the highly skilled and experienced agency photographers would immediately have been able to detect that this scene was staged, wouldn't they?

Now we are back to the Aljazeera video footage, with the red-sleeved Red Cross worker. The video sequence shows he has entered the lane without turning, which puts his original location - where the photo-shoot started, opposite the lane. And revealed here is the figure of "Black Baseball Cap" who is acting for all the world like a stage director, giving directions and orders to clear the way so that the remaining photographers can get their shots. Is this Mr Hezbolla managing the scene?

Here, in the final "grab" I have taken from the sequence - although there is plenty more footage on the video - we see our man having moved on a few steps to reveal yet another photographer. To the right of Red Cross worker is yet another, and there is another worker up ahead. We see the two later in the video sequence joining up together, marching down the lane towards "Stretcher Alley" until they are out of camera-shot.

Between the point where visibility is lost and "Stretcher Alley", however, it seems that Red Cross Worker must have tired of his burden. As we see in the director's cut, the girl's body is transferred to a stretcher - uncovered for the benefit of the photographers, and transported up to "Green Helmet's" waiting ambulance. The first of the stretcher bearers could be "White Tee-shirt", but we cannot see enough of the man to be certain.

We know the girl's body is eventually placed in the ambulance because we also see shots of it being posed with a variety of other characters such as this one, in the uniform of a Lebanese soldier. We can also guess that this sequence came after "Green Helmet's" camera run, as the girl's body he carried is visible in other pictures.

This one is a particularly unpleasant picture as the man has the child by the scruff, treating it with less dignity than one would a rag doll. But, perhaps, this is no different from using the body as a prop by a succession of actors, all to gratify the needs of the photographers and their editors who so skilfully decided that they photographs they used were not staged. Somehow, though, that Red Cross workers, who do represent that long tradition of impartiality, makes the media's protestations seem all the more tawdry.



All of this, of course, is a million miles from the image that the Red Cross itself presents – the above, for instance, on the British Red Cross website as it appeals for funds for the Middle East. But one wonders whether the potential donors would be quite so generous if they realised that in the past (and possibly in the future) money given to the Red Cross was used, in effect, to create Hezbolla propaganda and to gratify the commercial needs of the media and their quest for pictures of the dead.

COMMENT THREAD

UN diplomacy stalls (again)

When Tony Blair came back from the United States and before he decided not to go on holiday (I am not sure what is happening about that) he admitted that there was a split in the Cabinet on what should be the British policy on Lebanon. The split was, presumably, between those who supported the PM in his “Israel has the right to defend itself and there should be a cease-fire soon but there is very little we can do about it” and those who rather forcefully insisted that “Israel is a nasty aggressive state, though we think Hezbollah has gone a leeetle too far but there should be an IMMEDIATE and UNCONDITIONAL cease-fire though, frankly, we don’t exactly know what we can do about it”.

So who was going to produce the cease-fire resolution? Well, the UN, of course. And it has, indeed, produced a draft resolution, sponsored jointly by the United States and France, an odd combination.

In yesterday’s Daily Telegraph Con Coughlin welcomed this new-found Franco-American entente cordiale, hastening to explain it in various ways. The French, he says, have come a long way from being the “cheese-eating surrender monkeys” of 2003, though, perhaps, not as far as Mr Coughlin likes to think. Possibly French fries are back on the House of Representatives canteen menu but France remains an obstacle to peace efforts in most parts of the world, particularly the Middle East.

Mr Coughlin continues:

“As the former colonial power in Lebanon, the French certainly have more to offer in terms of influencing Lebanese factions than Britain, but this is not the only reason for the emergence of this unlikely entente cordiale.

Apart from Iraq, where predictions of civil war daily lend Mr Chirac's anti-war stance greater credibility, the French have proved themselves useful allies of Washington on a number of issues relating to the war on terror.

It was mainly through the intervention of the Quai d'Orsay that the Syrians were persuaded to give up their occupation of Lebanon and allow the country to function as a free democracy for the first time in decades.”

If this is what one of our best journalists can come up with, we must really despair. What evidence is there that France has had any influence whatsoever over any Lebanese faction or Syrian decision? What actually happened on several occasions that these organizations showed out and out contempt for French attempts to negotiate and France reluctantly had to scramble to support the American position.

This is what happened during the Cedar Revolution and after the assassination of Rafiq Hariri (a particular friend of President Chirac’s whom the Syrians did not hesitate in blowing away).

Did Lebanon become a free democracy? Well free-ish, I’d say. A free democracy, one assumes, would not have large parts of the country controlled by an armed militia, whose loyalties are to other states, in this case Syria and Iran.

Mr Coughlin does, however, make a couple of other interesting points. Unlike our own miserable former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, the French government adopted a “robust” position towards Iran, as it cocked a snook at the EU3 negotiators, of whom France was one. We can all remember President Chirac’s threats to use the French nuclear deterrent, should Iran threaten any French person.

As against that, one must point out that Philippe Douze-Blasty, the egregious Foreign Minister recently referred to Iran as a force for stability in the region. He then had to change his mind, when President Ahmadinejad informed the OIC that the obvious solution to the Lebanese crisis was the destruction of Israel.

None of that, of course, excuses Jack Straw’s idiotic behaviour and pronouncements though I found Mr Coughlin’s assertions that the previous two Foreign Secretaries were dismissed on demands from the Americans slightly odd:

“The Bush administration's deep-seated suspicion of the Foreign Office has already resulted in the removal from office of two foreign secretaries: the preening Robin Cook was dumped for criticising the American policies on the Kyoto Protocol and missile defence, and Straw was removed for pursuing his egregious policy of appeasement towards Teheran. Margaret Beckett is no doubt calculating that so long as the Bush White House has no firm policy on caravanning, she is safe.”

I think I’d like some evidence of this theory before I accept it as the real explanation. After all, there were so many other reasons for getting rid of those two losers. But one cannot blame the Bush administration for being deeply suspicious of the Foreign Office. We are all deeply suspicious of the Foreign Office.

May I, once again, direct our readers to that priceless episode in “Yes, Prime Minister” that deals with the never-ending perfidy of the FCO.

Here are two tiny quotations from it (no, I cannot resist it, since you ask):

“Jim Hacker: "Apparently, the White House thinks that the Foreign Office is full of pinkoes and traitors."
Bernard Woolley: "No, it's not. Well, not full."”

“Jim Hacker: "Who knows Foreign Office secrets, apart from the Foreign Office?"
Bernard Woolley: "That's easy. Only the Kremlin."”

Nothing much changes. But back to Mr Coughlin’s analysis of the new entente cordiale:

“But if Britain's star is in the decline, this is because Washington has finally woken up to the weakness of Mr Blair's domestic position and the ineffectiveness of the Foreign Office, which seems institutionally incapable of dealing with blatant threats to international security.

Sentimentality has never counted for much among the cold-blooded calculations of Washington's power brokers, and President Bush's courtship of Angela Merkel, Germany's chancellor, suggests that preparations are well under way at the White House to move on from the era of Bush/Blair.”

Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. If Washington has awakened to the weakness of Blair’s domestic position, what on earth does it think of Chirac’s domestic position? Nobody in his right mind can judge it to be strong.

It is true, however, that throughout this crisis we have seen different European countries operating separately and paying little attention to the common European foreign policy. As far as the CFSP is concerned, it’s a case of another crisis – another black hole. Perhaps, even the American foreign affairs establishment (not really that much better from our own beloved FCO) has woken up to this fact. If yes, that is one good thing achieved.

There is, of course, no doubt that the behaviour of the Foreign Office and various aged diplomats is enough to make us all blush with shame. The Toryboy blog, which is shamelessly Anglospheric, has put up a picture of the way the Anglosphere has lined up as against the EU and UN leaders (David Cameron is on the side of the EU/UN but that is not a surprise).

There is no question that the FCO would be on the side of the various tranzis. So far we have had various ex-ambassadors and high ranking officials sniffily criticizing Blair for his support of Israel and the United States.

Oliver Miles, our man in Libya once upon a time, even said on Sky

“that the recent hostilities between Israel and Hizbollah had been caused by the construction of Israeli settlements in Palestinian-populated areas of the West Bank.”

The man really knows his history. Yesterday’s Financial Times carried a letter from Sir Leslie Fielding, Director-General for External Relations, European Commission, 1982-87, in which he took the Prime Minister to task for not caring enough about Britain’s vital national interests. No doubt, in his position as DG for External Relations, he toiled night and day to promote Britain’s national interests, vital or otherwise.

The letter is such a hotch-potch of special pleading and nonsensical misreading of history that it really needs to be read in full. For instance, it insists that

“The European Union has hitherto, and rightly, been a reasonably good friend of Israel, but alas one whom Jerusalem has tended to take for granted.”

Not so much taking for granted but viewing with a certain amount of wariness. What is missing from the letter is the EU’s (and Britain’s) unaccountable support for the late unlamented Chairman Arafat (on the basis that once in his entire life he was actually elected by a very dubious process) and refusal to acknowledge his kleptocracy or his continuing support for terrorism. Arafat was the greatest obstacle to that famed “two-state solution” that Sir Leslie huffs and puffs about and his destructive legacy is still bedevilling Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon.

So any huffing and puffing Sir Leslie and his ilk might do will leave “Jerusalem” cold, I imagine, though as Mr Coughlin says:

“With diplomats like these, one might ask, who needs enemies?”

In fact, a period of silence from all former FCO staff would be most welcome.

All this may well account for the American decision to use the French as co-sponsors of the cease-fire resolution, or it may have been simple tactical calculation. If the French are not involved they are likely to sabotage the effort. This way, as a few people have suggested, France once again toed the American line.

Well now, where do we stand on the UN resolution? Hard to tell, really. Now you see it, now you don’t.

The first draft appears to have been rejected by Lebanon and the Arab governments as well as Russia because it was apparently too pro-Israeli. The objections were raised because, although the resolution called for an immediate cease-fire on all sides, it apparently allowed the Israeli forces to remain in Lebanon until a part-Lebanese, part-international force was established on the border.

Hezbollah has announced that it will not cease fire or anything else until Israel leaves Lebanon. Israel, on the other hand, has refused to do so until Hezbollah has stopped firing rockets. It has, however, expressed an interest in the proposals of 15,000 Lebanese troops plus 10,000 international ones, probably led by France, to patrol the border.

Meanwhile, the German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier has announced that he is going to the Middle East to attempt to bring all parties round to a support of the resolution.

Germany’s high profile in the diplomatic shuttling, incidentally, is almost entirely in response to Israel’s request (they probably don't trust the FCO either), though the government has rejected the idea of sending German troops in as part of the peacekeeping operation. In fact, it is not entirely clear who will send in those troops; nor is it entirely clear what the 15,000 Lebanese border patrollers will achieve, since they have not managed to achieve very much in the past.

Tony Blair has expressed his confidence that this time round (the UN Security Council is meeting at 3 pm EST) there will be an agreed support for the resolution. Well, maybe. One wonders what those who have been demanding an immediate demand for a cease-fire as a sort of panacea think of it all now. I suspect, when they said an immediate cease-fire, they did not mean on all sides, merely one that is to be imposed on Israel. The question remains: how is it to be put into effect.

Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh has asked a very pertinent question. Why is the international community not demanding a cease-fire in Iraq? Why is there no outcry about the children being slaughtered there by the various terrorist groups? Can't wait to hear the response.

COMMENT THREAD

The BBC speaks

The Qana pictures are interesting.

COMMENT THREAD

Arabs On Line

At the height of the war in the Lebanon, you can imagine that the public affairs department at the Israeli Embassy in London is pretty busy, sending information out to all who ask for it.

Obviously, "new" communications technology comes to the fore, with much of the material being sent by e-mail.

But not to AOL subscribers. The company has unilaterally decided that any e-mails sent out by the Israeli Embassy are automatically classified as "spam" and refuses to deliver them. That applies to correspondence as well as routine mailings.

We understand that Hezbolla seems to have no difficulty getting its messages through to "Arabs On Line" subscribers.

But, it ain’t all bad.

COMMENT THREAD

Funny thing that…

We have heard endlessly about "indiscriminate" Israeli bombing in Lebanon, not least from the egregious John Simpson, whom the BBC has despatched to the town of Tyre to witness its effects first hand.

Simpson was not disappointed for, while visiting Tyre hospital, the Israeli Air Force obliged with a bombing attack so conveniently positioned that our fearless hack was given a grandstand view from the window.

Moving outside, Simpson describes the "panic" caused by the attack, illustrated by a shot of one ambulance moving off at high speed from outside the hospital (waved off by a white-helmeted "Green Helmet").

But such is the obvious confidence that Simpson has in the accuracy of the Israeli bombing – and the clearly defined targeting – that throughout the raid he stands out in the open, witnessing the events, giving a calm, utterly relaxed commentary for the benefit of BBC viewers. In his shirtsleeves, he does not even trouble to wear the mandatory BBC blue flak-jacket, much less a helmet.

The funny thing is that, had he been in Kiryat Shmona during a Hezbolla rocket attack, he would have been running for his life to the nearest shelter. But there you go… that's discrimination for you.

COMMENT THREAD

Death is a commodity

Qana – the director's cut see here.

With the blogosphere crowing over its two easy victories over the MSM - or, to be more specific, Reuters - I share my colleague's somewhat jaundiced view of current developments. This may have something to do with the fact that I have been at this "story" for eight days continuously now, averaging something less than five hours sleep a night.

But it may also be a reaction to having to deal with – as my colleague decorously puts it - Shane Richmond's self-satisfied posturing.

More probably, it is both those things and a lot more, not least the fact that I, when I started writing this piece I had just come away from doing a recorded interview with BBC's Newsnight. I forecast to those around me that the bulk of what I said would never see the light of day, and that proved to be the case. But what was shown, in the context of Tim Whewell's overall commentary, I thought was a fair representation of our case.

But the proximate cause of my jaundiced demeanour, which is now bubbling over into anger, was an interview on the programme with the vacuous Shane Richmond. His underlying premise was exactly the same as he had articulated in his own blog:

…is the child dead? was the child killed by Israeli bombs? If so, the picture illustrates the story. If the picture does not alter the truth of the story, we're not being disingenuous. And the truth of the story is this: Israeli bombs killed several civilians in Qana, many of whom were children.

I got from his other comments what I though was a softening of the line, in that there was a half-admission that the photographs had been staged. But his central message remains, that it does not matter as long as the result accurately represents the reality that children died as a result of the bombing.

What that means, therefore, is that Richmond is asserting that publishing pictures of Hezbolla agents, parading the bodies of dead children in front of complicit photo-journalists for propaganda purposes, is perfectly acceptable as long as the result also matches what his paper wants to convey.

And that is why the crowing of the blogsphere is potentially dangerous. Not for nothing, more than a week after the first doubts about Qana have emerged, is the BBC prepared to entertain the issue. Although it has addressed the Qana issue, it was a brief exposition and the main focus was on "Reutersgate", which is reflected in the minimal publicity given to the issue in the wider media. If this goes on, then Reuters will become the fall-guy for a problem that, as my colleague rightly points out, is far wider and more serious than doctoring a few photographs.

At the root is that death – or pictures of death - have become a commodity. For Hezbolla, they can be traded for political leverage, for the photo-journalists – those who are not working for Hezbolla – a good "snap" of a dead baby brings the prospect of financial reward, fame and even awards. And, at the top of the heap are the editors and the likes of Shane Richmond, in their air-conditioned offices, thousands of miles away from the action, who see the "pics" merely as illustrations for their productions.

These people have become so degraded, so devoid of humanity and so divorced from civilised mores that pictures of death are assessed on their artistic merit, their emotional power and relevance. Their source and method of procurement are quite irrelevant as long as they are "suitable for purpose". One can almost imagine a scene where pictures are swapped like cigarette cards of old… "I'll give you two dead girls for your dead baby, and throw in a dead old man to make up the balance".

It is that amoral, soulless commercialisation of the images of death that gives Hezbolla its propaganda power. As long as it knows that the Western media is in the market for this commodity, and it suits its own propaganda purposes, it will ensure a continued supply. And that is another reason why Qana is so important. In that benighted Lebanese village, death was a tradable commodity in an obscene marketplace. And the media did not seem to think that there was anything wrong.

COMMENT THREAD

Green Helmet goes under cover

Seen on the 6 pm BBC Television News tonight, "Green Helmet" puts on a masterful performance for John Simpson outside Tyre hospital.

But, it seems, Green Helmet is getting a little shy. Gone is the trade-mark green, his helmet now covered by a makeshift coating of white tape, with an unidentifiable badge on the front. Do you think he knows he's been clocked?

Many thanks to the readers who drew this to my attention.

COMMENT THREAD

What we are up against

It is better to get a confession out of the way first. Today I came as close to resigning from the blog and all that surrounds it as I have ever done and ever hope to do. Why so, I hear some of our readers ask, are you not winning against the MSM?

It is possible that I do not like being on the winning side. Victories bring out the worst aspects of the victorious. Luckily, just as I got nauseated by the performance of the bloggers and those who comment on blogs, I read Shane Richard’s self-satisfied posturing and decided that I shall stay on this side of the barricades for a little while longer.

Many years ago (if I may digress for a moment) I had a conversation with Max Hayward, now, alas, deceased, the greatest expert on twentieth century Russian and Soviet literature. Max was talking gloomily about a group of dissident writers, I think the so-called village authors. He maintained that the only difference between the accepted Soviet writers and the “village authors” or other dissidents was that the former were published and the latter not.

Before all our readers say “well, duh”, I shall elucidate. The point was very clear. The fact that a writer was a dissident and, therefore, not published did not mean he (or she) was a good writer. In fact, he (or she) might be just as bad or even worse than the ones who were accepted and published in “Novy Mir” or “Literaturnaya Gazeta”.

This long forgotten conversation came to my mind this morning as I went from blog to blog, reading the same story over and over again. Bloggers hunt in packs, just like journalists, I thought gloomily. Right now, the pack has gone after Reuter’s because that news agency is, belatedly, trying to deal with what is a spectacularly messy situation.

They have issued a press release, which deals with the immediate problem of Adnan Hajj and his photographs. In it there is an intriguing sentence:

“The two altered photographs were among 43 that Hajj filed directly to the Reuters Global Pictures Desk since the start of the conflict on July 12 rather than through an editor in Beirut, as was the case with the great majority of his images.”

Does this mean that editing standards at the Global Pictures Desk are or have been laxer than among regional editors? Reuter’s says it will tighten up its editing rules but that, in itself, may not solve the problem.

After all, the Hajj pictures were doctored, it seems, in such an amateurish way that Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs, who has been at war with Reuter’s for some time, was only one of several people to notice this at once. Any experienced editor ought to have done so and vetoed the pictures, preferably starting an internal enquiry.

Given the long-standing accusations about Reuter’s bias in the Middle East, we hope that a general sorting out will take place.

Certain problems are almost unavoidable. Hezbollah (and Hamas and Fatah and Islamic Jihad) control their territory and are not over-scrupulous of the methods they use to control journalists as well. Reporting in such a way as to make Israel always seem in the wrong will have very few consequences. Reporting the opposite or even in a more objective fashion may well bring unwanted guests, fully armed, into the family home. Of course, this does not apply to Adnan Hajj or others who have deliberately faked pictures. They are part of the propaganda machine.

That is why the role of editors who are not in the Middle East, but sitting in “air-conditioned offices” in Britain or the United States is so important. If they are allowing biased reporting and staged and even faked photographs through, there is a serious problem.

All the same one cannot escape the feeling that the blogger pack has gone after Reuter’s because they have, reluctantly, admitted the problem and are, possibly, trying to deal with it.

AP has done nothing of the kind and, yet, some of the most egregious photographs from Qana and other places in Lebanon and, before that, Gaza, the West Bank, Afghanistan, Iraq etc etc were published by them. AP, so far as anyone can tell, stand by their original statement of “huff and puff, how dare you accuse us of such things, you miserable little worm”.

The BBC grandly dismisses the idea that Reutersgate, as it is already known (how I wish those plumbers had never gone in) in any way reflects on journalistic standards, though we all know that the BBC has indulged in some fancy reporting from the Middle East (and from the United States, and from Brussels, and from Iraq, and from Afghanistan). It is worth comparing BBC headlines and stories with those of Al-Jazeera. There is no doubt that the latter is considerably more balanced. (Though, to be fair, the BBC Russian Service has written a very well argued piece under the title “The camera doesn’t lie?” and even put up a link to EUReferendum.)

What of France-2, the egregious TV channel, whose amazing sequences from the West Bank, specifically, from Jenin tugged on billions of heartstrings around the world? The cameramen most certainly knew that Pallywood had staged the entire production.

It is possible, of course, that the reason why Reuter’s is the one in everybody’s sights is that we all expect something better from them. I wouldn’t switch on my computer to bother to fisk or whatever the photographic equivalent of that is, the BBC.

Reuter’s is different. Many of their reports are still of a very high standard and most of their pictures are astonishingly good. They were the first to break the story of the disappearing Houla victims, for instance. It went on CNN from them and was only afterwards picked up by the dear old Beeb and other news agencies.

Which brings me back to the point where this entire saga started just over a week ago. What we are dealing with is not one news agency having a rogue photographer and incompetent editors who then try to cover their backs but a canker that has eaten into almost the entire MSM or, at least, its English language parts.

There are various reasons here, I think. One is the bias that is no longer seen as bias. The MSM tends to lean to the left and takes up all left-wing causes with gusto. This goes even for the supposedly right-wing publications like the Daily Telegraph.

They have all reached a stage when they no longer even understand that they are biased but assume that their own bias is the objective point of view. It is those who depart from it who are weird. We have seen this on matters European, on the reporting of American politics and society and, above all, the Middle East. Here it is axiomatic in most of the MSM that Israel is a land-grabbing, arrogant, aggressive, imperialistic, racist ….. (fill in the blanks) entity, though few would admit that they think the country should not even exist.

Most journalists do not bother to find out much about Israel or, for that matter, the surrounding countries and will happily repeat any old rubbish about the treatment of Israeli Arabs, for instance. When did the BBC last mention the fact that there are Arab deputies in the Knesset?

Some of it is in-built bias and some of it is plain sloppiness. I have worked in journalism and know how often one goes for the easy option: asking the same “experts”, quoting the same sources, using the same copy or pictures. And when the balloon goes up, as it has done with Reuter’s this week-end, the immediate instinct is to try to wriggle out.

Given all that, it is easy enough for those who are determined to produce propaganda to do so and to exploit the bias and the laziness. We have seen this over and over again, not least with Pulitzer Prize winners in the United States and, in particular, the New York Times. A third reaction sets in: a reluctance to acknowledge that a young intern or a journalist or a photographer with his own agenda has played all those hard-nosed, experienced editors for suckers.

Finally, one cannot end this subject without mentioning the stupendous self-satisfaction of the media. Those of us old enough can remember where it started: Watergate and Vietnam – the media bringing down a President and ensuring American defeat. Those were the glory days and many, certainly in the States, still hark back to that. It annoys them that Iraq is not Vietnam and Bush is not Nixon (also greatly hated by the great and the good).

Journalists became the ultimate arbiters of opinion and political mores. They could question any one; undermine any one; destroy any reputation. There was no higher court of public opinion. Not until a few years ago when the bloggers appeared and started doing to the media what it had done to politicians and others. My guess is that many of the journalists in question are still in shock and cover it by their grand, condescending, self-approbation.

"Who are you to question us?" That is the theme of most journalists on bloggers, words that are very similar to the ones politicians used a long time ago about the journalists themselves. Physician, heal thyself.

On balance and despite everything I can see that bloggers are needed. They do hunt in packs but we need lots of different packs hunting in different directions, sometimes going for each others’ throats. A free market in opinion or, maybe, a jungle. A healthy growth, whichever way one looks at it. Maybe I shall not resign yet.

COMMENT THREAD

Disingenuous?

"Many in the blogosphere are using Hajj's misdeeds as evidence supporting the claims that photos in Qana were staged. I think they're making a leap," says Shane Richmond, web news editor of The Daily Hezbollagraph. Our Shane continues:

Hajj was at Qana but he didn't take any of the disputed photographs of "white t-shirt man". Of course, for many, if the honesty of one photographer is questioned then all are dishonest. This is a bit like saying that since some soldiers tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib, all soldiers are torturers.

If anything, I think the Hajj case demonstrates that picture agencies are prepared to admit when they've made a mistake.

However, as I've mentioned before, whatever we do is seen as proof of our duplicity. If we admit our mistakes, we're asked what else we haven't admitted to. If we deny the claims against us, we're accused of covering up.

Nevertheless, I'm glad that we are being held up to this kind of scrutiny. Without it Hajj's images would probably not have been uncovered - Reuters clearly missed them the first time round. However, bloggers have to accept that sometimes we'll dismiss their claims, which is what has happened with the Qana photos.

How very noble of you Shane. But Hajj did photograph the "dead baby". We're not being disingenuous are we?

Jeff Jarvis on the Guardian website, offers his commentary on the issue.

COMMENT THREAD

Second one down

Breaking News in Reutergate! Second picture by Adnan Hajj published by Reuters withdrawn for being doctored!

Reuters have now released a statement saying it has recalled all photos by Hajj. "Reuters has withdrawn from its database all photographs taken by Beirut-based freelance Adnan Hajj after establishing that he had altered two images since the start of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Hizbullah group," the statement said.

The agency said that it (er...?) discovered "in the last 24 hours that he (Hajj) altered two photographs since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hizbullah," Reuters added. "There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image", Reuters' statement quoted Tom Szlukovenyi, Reuters Global Picture Editor, as saying.

Reuters also said it would apply "tighter editing procedure for images of the Middle East conflict to ensure that no photograph from the region would be transmitted to subscribers without review by the most senior editor on the Reuters Global Pictures Desk."

For further details, see Muqata.

Now, what about Qana? And what about the other agencies? American Thinker has some views on this.

Newsnight are picking up the story this evening. I am doing an interview for them. From past experience, they will record me for half an hour and then use 30 seconds of carefully selected phrasing to illustrate precisely the point they wanted to make.

I should know better than to agree to be interviewed.

COMMENT THREAD

Are we in denial?

From the online version of The Daily Hezbollagraph, we get the news from the emotional Tim Butcher that "Israel suffered its bloodiest day in the war with Hizbollah yesterday when 12 reserve soldiers were killed by a Katyusha rocket fired from southern Lebanon, destroying any chance of an early ceasefire."
Later in the story, Butcher continues:

There was no immediate Israeli reaction, although whenever Hizbollah has caused large-scale casualties there has been forceful retaliation. The problem has been identifying Hizbollah targets.

Then we go to the print edition (final), where we find on page 10:

Israel's response was swift. Within hours, warplanes had attacked the Lebanese town of Qana and destroyed the launchers that fired the rockets, a spokesman said.

Now, would that be the same Qana that no one talks about any more, the one where all those innocent civilians were killed?

COMMENT THREAD

The lies they tell…

Little Green Footballs is having a whale of a time with the news that al Reuters has suspended its photojournalist Adnan Hajj (he of Qana fame) after he had (rather badly) photoshopped a photograph of a bombing raid on Beruit, to increase its apparent severity.

There is a good forensic evaluation of the techniques used, here, and a discussion of the broader implications, while journalism.co.uk runs the media reports.

But it is the comment section of this site that there is buried gold. Per Thulin tells us that he has found another altered image by Adnan Hajj (pictured above left). This purports to show an IAF F-16 firing a salvo of missiles at a (presumably) Lebanese target. But, as the sharp-eyed Per observes,

one has three identical smoke trails (top half) from rockets. Two of the rockets are therefore added.

Actually, he has only got half the story. The smoke trails and bright points of light are not missiles at all. They are decoy flares, fired off as a defence against infra-red guided missiles. Firing these is a star turn for aircraft at airshows, and here is a picture (right) of a Dutch F-16 showing off. Below left is another aircraft doing the same thing – this one an F-18 Hornet.

You will see from these pictures that the flares are fired as a spread, not parallel, to give wide area protection. Thus, it looks as if Hajj has taken one trail, copied it and then placed the three, parallel identical trails under the aircraft to make it look as if it is firing missiles.

But that is not all. If you look closely in front of the trails that Hajj has inserted, you will see that he has also inexpertly added three solid objects, purporting to be the missiles themselves. However, missiles do not look like that. Below right you will see a picture of an F-16 firing an air-to-ground Maverick missile, typical of the type used by the Israeli Air Force. Hajj's pictures look nothing like this and, furthermore, these are never fired salvo. You will only ever see them fired singly.

Hajj's photograph is datelined 2 August but no time is given in the caption. Perhaps, if al Reuters could tell us what the time stamp says, and the location of the shot, no doubt the IAF could tell us whether they even had an F-16 in that area at the time. While we are about it, perhaps al Reuters could give us the date stamps for Hajj's Qana photographs.

Meanwhile, Drinking from home has got his own example of picture fraud from al Reuter's Issam Kobeisi.

But remember people – these are examples of picture fraud, which can be detected. The captions which the journalists supply can also be fraudulent, but no amount of forensic examination will pick that up. But, if they're rigging the pictures, how can you possibly trust the words?

It looks like al Reuters has got a whole lot of explaining to do – and that's just the start. The other agencies are also in the frame. Perhaps they could get Shane Richmond to do an investigation.

And no, we have't finished our evaluation of Qana. Some more sequencies to follow as soon as we can.

Jawa Report also does the "missile" story.
The Shape of days does a forensic analysis.

COMMENT THREAD

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth

Hot off the press from Al Reuters comes another heart-rending story from Lebanon, detailing how the genocidal Israelis are once again deliberately targeting innocent civilians with their air strikes.

From the story, written by Hussein Saad, we learn that an Israeli jet killed two people with a missile close to a United Nations aid convoy. To lend veracity to his story, Saad calls in aid Robin Lodge, spokesman for the UN's World Food Programme. "A vehicle was hit some 15 km (9 miles) north of Tyre as it was travelling a few metres ahead of our convoy," he is cited as saying, "It was carrying bread. It was civilians... This has come as a shock and underlines just how dangerous it is right now."

We are not told whether Lodge was actually at the scene but he is probably with the UN convoy. His citation continues, with him saying that the convoy stopped but did not offer first aid "because local officials were quickly at the scene". We are also told that an un-named "witness at the hospital" saw the bodies of the two who died in the attack.

That is the "factual" core of the report, which is then padded out with other material. The incident has also been fully recorded by at least three photographers, who just happened to be at or near the scene, even though we are told, in careful detail, how difficult it is in moving on the roads of southern Lebanon.

From the three photographers, we have four pictures. The first, shown above left, is from AP's Ben Curtis, who offers this by way of a caption:

Emergency workers rush to remove the lifeless body of a victim of an Israeli missile strike in Tyre, southern Lebanon, Sunday, Aug. 6, 2006. Israel continued its bombardment of Tyre and surrounding areas Sunday and its assault on southern Lebanon.

The second photograph is also from Ben Curtis (above right), while the third is from Al Reuter's Zohra Bensemra, who took a picture of the dead baby at Qana. He offers this caption:

A Lebanese rescue worker talks to his colleagues next to the body of Ali Reda Ghabun, who was killed in an Israeli air strike, at the government hospital in the southern port city of Tyre (Soure) August 6, 2006.

The final picture of the sequence (below right) comes from our old friend, also of Qana fame, Kevin Frayer, who offers this caption:

Medics prepare to load the body of a Lebanese man killed in an Israeli missile strike, into a coffin after arriving at the hospital in the port city of Tyre, southern Lebanon, Sunday, Aug. 6, 2006. The man was driving a van full of bread from the city of Sidon north of Tyre when the missile was fired on the vehicle, sources said.

Now, from the "on-the-spot" reporting, by four separate journalists, there can be no doubt that this is another "innocent victim" of an Israeli bombing raid. But, let us play devil's advocate. If we take the journalistic sources as tainted, the only independent witness cited is Robin Lodge, who says the UN did not offer first aid "because local officials were quickly at the scene". You bet they were.

One might suggest, with a healthy dose of cynicism, that this was rather convenient. That means no independent witness gets to look inside the van "full of bread". Furthermore, we have so far been offered no photographs of this van, exterior or interior. We only get to see one "victim". And, as for the "local officials" so quickly on the scene, one could very well be none other than Mr "Green Helmet", Hezbolla scene manager (the "cleaner"?), to make sure the right things are said and done. He is visible in all four scenes.

Lets us add some more factors. Point one: all Hezbolla "fighters" are prosecuting this war in civilian clothing. Point two: Hezbolla use civilian vehicles (and even ambulances) to transport their Katyusha missiles and other war materiel.

Putting all this together, let us indulge in some pure invention and offer an alternative, all-purpose caption for the four photographs, as follows:

The scenes show the body of a Hezbolla terrorist in civilian clothing, guarded by a Hezbolla "minder" posing as a civil defence worker. The terrorist was caught by an Israeli precision air strike while transporting war material in a civilian vehicle disguised as a bread delivery van. He was one of two in the vehicle who was killed and, although the strike was only "metres" away from a UN convoy, no one else was hurt.

As I said, this is pure invention. Without a detailed investigation and independent verification, we could not even begin to assert that it was true. We must, therefore, rely on the good faith of Messrs Hussein Saad, Ben Curtis, Zohra Bensemra and Kevin Frayer, who have unimpeachable credentials as impartial reporters.

We have every confidence that they are telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

COMMENT THREAD

Only after scrutiny…

We just picked this up from Michelle Malkin via Little Green Footballs.

Our policy is to send news to our customers only after scrutiny by a group of production editors who ensure quality standards are maintained across all our news services. When we get something wrong, our policy is to be honest about errors and to correct them promptly and clearly.

Reuters

That's the same sort of scrutiny as was given to the pictures of Qana?

COMMENT THREAD

"Don't preach to us"

In an interview with Welt am Sonntag, as reported by Al-Jazeera, the Israeli Prime Minister Ehmud Olmert dismissed European criticisms of Israeli treatment of civilians in Lebanon:

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

"European countries attacked Kosovo and killed 10,000 civilians. 10,000! And none of these countries had to suffer before that from a single rocket.

"I'm not saying it was wrong to intervene in Kosovo. But please, don't preach to us about the treatment of civilians."”

His figures of the Kosovo death toll are somewhat askew. 10,000 civilians were not killed in that last phase of the war that had begun in 1989 and certainly not by NATO. But his point is entirely reasonable. Civilian casualties have happened in every war and, on the whole, they have been very low in Lebanon this time round. And that is not even going into the whole argument of who is and who is not a civilian in a war in which a uniformed army is facing attacks from an enemy that does not make itself known.

One more point to be made that the European critics might like to take into account. Hezbollah fires rockets into Israel without warning but the Israelis ensure that families, as far as possible, are protected in bomb shelters.

Israel issues warnings of bombings but neither the Lebanese authorities (though, one must assume, they are not in charge in many of the southern areas like Tyre and Qana and not always in Beirut) nor Hezbollah bothers to ensure that civilians, especially women, children and old people, are hidden in shelters.

There is, therefore, a higher casualty rate in Lebanon. Could we have a comment from the European politicos and media, please?

COMMENT THREAD

From Walter Duranty to Green Helmet and beyond

Jenin, Gaza, Qana and now Beirut. Journalism, both photo and word, used to advance the enemy’s propaganda. In case anybody is wondering, terrorists are our enemies as well as Israel's.

We have, of course, been here before. Think of all those journalists who sent fake stories from the Soviet Union, from Mao’s China, from North Vietnam, from Cuba. What is the common factor here? In each case we are dealing with systems and organizations who understand the importance of propaganda. (Let’s face it, the Communist propaganda was always far more effective than the Nazi one, which was not precisely believed except by those who were part of that project.)

So one can say, journalists are being manipulated and are allowing themselves to be manipulated. But there is another common factor. All of these systems and organizations are left-wing causes and, for some time now, the media as a whole has been left-leaning. So, journalists and editors may well be complicit.

EU Referendum has now decided to move beyond the debate as it is being waged at the moment (not that we intend to retire from the fray, no, sirreee). We are announcing an annual prize.

It has been suggested to us that we should have a Walter Duranty Prize for journalists. Duranty, for those who do not know, was the most important of the western propagandists for Stalin and was given a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his reporting from the Ukraine that, unaccountably, failed to mention the effects of collectivization on that sadly benighted area. His other reports were in the same vein. Both at the time and later, when he returned to New York, he made sure that careers of journalists who questioned his accounts were destroyed. The New York Times helped in this endeavour.

Duranty was a particularly egregious specimen but there were many others at the time and later. Some have recanted, others never did. (I have never been able to take the argument, "I know, I was there", very seriously.)

Talking it over, however, we have decided to take up another suggestion from a reader.

EUReferendum hereby announces the creation of the annual Green Helmet Award for the crassest example of journalism being manipulated for the promotion of terrorism and terrorist organizations. The runner up will receive the White Tee-Shirt Award.

We invite all our readers to contribute examples that they think deserve a nomination and we shall publish the examples on the blog as we receive them. Next July we shall ask an online panel to judge all the entries (or we might introduce a more widespread voting system) and announce the winner and the runner-up on July 30, in honour of Green Helmet's bravura performance in Qana.

COMMENT THREAD

A parallel universe

There was a time when the Sunday newspapers devoted the bulk of their space to analysis of the previous week's events, adding detail and reflection that the dailies, slaves to the demands of immediacy, cannot offer.

And, when it comes to the week's news agenda, there can be no doubt that the most powerful and dramatic event was the incident at Qana. Furthermore, there is every reason to believe that Hezbolla intended to maximise the impact of the casualties for one very good reason. It had seen the IDF forces lining up on the border and – unlike the hacks – would have had a very clear idea that, at the very least, a deep raid was being planned.

That Israel was intending more than a series of clashes immediately inside the Lebanese border was clearly evident as early as last Saturday. We certainly predicted this then, simply from an analysis of the equipment being deployed – especially the large numbers of Pumas which the IDF describe as Poretz Mokshim Handasati (minefield breakthrough vehicles).

Despite the wailing propaganda from the "liberal" (not) press, which wishes to convey the message that military action is useless and that Israel's military efforts are failing, the IDF has been giving out consistently bullish messages to the effect that it is seriously damaging Hezbolla. I am sure that is right. The indications are that Hezbolla over-reached itself. It did not expect such a robust or prolonged response and was (and still is) anxious for a cease fire. The need became doubly urgent when it saw the nature of the military forces lined up against it, having been at the receiving end of its awesome capabilities.

This, of course, is speculation but nonetheless informed speculation – precisely what one used to expect from the quality Sunday papers. It also puts the Hezbolla response to the Qana incident in context. Arguably, it engineering a massive PR campaign on the site, specifically with a view to turning opinion in the United States against the Israeli military action and forcing an early cease-fire.

If that is actually what did happen, then it is a matter of some significance that the IDF is still deployed and fighting. One could say on that basis – despite the help, willing and unwitting - from its allies in the Western media, that the ploy failed. The current developments in seeking to arrange a cease fire through the United Nations are looking like they are going nowhere in a hurry, and a timetable still looks highly tentative.

However, you do not have to agree with this analysis to accept that the issues would be a valid and highly relevant topic for discussion. Furthermore, given the enormous controversy raging about the Qana incident, one might confidently expect considerable discussion about it – both broad and narrow – in today's papers.

It comes as no real surprise, though, to find that the newspapers are almost completely devoid of any discussion of Qana or its (nearly) strategic implications. But the surprise is absent only because this blog has been part of the controversy, taking nearly half a million hits since the news broke.

From this comes the realisation that, in the UK at least, the controversy has been confined to the internet – the blogs and the forums – confirmed by the fact that, if you google "green helmet" and "Qana", you will find some 36,600 links – with no reference to any of the major British media sources. In other words, the MSM is totally out of the loop. In terms of the "big issue", it is not even in the game and the debate is going on without it.

This cannot be unrelated to the fact that the MSM is running its own agenda and, as we experienced this week from a number of responses to our posts, including this and this, it seems to believe it is perfectly acceptable to lie in order to pursue it. And, as Little Green Footballs and American Thinker point out, it is continuing to do so – the former illustrated by the Reuters' picture above, which shows evidence of having been doctored.

That, more than anything, has created a world of two medias, the MSM and the blogosphere. Each occupies parallel universes with very little connection. But, inasmuch as the blogosphere ran the agenda this week, and the MSM failed to achieve its, there are some indications that the tipping point has been reached. It could well be that, when the histories are written, Qana will be seen as the incident which shifted the balance of power from the dead tree sellers to the keyboard addicts - the week when the bloggers and the internet community held the line.

Maybe such thoughts are premature – but maybe not. If they are - and in any event - the writing is on the wall and it is not surprising the MSM are rattled. Parallel universes there may be, but this town ain't big enough for both of them.

COMMENT THREAD

Another fan letter from the MSM

Received today, an e-mail from Sharon Van Geuns of The Sunday Mirror. It is headed "bleatings", and reads:

Richard North... if this be you. What a poisonous little man you are... who cares what's written on the man's white t-shirt! As if it matters at all when the undeniable fact is a child/children have died in an Israeli bombing attack! Who are you to question whether the pictures are faked. Get real. I am against this war and Hezbollah but your right-wing bleatings are nonsensical and unhelpful and should be kept to yourself. Policitcal (sic) analyst? Don't make me laugh.

And, in case you didn't remember who the lovely Sharon is, this is an example of her inspiring political commentary.

She can be reached at this e-mail address.

Graphic by Anoneumouse

COMMENT THREAD

The Daily Hezbollagraph

…is the child dead? was the child killed by Israeli bombs? If so, the picture illustrates the story. If the picture does not alter the truth of the story, we're not being disingenuous. And the truth of the story is this: Israeli bombs killed several civilians in Qana, many of whom were children.

Shane Richmond
Web News Editor, The Daily Telegraph

He is responding to criticisms from this blog that scenes photographed at Qana (and especially the one above, used by The Telegraph) were stage-managed. (The caption reads: "A rescue worker carries the body of a young girl from the ruins of a basement shelter..." and the photo credit goes to Lafarge Frederic/GAMMA.)

Dealing with the question posed as to whether the scene depicted on the front page of his newspaper was "staged", his specific answer was: "I doubt it." He adds, "The Telegraph picture desk - who are far more experienced in these matters than I - doubts it and the agencies who supplied the photographs have denied it. In the absence of a time machine, it's hard to know what else to do."

On the question of whether the emotion was genuine, that to Richmond is a "bonkers" question. "Are you suggesting photographers taking photos at bomb sites should question people they photograph to gauge how sad they are? Would they then correlate this sadness rating with the image somehow?"

Yes, he says, "we chose one picture over the other on the basis of its emotion, its power as an image. We do the same in bombings, earthquakes, people getting A-level results - even disappointed football supporters. Is this really a shock to you?"

However, as to the conduct of the disaster site at Qana, it seems that BILD-Zeitung - Germany's biggest newspaper – is having no difficulty in deciding that "Green Helmet" is, as one of our German correspondents tells us, "a professional Hezbollah propaganda man". And, as is evident from our reviews, "Green Helmet" was very much in charge on the day. Thus is the piece headed, "How Hezbollah terrorists make propaganda with dead children".

Interestingly, BILD offers another photograph from the 1996 Qana disaster, and again we see "Green Helmet" in his classic pose, parading a dead child for the media to film.

Also taking up the issue is Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which asks "Was geschah wirklich in Kana?", while the Dutch newspaper, Trouw asks, "Is 'Green Helmet' helper of propagandist?" The paper shows no less than 17 pictures of "Green Helmet" and, I am told, leaves it up to the reader to decide. The article ends declaring of "Green Helmet", "The only certainty is that the child he holds in his arms is dead".

It really is comforting to know that Shane Richmond is not troubled such issues, and he seems quite happy to use Hezbollah propaganda in his newspaper. And of course, what we think - his customers - does not matter. And airily does he dismiss this blog, citing the "one example" on the issue of the tee-shirt. This, writes Richmond, "raises a question about North's whole argument: was the whole thing a propaganda stunt aimed a tricking a gullible mainstream media? Were North's claims staged?"

Thus, we are meant to conclude, The Daily Hezbollagraph is perfectly in order. The picture was vital to telling the story and this Blog is wrong – on everything.

COMMENT THREAD

Qana - the director's cut

This post has been superseded by our latest report . We have left this one in place for archival purposes only.


I have called this post, "the director's cut", as that is what it is. The narrative here is of how the combination of Hezbollah's media management and modern photo-journalism has turned the recording of a tragic event into theatre, in the best tradition of Michael Moore.

As best we can, we have pieced together the jumble of evidence which surrounded the production of the iconic photographs which were published around the world, and put them in perspective. Many of the photographs have been used before, some are new to this site and others are video "grabs". But it is not the pictures, per se, that tell the story, so much as their ordering and analysis. Make of this what you will, but I can assure you that you are not supposed to see them in this light.

The "story" - for that is what it is - starts here, in the wreckage of the buiding at Qana which is performing the temporary and unwholesome function of a morgue. It is from here, that the bodies are extracted, the essential props of this theatre. And standing on the left of the frame is one of the two star characters of our story, Mr "White Tee-Shirt". With equal accuracy, though, we could call him Mr Hezbollah, for reasons which will become apparent.

Mr "White Tee-shirt" is billed variously as a "rescuer" and "local resident". We see him in many pictures, very much at the centre of events. He has free, unchallenged access to the collapsed building, even though he is not in uniform and has no apparent formal role. But, although we see a lot of him, there is not a single picture of him digging or moving rubble. More often, he is standing around watching, like he is doing here. But for what?

Well, here he is again, this time inside the wreckage and again he is not actually doing anything but watching. But it seems he is doing more than that. We get the distinct impression he is looking for particular bodies. The one in the arms of the Red Cross worker, the body of the "girl in orange" is not one of them. Mr "White Tee-shirt takes no interest in it and shows no emotion.

And it is in this frame that we see the teeshirt (inset) which seems to have writing on the chest. An expert has contacted us and agrees, telling us that it seems to have been electronically blurred to obscure the message it conveys.

Anyhow, it is now clear that the body of the "girl in orange" is not what is wanted. It is unceremoniously dumped outside, and is later stretchered off to the waiting fleet of ambulances. This is what happens to most of the bodies, which are carried up "stretcher alley" by diverse parties of stretcher bearers through the day. As with other casualties, the wrapping is conveniently left open to allow photographers to take pictures as the stretcher passes.

However, there then seems to be something of a commotion. Not one but two bodies of girls have been found. From this Newsnight video grab we see them being manhandled out to the opening of the wrecked building. At this stage, the bodies are not treated with any care or dignity as they are handed to "White Tee-shirt". But it seems evident that he has found what he wanted. And, although, on film he speaks loudly and gesticulates, there is no display of anything that could be interpreted as emotion.

Now, entering stage-right is the second of our star characters, "Green Helmet". Without any ado, he makes a grab for the first of the girl's bodies, which is surrendered by a deferant "White Tee-shirt". In the next frame (not shown) Mr "Green Helmet" cradles the body in his arms, as if to carry it. And here we also see that "White Tee-shirt" seems to have changed his top, his new garment sporting a small logo on the chest (although we now know, courtesy of The Daily Telegraph that this is not the case).

Anyhow, in the next frame, we begin to see the game plan. "Green Helmet" is making a "camera run", carrying the highly photogenic corpse of a little girl, holding it is arms to maximise the shock value and the emotional impact. At this stage, though, he is walking up to "Stretcher Alley" and is reserving his expression. This is sombre but not demonstrably dramatic. Several "snappers" go through the motions and take his picture but the results are little used.

In this frame, though, "Green Helmet" is going up "Stretcher Alley" in full view of the waiting media. Framed against the rubble, with the girl's body in his arms, he displays an intensity of emotion that we have not seen in him before. The combination makes for the iconic shot which is published throughout the world and, ironically, is now available printed on a white tee-shirt.

Out of shot, the route is marked out by Red Cross workers and others, redolent of mashalls on a race route. It has the feel of a highly organised film set, which is precisely what it is. And, in this frame, "Green Helmet" co-ops one worker into the theatre to provide the media with another photo opportunity. Whatever the message though, it is not real. The uniformed worker is merely a prop. "Green Helmet" does not need guidance - he has been up and down this route ceaselessly.

The corpse having served it purpose, "Green Helmet" has no further use for it. He dumps it on a guerney, leaving it in the care of the worker we have called "the man in black". There are other photo-opportunities in the making and, to "Green Helmet", these are his priority. He is off, without even waiting to see the corpse properly secured.

While "Green Helmet" and "White Tee-shirt" could have left together (the corpses were available together at the wreckage), and even carried the two corpses on a single stretcher, properly covered in respect for the dead. But that was never the game plan. With "Green Helmet" having done his camera run, it is now the turn of his partner to show off the trophies. We see him striding out carrying his photogenic corpse, surrounded by snappers and TV cameramen, who are obviously ready and waiting for him.

This and the previous shot, taken as "screen grabs" from a France 2 news broadcast, are hardly iconic material. But, as he approaches the media scrum, "White Tee-shirt" is assuming an anguished expression which intensifies with every stride. His mouth opens and he starts to shout passionately, as he steps onwards, his swiftening stride conveying a sense of urgency. Yet, the urgency is false. He has waited for "Green Helmet" to complete his run before even starting out.

Well into his stride now and emoting freely, "White Tee-shirt is producing iconic material, eagerly captured by the snappers. This picture here makes the Daily Telegraph and many other dailies. Again, the combination of the photgenic corpse and the "raw emotion" make the picture irresistable. It is a stunning performance, even if the result lacks the essential touch of the background wreckage.

Now the strategy becomes clear. Round the corner and on top of the rise formed by "Stretcher Alley" is the "fiercely competitive" media, coralled like sheep in a pen, waiting for the next photo-opportunity to be presented to them. And Hezbollah is about to lay on the performance of a lifetime, a human interest story starring "Green Helmet and "White Tee-shirt" in a bravura display of raw emotion.

First of all, here comes "White Tee-shirt" for a solo performance. But, while the snappers do their business, he hasn't quite got it. The stride is too purposeful. He looks soulful but his head hangs and there is no passion or drama in the pose. The rubble is bit too messy and amorphous and there is nothing to draw the eye to add contrast to the sole figure marching up the litter-strewn slope. As a picture, this simply doesn't hack it.

By now, "Green Helmet" has got in position for a dual shot, although from this angle you can only just see the crown of his helmet over "Tee-shirt's" left shoulder. Even then, the pose is magnificant - head thrown back in anguish, the corpse cluched to the bosom and a soulful expression all combine to give just the note that is needed. Many editors find this is just right and rush to print it.

Perhaps in the this one, "White Tee-shirt is overdoing it slightly, but it isn't a lot different from the previous frame. What really spoils it is "Green Helmet" peering round "Tee-shirt's" shoulder, as he strides along to catch up with is co-star in order to take an equal role in the drama. But his presence at such an awkward angle breaks up the symmetary of the pose and creates a distraction. Nevertheless, Nicolas Asfouri for AFP-Getty Images labels the pic, "A man screams for help as he carries the body of a girl killed in the Israeli strike on Qana on July 30", and it gets used by Newsweek, amongst others.

As a dual shot, this next one is unusable. Look closely at "Green Helmet" and - although he most certainly isn't - he appears to be smirking. The combination of the exertion and trying to present the appropriate gravitas is proving too much for the man. But, if the effect is grotesque, "Tee-shirt" is strutting his stuff. So out come the scissors (or the crop button) and "Green Helmet" is history. The result is perfect for the front page of The Independent.

But everything is coming right. Without moving from their positions, all the snappers have to do is let the stars come to them. Now the angles are right, the pair complement each other and the expressions are spot on. With an imaginative caption "man screaming for help...", it goes straight on the front page of The Guardian. This is award-winning stuff, except the prize should really go to Hezbollah.

With the pics in the bag, the corpse is so much dead weight. "Tee-shirt" dumps it on the gurney, leaving it to the good offices of "the man in black" to strap it in and organise the load. Nevertheless, it provides a poignant photo-opportunity and the snappers do not miss out. The trouble is that the shadows are wrong and the face of "Green Helmet's" corpse, the one he was in such a hurry to deliver, is partially obsured. This does not really score as a top-rate picture.

Neither is the next, but as a picture, it is worth a thousand words. The starring duo, having got what they wanted from the corpses, putting on their display of raw emotion and all the rest - to the delight of the assembled media - have completely lost interest in their props. The man in black is left to struggle unaided with the burden, heading over rough, wreckage-strewn ground to the ambulance. This can be seen in the distance over his left shoulder, past the nearer, more modern-looking vehicle. "White Tee-shirt" as gone on ahead, without offering any aid and, although in the picture, is not looking at the gurney. He has other, more pressing things on his mind, as we will see shortly.

For all his trouble, the "man in black" is at least rewarded - he gets to pose with one of the bodies discarded by the stars. A noble figure standing at the back of the ambulance, the tiny figure in his arms, there is a certain majesty and gravity to the man. Nevertheless, he clearly lacks the star quality, the ability to project raw emotion, a deficiency that will forever condemn him to looking after the props after they have been discarded and playing the bit parts after the stars have left the scene.

Even then, one of the stars could not resist a repeat performance. It was obviously hot work running up and down the hill, and back up again, so off comes the trade-mark helmet, the radio, the flack jacket and the fluorescent waistcoat. "Green Helmet" au naturelle now poses once more with his prop. But he is only going through the motions when it comes to projecting emotions once more and he lacks conviction. But hey! The front pages are already in the bag, so this is just one for the scrap book.

And at last the body of the poor mite that was once a pretty child is laid rest temporarily in the back of the ambulance. Even then, her mortal remains are publicity fodder, providing a poignant reminder of the tragedy, without the artifice of poses. This is the only natural pose in the whole sequence, but it lacks the drama the editors need. The picture ends up as a filler for internet archives.

While the dead rest at last, we now see why "White Tee-shirt" was so anxious to get away. He has to return home to be interviewed by a France 2 reporter. He starts by showing the reporter round the house, well furnished and far from modest. This is no poverty-stricken man, embittered by deprivation. Even by European or American standards, the house is well-furnished and comfortable.

But what is so evident are the pictures of Sheik Hassan Nasrallah - even a calendar. This is not a dwelling - it is a shrine to Hezbollah, the party of God. But "White Tee-shirt" is not Hezbollah, oh, no! That is what he tells the young reporter, saying that it is the Israeli aggression that is radicalising Muslims and driving them into the arms of Hezbollah.

Make up your own mind. Is this a Hezbollah member, or a mere supporter? This is a Hezbollah stronghold, a town from which the IDF claim over 150 missiles have been fired. And our "White Tee-shirt" has a house full of Hezbollah material and is not a member - was not all day driving that agenda forward? Was he simply an ordinary joe, overcome with emotion at the death and destruction around him, of which he was entirely innocent?

These issues are, of course, not addressed by the media, either on the ground or back in the comfortable, air conditioned editorial offices, thousands of miles from the action. There, pictures of death are a commodity. It doesn't matter under what circumstances they were gained, and to what purpose the actors paraded their emotions. Another forest-load of dead trees conveyed the story and a few dead children were exploited to provide pictures and add drama.

Against all that, does it matter that we were sold a lie? Ironically - and unintentionally - The Independent headline articulates the question: "How can we stand by and allow this to go on"? But I suspect they were not thinking what we are thinking.

COMMENT THREAD

Back to the real world

It had to happen. We had to return to the real world of shenanigans in the European Union. Naturally, foreign policy will remain one of our issues but for the moment, let us concentrate on another hullabaloo in Poland (if you can call it the real world).

It all started a few days ago, when President Lech Kaczynski, tired perhaps of his fruitless row with a German left-wing newspaper, announced that the EU should start discussing the re-introduction of capital punishment. Just to remind all our readers, abolition of capital punishment is a pre-requisite of EU membership (as well as of Council of Europe membership). Having abolished it and joined the EU, Poland now finds that even if there were a vote in the country for its reintroduction (and it is not clear that this would happen) the government could not do so without the EU’s say-so.

Both the Law and Justice Party and the League of Polish Families maintain that reintroduction (or, at least, the possibility of it) of capital punishment, like tightening anti-abortion rules, is part of the Catholic Church’s teaching. Sadly, the Church does not agree on capital punishment.

“Father Piotr Mazurkiewicz from the Catholic University of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski in Warsaw argues that such an idea runs in a different direct than the present values of the Catholic Church.

’There is a traditional teaching of the church in which the capital punishment is part. The teaching has been altered by John Paul II and now the Catholic Church supports the forces aiming to eliminate capital punishment. So we can say this initiative is going the opposite way to the teachings of the church. This kind of initiatives have political reasons- it is not going from religious motives or ethical ones but from political ones.’”

Unsurprisingly, the whole subject was dismissed by the European Commission, sometimes erroneously described as the EU “Executive” (it is, as we know, both the executive and the sole source of legislation in the EU):

“The European Union has brushed off a call from Poland's conservative president, Lech Kaczynshi, for the 25-member bloc to consider re-instating capital punishment. "The death penalty is not compatible with European values," European Commission spokesman, Steffan de Rynck, was quoted as telling reporters on Thursday.”

The most obvious explanation for it all is the nearness of another Polish election and the need to position oneself that both members of the ruling coalition realize. So, it is not clear whether they will include restoration of capital punishment or a referendum on it in their manifesto. Or, for that matter, how they are going to finesse that with the threat of expulsion from the EU (all those sponduliks are hard to discard).

In the meantime, without pronouncing on the rights and wrongs of capital punishment itself (I do not propose to acknowledge any comments on the subject on the forum, as this is not part of the blog’s remit), one can speculate about the notion that the death penalty is not compatible with “European values”.

For almost all of Europe’s history the death penalty was in existence and was considered to be perfectly compatible with European and diverse national values. If there was a discussion it was about methods of administering the penalty and, above all, the crimes that deserved it. The idea that there is something wrong with the whole concept is relatively recent (though there were always individuals who held that view). What is Steffan de Rynck’s definition of “European values”, one wonders.

A seriously unimportant jokey posting

We have had a good run in the last couple of days, thanks to the sterling work done by my colleague (pause for applause and boos from sundry members of the forum who are fighting a valiant battle in defence of the MSM). There is a little bit more to come and, of course, the story will almost certainly resurrect itself.

We have helped to plant seeds of doubt in some and strengthened doubts in others about the MSM reporting of the Middle Eastern conflict, in particular of the war in the Lebanon. Even those of our readers who prefer to believe what they see on TV or read in the newspapers (because journalists would never lie or allow themselves to be manipulated by an unscrupulous organization like Hezbollah, no, no, no) will, I confidently predict, find themselves questioning future reports, despite themselves.

Now, let us take a break and spend a little time worrying about a seriously unimportant problem. While trying to follow the American media and blogosphere I came across a couple of times the word "blogress" as in female blogger. Clearly, this nomenclature is of some interest to me.

However, when I quoted it to my colleague (him of the Green Helmet Guy fame), his response was that a female blogger should be called "blogette". Naturally, I prefer "blogress" with its obvious link with the word "tigress" (the tiger is my sign in Chinese astrology). Still, this is a good opportunity for more input from our readers.

Alright, explain this one!

For an update on this post, see here.

To and fro go the arguments as to whether the pictures were staged. We have largely concentrated on "Green Helmet" but we also had a look at "White Tee-shirt" (pictured right) in the previous post. This is the man the Guardian and the Telegraph both chose (with many others, including The Independent) for their iconic representation of the Qana incident.

Now, however, we have found two more photographs of "White Tee-shirt", both of them with him working in the wrecked building. This first one (left) has him looking at bodies, but the interesting thing is his tee-shirt. Look at it closely, with an inset as large as I could make it without losing definition (also, slightly larger above). The garment appears to have writing across the chest.

The second photograph of this pair has a Red Cross worker to the fore, holding the body with which "White Tee-shirt" (background) is to make his "camera run". There is another inset, with the picture expanded as large as it will go without losing definition. Again, look at the tee-shirt. Once again it looks like there is writing across the front.

The marking is not distinct, but it is there is two separate photographs, each showing the torso at a different angle. Can it be shadow of folds in the shirt?

Now we have a scene that we have seen before. This is a video grab which shows the bodies of two girls, still in the wrecked builing. The one that "White Tee-shirt" is holding is taken off him by "Green Helmet" who uses it for his "camera run". The one to the left is then taken by "White Tee-shirt" for his. But look at his tee-shirt. There is no sign of any writing on the front – just a discrete logo on the left of the chest. Our man also looks rather clean and well-groomed.

Here now is the iconic "camera run". This is the one captioned, "man screaming for help…". There is urgency in his pose, anguish in his face and he is running, with "Green Helmet" alongside (presumably having already done his own camera run. Look now at the close-up of the tee-shirt (below left). Again, there is no sign of writing on the front – just the neat, discrete logo.

OK… let's put is altogether. "White Tee-shirt" is part of the rescue party – frantically digging for survivors (they hope) and recovering the bodies. There is a frenetic air about the operation – eye witnesses say there was chaos and there is the ever-present fear that the building will collapse further.

But, after the Red Cross worker takes the body of the child, with "White Tee-shirt" present, and before it is given to "White Tee-shirt" to take it out of the building, it seems that our iconic figure may have changed into another tee-shirt. Has he changed into fresh attire, ready to make his "camera run", whence he is photographed "screaming for help"?

Now, NewsMax, reports that news photographers saw aid workers wrapping furniture in body bags hours after the Qana attack then loading the "corpses" into ambulances for the benefit of television news cameras. Crucially, we are also told that "Hezbollah officials at the site prevented the photographers from documenting the fabrication". This is from sources at the scene who asked not to be identified.

Can people believe that the reporting (and especially the filming) of the rescue was not stage-managed by Hezbollah officials? And, as for "White Tee-shirt's" loyalties, look at this report from France 2. At 4.27 minutes into the report, we see the interior of "White Tee-shirt's" home. It is a shrine to Hezbollah.

As one of our forum members remarked – what more do you need – a director's chair with "Hezbollah" on it?

COMMENT THREAD

"Vital to telling the story"

For an update on this post, see here.

It is the Jerusalem Post that makes the running this morning on the dismal conduct of the MSM, pointing out that, "Large sections of the international media are not only misreporting the current conflict in Lebanon. They are actively fanning the flames."

On the "fringe", as far as the MSM are concerned, are another two powerful pieces today (here and here) which demonstrate that the debate is by-passing the dead tree sellers, leaving them stranded in the quagmire of their own foetid mindset.

No better example of this mindset can be found than in the self-regarding Daily Telegraph "clog" (as in "corporate blog"), written by Shane Richmond.

In the first of a what he tells us is a three-part piece, under the group heading "disturbing images", he ponderously explains "the decision-making process behind using images of death and injury online and in the newspaper."

Already out of date with the casualty figures – Richmond still using the "54 civilians, 37 of them children" legend - the man gravely informs us that illustrating stories such as Qana "raises a dilemma". To what extent, he asks rhetorically, "is it acceptable to show dead bodies and how graphic can those photographs be?"

In shedding "a little light on the process behind choosing an image", we are informed that the Telegraph tries "to avoid explicitly showing dead bodies…". The choice of picture depends on the story, what other images are available and - in some cases - consultation with the editor of the paper. "If the story merits it, or if the picture is the best image for the job, then we will sometimes publish a picture which may shock some readers," writes Richmond.

In the Qana incident, he continues, "the story was particularly powerful because so many of the victims were children. The most striking images of the day showed dead children and it was impossible to tell the story adequately without showing bodies."

Richmond then gets to the nub of the issue. There were "subtle distinctions to be made in the type of picture chosen". He asks us to compare two images (above left). One was used on the website (and on the front page of the paper). The other wasn't.

The one not used was the uniformed Red Cross worker carrying a child's body. It is discarded because he is displaying no emotion. The other picture – no less than "White Tee-shirt" - "is reacting very emotionally to what is happening." So, proclaims Richmond, "not only does that make for a more powerful picture but it also takes some of our focus away from the body. Of course, there is no getting away from the fact that the man in this picture has a dead child in his arms. But that was vital to telling the story."

So, the mighty Telegraph reached out and published the "emotion" which was "vital to telling the story".

But nowhere, so far, do we see Richmond ask the fundamental question – was the picture genuine? That, it seems, does not matter. As long as it is a "powerful picture" and it tells the story the paper wants to convey, that is good enough. Never mind that "White Tee-shirt", as our other pictures show, seems to be able to turn his emotions on and off at will. He served the Telegraph's purpose. Or did the Telegraph serve his?


* * * *

STOP PRESS

"26 rockets fired at North on Thursday" reports the The Jerusalem Post.

Tell me about it.

COMMENT THREAD

Questions

It seems to me that the MSM is about as accurate and incisive in its critiques of this blog as it is in reporting the news.

It starts with the AP "rebuttal" which homes in on the "date stamp" issue, but addresses none of the other points raised and then, curiously, does not actually say that the timing attributed to the photographs were wrong.

Several readers have written to me, however, saying look at the shadows, some offering their own analyses, which are very plausible. If you look particularly at the "Green Helmet" sequences which I have posted, there definitely seem to be indications that the shows are longer on some shots than others, suggesting a longer time-frame than the context would indicate.

The photographs are up and posted for all to see and from which to draw their own conclusions. You do not want any more gruesome pictures from me, so I have posted a picture of one of those vile, blood-thirsty Israeli soldiers that so many have written to tell me about.

As to the MSM, second into the fray was Roy Greenslade of The Guardian, who plays the typical left-wing trick of dismissing me as a "right winger" and there fore not worth listening to. He also puts us down as "churning out anti-EU rants", which means he cannot have read this sequence. But then, stereotyping is so much easier when you ignore the facts.

And into that frame comes Jefferson Morely at the Washington Post, who rushes to brand me as a conspiracy theorist, that being his comfort blanket which allows him to ignore the central message of the sequence of posts we have been running.

Morely's great claim to fame is that I have branded "Green Helmet" as a Hezbollah official, without a shred of evidence, going only on "gut instinct". What Morely does not want to address though is that this man is clearly more than a "rescue workers" which the media so decorously brand him. He behaviour on site, and the reaction of others to him – as well as the media – clearly demonstrate him to be in a position of authority. Yet none of the British or US media want to name him, or describe his function. Why is that I wonder.

Perhaps, Morely, like many of his colleagues, don't want to admit that there is plenty of evidence (see here and here) that Hezbollah actually control media access and proceedings at disaster sites in Lebanon. If they did, in the context of "Green Helmet" being demonstrably "in charge" at the Qana site, the likes of Morely might have to admit that my "gut feeling" was not too wide of the mark.

But the real issue that Morely avoids is that my postings are primarily directed at the conduct of the media. He writes that North says he is just trying to "raise questions", which he kindly agrees is "certainly a legitimate goal". But he doesn't answer any of mine. Instead, he asks his own: "What is it about the photos from Qana that made Israel's supporters prefer fantasy to fact?"

Well, Mr Morely, in return, another question. "What is it about the photos from Qana that make you so confident – apparently – that they were all an absolutely genuine record of the events during the rescue efforts?"

It is unlikely, however, that Mr Morely will answer my question. In truth, he and the others are not really interested in an obscure blog written in a back street of Bradford. What really worries him is Rush Limbaugh and all the other "right wing" sites that have really put this issue on the map.

So, until we get some answers, we will continue what we have been doing… asking questions.

COMMENT THREAD

Stretcher Alley

This post has been superseded by our latest report . We have left this one in place for archival purposes only.

This, of course, is not just about Qana – the issue is far more profound. It is about how the media reports great events, its bias and spin, selling us an "agenda" whilst all the time telling us it is presenting the objective truth. But here we have some more photographs which throw into question that objectivity.

The first photograph, taken from the Jerusalem Post, shows up the pathway from the collapsed building, used by the rescue workers to carry the Qana victims to the fleet of ambulances. You can, in fact, see a stretcher party working its way up the slope. For reference purposes, we will call this "Stretcher Alley".

Now we see a sequence of "screen grabs" from a video taken at the scene, looking down the slope of "stretcher ally", reportedly from Aljazeerah. The camera initially pans round the scene and you can see from the angles that the cameraman is standing to the right of the ally. Note the screen grab (right), which shows the building in the background and, of especial significance, the triangular piece of wreckage projecting from the ground. We will come back to that.

The camera returns to the ally and focuses on "Green Helmet" marching purposefully up the slope, flanked by co-workers. The interviewer ignores the others and makes a bee-line for "Green Helmet"' He is clearly the "head honcho" so he is buttonholed for a prolonged interview. "Green Helmet" speaks in a high-pitched voice, excitable, gesturing behind him, to where the action seems to be. Crucially, having walked up the slope, he pants from exertion.

Into view then comes a stretcher party, coming round the base of the building at the bottom of the slope. They come from the left - that, we can assume, is the direction from which the casualties are being recovered. As they start up the slope, the interviewer and "Green Helmet" pause to look at the group. then "Green Helmet" dashes off down the slope to intercept the party and the camera concentrates on the group.

As the camera focuses on the stretcher party, and it is clear that they are uniformed Red Cross workers, with a posse of photographers in attendance – two of which we can see in the frame. Although the picture is blurred, note that the leading stretcher-bearer is wearing his helmet at a slightly raked angle. The cameraman on the right has taken a shot and is changing camaras to get another shot.

Now, fully in view of the cameras up the hill (which we see in other shots, "Stretcher Alley" having been staked out by the media), the stretcher party starts to walk slowly up the hill. Then, for no apparent reason (that we can discern), it suddenly comes to a stop. The workers put down their load, with one of the photographers hovering close by, over the stretcher. We can only guess, but perhaps they have been asked to stop by the photographers.

The sudden stop gives the photographer the opportunity to take a close-up picture of the victim. Now, this is a highly charged sitation, at a disaster scene, with all the tragic implications. But of more concern to the lead stretcher bearer is his appearance. He adjusts his helmet, putting it on straight, nice and neat for the cohort of camera crews and still photographers further up the hill. There is no sense of urgency and no rush. The pace is leisured.

All nice and tidy for the photographers now, and the photographers having completed their work, the stretcher bearers now resume their journey, ready to provide further photo-opportunities to the media. They they progress in a leisurely fashion presumably, towards the ambulance. In the sequence, they are then joined by "Green Helmet" who hovers around self-importantly. All the time, there is no sense of urgency or rush.

Now we switch – to the iconic photograph used by the Guardian on its front page. This is of "White Tee-shirt" carrying the body of the dead girl, escorted by "Green Helmet". By reference to the triangular piece of wreckage and the building in the background, we can position the scene – it is definitely on "Stretcher Alley", further up the long slope from where "Green Helmet" was interviewed.

While most of the casualties are being stretchered up this slope, this is different, and – unlike the earlier scene, "White Tee-shirt" is running. The caption given has him "screaming" for help. And here come the questions.

Why is "White Tee-shirt" (and "Green Helmet") running? Could they have run all the way up the slope, when "Green Helmet" was panting with exertion having walked up the slope – or has he just started running. And to whom is "White Tee-shirt" screaming for help? He is several hundred yards from the recovery site, and is on his way to the ambulance. For what purpose does he want help?

Now we have the final "iconic" shot – "White Tee-shirt" again. Over his left shoulder is the triangular piece of wreckage, but the camera angle is different. From what I can work out (and would welcome observations) he looks to me further down the slope, which would mean that this photograph is taken a few moment earlier. He is not running, and he is not "screaming", but shows enormous anguish. And "Green Helmet" is nowhere to be seen – although we know he is close by.

These shots were widely published – clearly their emotive impact was recognised by hundreds of editors. But nowhere do we see these graphic shots on video. Why not? Would filming have shown that the shots were staged?

COMMENT THREAD

This should do it

Perhaps the strain of having to deny what my colleague has been demonstrating about the agencies’ coverage of Qana has affected them but Reuter’s has come up with a useful story about the EU and the Middle East.

As our readers will recall, the EU was left to look for a role in the Middle East and to try to create some kind of a common policy that will show the nasty brutish Americans (and, I suppose, the Israelis) that soft power is what works in the modern world.

Sadly, they are not having much luck. In the first place, they seem to be all over the place, with the Foreign Policy High Panjandrum, Javier Solana, explaining that the Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, a former EU Middle East peace envoy (clearly a man who is used to success in his negotiations), who is going to Damascus, will be speaking to Baby Assad “doubtless on behalf of all of us, including myself”. Says who? Not in my name.

Actually, not in Germany’s name either. The German Foreign Minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, will also be speaking to Syriran officials and suggesting that

“the Middle East Quartet - the United States, UN, Russia and EU - plus possibly Egypt should play a role in peace efforts”.

This is the latest idea the various European politicos have come up with: to draw in the two sponsors of Hezbollah, Iran and Syria and get them to exert pressure on the organization. As Reuter’s puts it quite sapiently:

“But beyond making Syrian and Iranian leaders feel respected, it is not clear what the Europeans can offer to persuade Damascus or Tehran to lean on Hezbollah guerrillas to stop firing missiles into Israel or accept eventual disarmament.”

That is not entirely correct as far as Baby Assad is concerned. The EU can offer him a deal on the whole question of Rafik al-Hariri’s assassination and on a possible economic agreement. To be fair, the EU and its members cannot deliver on the first and Assad will continue to be badgered on the subject, though this does not affect him too much.

In any case, these are very weak inducements for a complete reversal of policy. There has to be something else and the Europeans do not have anything else.

Then there is Iran, which has been moderately successful in diverting attention away from its nuclear programme but less successful in uniting that famous Arab street behind Hezbollah. By and large there have been calls for an immediate cease-fire, a few demonstrations, but fear of Iran apparently remains the strongest feeling in the Middle East. Even the Israeli raid on the Bekkaa Valley has not drawn the Syrians into the fray. As for Egypt, Jordan and the other countries, they are staying out. We shall see what tomorrow’s emergency meeting of the OIC will produce.

What of the Franco-Iranian axis? Philippe Douste-Blazy has been trying to explain his previous comment about Iran being a stabilizing factor in the region. What he really meant, he told the journalists, was that:

Iran has a share of responsibility in the current situation, so Iran can play a role in its solution, and can therefore contribute to stabilisation in the region.

It certainly does have a share of responsibility in the current situation. Rather a large share, in fact, and many people believe that the smaller Iran’s role is, the more likely there is to be a solution.

COMMENT THREAD

What do the French want? To be in charge

It seems that France will not attend Thursday’s emergency UN meeting to discuss the deployment of an international force in southern Lebanon, even though the country is mooted as potential leader of such a force.

This is not simply the usual French temper tantrum but a more or less sensible stand. There is no point in sending an international force before a cease-fire. Of course, there is no suggestion as to how such a cease-fire might be achieved.

Prime Minister Olmert insists that the Israelis carry on until a viable international force is in place. Hezbollah is saying a great deal but nothing about any cease-fire or disarmament. Everyone else is insisting on a cease-fire. The Americans think there might be some purpose to an immediate international force.

French Foreign Minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, last seen hobnobbing with his Iranian counterpart, is very forceful:

“France does not want to fall into a trap that would lead to the existence of a force without a prior political agreement.”

An unnamed French diplomat was even more open:

“We will not send a force to Lebanon to continue the work of the Israeli army.”

Fair enough. What will they send a force to Lebanon for? And when? Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, who insists that the Security Council will not referee between France and the United States, while clearly taking the French side, told Le Monde:

“"For a force to be deployed, the fighting must stop," he said. "It will be much easier to find the troops if the fighting has stopped."

He said it could be months before a force of 10,000 to 20,000 troops would be ready for deployment.”

None of this is surprising or, even, particularly unreasonable. The question is: what is to be done in those months while the troops are being organized.

State of play

There is a good summing up of the state of play in Frontpagemag.com.

The Jerusalem Post also takes up the cudgels. Have a good look at the photograph in the piece. You will see more of that in our next post.

And Haaretz has some interesting news about the body count, which seems to be declining.

Also, has anyone thought about the "body bags". How often have you seen transparent polythene used, which so conveniently allow the photographers to film the victims? Can anyone recall any other disaster scene where transparent bags have been used?

Faustablog is also worth a look. It raises some interesting questions.

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Now I feel better

I've been attacked by Roy Greenslade is his Guardian blog. I should, it seems, stick to what I know best… "churning out anti-EU rants".

And, while majoring on the "time stamps" (ignoring the other evidence), Greenslade (like others of this blog's critics) has not noticed that none of the agencies have declared that the "time stamps" are actually wrong... merely that time stamps in general could be misleading. Nor have any of the agencies volunteered their own time lines.

I must have got something right.

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Game, set and match

For an update on this post, see here.

Well, I never. The news agencies that stitched up the photos at the Qana site have all huddled together and got AP staff writer David Bauder to issue a story rebutting lil ol' EU Referendum. And the imaginative title? "News agencies stand by Lebanon photos".

To engineer this massive intellectual feat, Bauder – who contacted this site asking us to ring him in New York at our own expense to answer his questions, but did not respond to our e-mail offering this blogger's telephone number – relied on the one post, but clearly did not bother to read the others, and particularly the latest, which already anticipated the points he was to make.

Thus does Bauder concentrate his fire on the one point of several, where he claims this site rests its case of "chicanery" on the part of the agencies on the "time stamps" that went with captions of the photographs. Laboriously, he details the timings, and then sets outs our case, that the events depicted were staged for effect, "a criticism echoed by talk show host Rush Limbaugh when he directed listeners to the blog on Monday."

"These photographers are obviously willing to participate in propaganda," Limbaugh is cited as saying. "They know exactly what's being done, all these photos, bringing the bodies out of the rubble, posing them for the cameras, it's all staged. Every bit of it is staged and the still photographers know it."

The "straw dog" thus set up, AP's Bauder then sets about rebutting it, declaring "information from its photo editors showed the events were not staged, and that the time stamps could be misleading for several reasons, including that web sites can use such stamps to show when pictures are posted, not taken." Note, however, the use of the word "can". He does not say that the "date stamps" are wrong.

Nevertheless, an aggrieved "AFP executive" is then wheeled on, saying, "he was stunned to be questioned about it." The MSM being questioned? Shocking, I tell you, shocking!

Then al Reuters is brought into the fray. In a statement, it says that it categorically rejects any such suggestion and then Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor, puts the boot in. "It's hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy," she says.

Air conditioning? I wish.

But Carroll hasn't finished yet. "In addition to personally speaking with photo editors", she says – who tell the absolute, unvarnished truth - "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described." Photographers are experienced in recognizing when someone is trying to stage something for their benefit, she adds.

Now administering the coup de grace, Patrick Baz, Mideast photo director for AFP, is trundled up to the front. "Do you really think these people would risk their lives under Israeli shelling to set up a digging ceremony for dead Lebanese kids?" he asks. He is not "stunned". He is "totally stunned". And he "can't imagine that somebody would think something like that would have happened."

So, all the agencies are agreed - none of the photographs have been staged. Game set and match!

But then, you really have to give it to AP - they really know how to look after their staff. Thank you, Little Green Footballs. And this in the National Journal rather puts the claims into perspective. Anyone remember this gem from the NYT?

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Where is that European foreign policy?

Now is the time, surely, for the European Union to display the effectiveness of soft power, to speak with one voice, to show that it has a strong presence on the international scene. But then, we say that every time there is an international crisis (and they do come thick and fast) and every time we look around and see nothing.

Once more we have to point out the bleedin' obvious: there can be no common foreign policy if there are no common interests.

Still, let us have a look at what the Europeans have been up to. The presidency of the European Union rests with Finland at the moment (and I bet they wish it didn’t). Thus, it fell to Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja to chair the emergency session and to come up with some pointless platitudes.

The EU, he told reporters, must make a united stand, even if it means breaking with the United States on the issue of what is to happen in southern Lebanon. Of course, if the EU paid a little less attention to what the United States is doing, in order to stand up to it, and a little more attention to what is going on in the region they are talking about, that famous common foreign policy might emerge. Or not.

Breaking with the American stance, which is, roughly speaking, that Israel has a right to defend itself and that the problem must be solved on a more long-term basis than just an immediate cease-fire that is unlikely to be kept by Hezbollah, in any case, presumably means speaking up against Israel. Does that mean that the united stand and strong voice will be for Hezbollah? Well, up to a point.

“It is unacceptable for Israel to continue with its current policy. The words of Mr (Prime Minister Ehud) Olmert and his plans for further military attacks (are) concerning and we have this message to him: it is unlikely to bring military success, it will only fuel the support for Hizbollah and other extremists in the region.”

Well, that’s as may be. So far, support for Hezbollah has been muted in the region, many Arabs and Arab governments fearing the organization’s sponsor, Iran, more even than hating Israel. In any case, what precisely, does Mr Tuomija suggest?

It seems that the EU is about to put pressure on Israel, otherwise its credibility will be in question (don’t snigger, please) to have a cease-fire and then get involved in a long-term political solution. Or so EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner told Reuters.

Yes, but what then? How is the EU going to ensure that the cease-fire is maintained and that Hezbollah is disarmed? Are they going to send in troops to maintain peace on the border? Are they going to sit back and say, well, it will all turn out all right at the end and wring their hands when it does not?

Italian Foreign Minister, Massimo d’Alema, has no doubts on the subject:

“Either there is a ceasefire and an effort by the international community, or there is war. ... The international community does not intend to participate in war.”

How nice for the international community, which has no troops with which to participate anyway. Unfortunately, Israel does not have that choice.

As it happens, the EU is not alone in calling for a ceasefire. It would appear that the Organization of the Islamic Conference intends to do the same, according to the Malaysian Foreign Affairs Ministry. The Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi is the present chairman of the OIC and he has called an emergency meeting for August 3. Crisis? What crisis?

Meanwhile the various European countries have been making statements.

Italy, France, Finland, Poland, Sweden and Spain are considering sending troops to Lebanon. EU candidate Turkey and Muslim Asian state Indonesia have also said they may contribute peacekeepers.

Given the Italian Foreign Minister’s comments, Italy may not be considering these matters all that hard. In any case, the international force, the only thing according to Israeli Prime Minister, Ehmud Olmert, that will bring about that much coveted cease fire has to be under UN auspices. Or so everyone seems to agree. The trouble is that the UN has no auspices. The Security Council met yesterday to discuss matters and adjourned sine die to analyze at leisure what the political standing of that international force will be.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel seems unable to make up her mind whether Germany will send troops if asked by all sides and as part of an international force or whether the country’s armed forces are severely overstretched. The latter is more likely to be true.

Britain and the United States have already ruled themselves out of the game, in this case that of “What’s the time Mr Wolf?”. Poland has troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and is unlikely to produce any significant numbers for yet another far-off war. (And who knows how long the Polish government will be in place?)

Then there is France. There is always France. There is a strong possibility that any international force would be led by them, having been so spectacularly successful and humanitarian in sundry African countries.

According to Haaretz

“The force must be larger than the current UN Interim Force in Lebanon and be more than the 10,000 suggested by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie said in an interview published on Tuesday. Military officials in France have said the new Lebanon force should be 15,000-20,000 strong. "There is no question of it being a UNIFIL Mark Two," Alliot-Marie told Le Monde daily.

"It must be a very large international force with very precise missions. It must be well-armed, have substantial firepower and armor. It must be credible and capable of making itself respected by everyone," she added.

So where are those numbers of troops going to come from, especially as, according to Mme Alliot-Marie, the international force must be given the right to fire if it should be seen as necessary? Which country is going to send troops into that quagmire (I use the word advisedly)?

There is even some doubt as to what France can contribute despite Mme Alliot-Marie’s fighting words:

“Only countries with real military know-how should take part in the force, which should avoid becoming a kaleidoscope of nations that would lose its effectiveness, she said. Military experts say France, which already has some 13,000 service personnel deployed abroad, could send around 5,000 troops to Lebanon, but the French daily Le Figaro said Monday that military planners felt the country was reaching its limit.

"It won't be easy. We've reached our deployment limit now, not so much in terms of numbers of personnel but in terms of command capacity," the paper quoted one officer as saying.”

Meanwhile we have seen another very fine example of French diplomacy. The Syrian, Iranian and French Foreign Ministers are supposed to meet in Damascus. The last two have already met and shaken hands in Beirut.

Philippe Douste-Blazy was full of praise for Iran and her role in the Middle East:

“Iran is a significant, respected player in the Middle East which is playing a stabilizing role, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said earlier Monday in Beirut. "It was clear that we could never accept a destabilization of Lebanon, which could lead to a destabilization of the region," Douste-Blazy said in Beirut.

"In the region there is of course a country such as Iran - a great country, a great people and a great civilization which is respected and which plays a stabilizing role in the region," he told a news conference.”

One can argue about the great civilization, in particular its timing, but there can be no argument about the “stabilizing role”. Iran has made no secret of its support for Hezbollah, for Shi’ite militias in Iraq or of its desire to obliterate Israel.

On Sunday Reuters published the following:

“Iran's hardline forces should get ready to take revenge on Israel and the United States for the offensive on Lebanon, the head of the Revolutionary Guards was quoted as saying on Sunday.

"The Basij and Revolutionary Guards should prepare to get even with the Zionists and Americans," Yahya Rahim-Safavi was quoted as telling Islamic militiamen by the conservative Fars news agency.

The Basij are volunteer Islamic militiamen.

"The timing of the this will be announced by the leader," he added.”

Later on, Fars, the Iranian news agency that has access to the hard line military units, announced that those quotations were being withdrawn, though it is not clear by whom.

Meanwhile, the EU has condemned unreservedly the strike at Qana, naturally enough without bothering to investigate the growing number of questions about it, and all attacks on “innocent civilians” (though not Israeli ones, who are, presumably never “innocent”). And to add to the convoluted picture, the European Parliament has supported the Finnish Presidency’s call for an immediate cease-fire. No, since you ask, they have no idea how it can be achieved or what might happen afterwards.

In any case, that famous united stand is as elusive as ever. While the EU has issued a draft statement, which calls for an immediate cease-fire, Britain, Germany and the Czech Republic have promptly rejected it, announcing that they, too, would like to see a cease-fire but do not want a definite timeframe.

Just another crisis in the creation of the strong European voice on the world stage.

COMMENT THREAD

We need to know the truth

For the agency "rebuttal", see here.

There are two wars being played out in the Middle East. One is a shooting war, where soldiers fight, where aircraft drop bombs and civilians die - on both sides.

But the other war, where no one dies, is probably more important in the grander scheme of things. That is the propaganda war, where the losses or gains of any one side can be negated by a deft photo-call and where the outcome of a campaign can be determined not by force of arms but by international politicians who can - if they so desire - impose a settlement that awards the fruits of victory to whomsoever the please.

In this second war, the shock troops are the journalists, photographers and television crews. They supply the raw material - the bullets, if you like - which shape opinions and give substance to the debate. We cannot all be there ourselves, so we rely on that information. We need it because we are not there, because we haven't smelled the death and the terror, because we have not seen the corpses with our own eyes. But, since this is the material that will shape our opinions and, through us the opinions of our politicians, we are entitled to ask whether it is accurate and unbiased. That we are not there does not disbar us from asking - it makes the asking all that more necessary.

And in this war, this second war, we have been offered the iconic figure of "Green Helmet" who, a number of our readers suggest, is Abu Shadi Jradi. His pain as he carries the body of a dead girl sums up the outrage of the Qana incident and conveys to us the horror of a war which all good people want to end. We are being asked to share that pain and, overtly in many cases, to condemn those whom we are told caused it.

But we, in turn, are entitled to know whether that "pain" is real and even if it is, whether it is being used to manipulate our thinking and turn our sentiment one way or another. On the other hand, no one is entitled to demand our uncritical acceptance of that which we are shown - that we should necessarily and always accept it as the unvanrished truth.

It is in this context that we are asking: "what is the truth"? We ask it because we have done something we were not supposed to do... we have put all the separate photographs that we can find of one sequence of events. And they simply do not stack up. Some we have shown before, some are new to this blog, and the sequence starts with the first three photographs above. These purportedly show the recovery of the body of a girl from the wreckage of the building in Qana, prior to its transmission to a waiting ambulance.

Sometime in between the wreckage and the ambulance, however, we get the iconic picture, the one that has been reproduced in newspapers thoughout the world. This one, we can see, is near the wreckage of the building but, was it posed? We do not know but, in viewing hours of video footage, we have not yet seen the scenario filmed. That, in itself is possibily noteworthy, given the number of TV cameras that were around. Virtually everything on the scene was being filmed - yet no-one seems to have filmed this.

What we do see on the videos are harrowing scenes of bodies being laid outside the building and others being brought out and handed to first aid and other workers, who then convey them to the ambulances or other vehicles. There seems to be a relatively well-organised division of labour, where the rescue workers recover the bodies and then hand them on outside the building for transportation.

This might be what is happening here. "Green Helmet" is carrying the girl's body, still within sight of the wreckage, running towards a Red Cross worker. It looks as if he is about to hand over the body - it certainly looks like it, and the receiver has his arms out as if to take the load. But it could be that the Red Cross worker is simply directing "Green Helmet" to a waiting stretcher, or some other location.

Anyhow, we do not see the outcome of this scene, but what we are shown is a transfer to the hands of another worker and the body being placed on a "guerney". This is still in sight of the debris so we know it must be in close proximity to the collapsed building. We can see that it is at the bottom of the mound of debris, on a relatively flat surface and it is likely that the "gurney" itself has been wheeled to the position.

By reference to a new (to us) photograph, we see that this transfer did take place on film, but the "gurney" is used to transport the bodies of two victims, the other also the body of a girl, which looks rather like that transported by the man we call "White Tee-shirt". So far, so good. The next stop, logically, is the ambulance. There could be no other reason for loading the bodies on the gurney.

What then do we make of this photograph? "Green Helmet" is carrying the girl's body but we have no reference point and there is no sign of debris. It could be anywhere in the vicinity of the building - but it is unlikely to be that close. The area seems relatively flat and, to the bottom-left of the picture is a glimpse of a smooth, debris-free path. Where does this photograph fit into the overall sequence? Why is "Green Helmet" still carrying the body?

And if the above photograph might be anomalous, what about this one? The wrecked bulding is nowhere in sight - there is no debris and the picture shows a wide street. Again, there is no reference point - by which we can measure the distance to the collapsed building, so it is not possible to judge where we are relative to it. There is, however, no sign of an ambulance or other vehicle, and no other workers. Once again, therefore, why is "Green Helmet" carrying the body, why is he on his own, and how does this picture fit into the sequence?

To add to the puzzle, though, we see this. The man is, as far as I can tell, "Green Helmet". But gone is the helmet, the fluorescent waistcoat, the radio and the flack jacket. And he is carrying the girl's body, with no sign of the gurney or the "man in black" who was in charge of it. What is happening here? Is this really consistent with the other photographs?

Now we see the girl's body in the ambulance. There have been some perfectly sound questions about our reliance on the datelines offered by the agencies so we will not rely on the timing. We do not know for certain whether this picture was taken before or after the others. We can assume this is the last in the sequence - that would be a logical assumption, but still an assumption. We do not see the doors closed and the vehicle drive off.

Nothing here is conclusive evidence of the shots being posed. I think it is fair to say, however, that there are unanswered questions and good reason for suspicion - and this is but one sequence. We will also look in more detail at the others.

COMMENT THREAD

The "Green Helmet" mystery continues

For an update on this post, see here.

I think you would struggle to get a better summing up of the situation in the Middle East than that provided by the Guardian this morning.

Under the headline, "There is no ceasefire. There will not be any ceasefire?", it reports that an international drive for a ceasefire in Lebanon halted yesterday amid sharp differences at the UN security council, Israel's rejection of any truce in the near future and a Hezbollah warning that it would oppose the deployment of a multinational security force.

Condoleezza Rice said she was convinced a sustainable ceasefire could be achieved at the security council this week but Israel signalled dissent hours after she left Jerusalem for Washington. Olmert shrugged off international pressure, saying, "The fighting continues."

Then, late last night Israel's cabinet approved a wider ground offensive after military chiefs pressed for an expansion of their operations to take forces several miles deeper into Lebanon than their current border missions.

On the diplomatic front, Israel, backed by the US, is insisting that the multinational force be put in place before it halts its operations. France and other countries which could contribute to a proposed 20,000-strong force are determined that a ceasefire and the framework for a political agreement between Israel and Lebanon must precede deployment.

If there was ever of picture of a total stalemate, that it is, but the one thing the MSM does not want to entertain is any suggestion that the Qana incident was staged by Hezbollah. However, Israel Insider is but one of hundreds of sites that are expressing well-founded doubts about whether the whole affair was deliberately set up. If this is ever substantiated, it will destroy Hezbollah more certainly than the IDF.

From our stance, what is especially interesting is that sometime after dawn a call went hour to journalists and rescue workers to come to the scene. And come they did, in droves. Says Israel Insider, while Hezbollah and its apologists have been claiming that civilians could not freely flee the scene due to Israeli destruction of bridges and roads, the journalists and rescue teams from nearby Tyre had no problem getting there.

That certainly seems to have applied to our mystery man, "Green Helmet", as the Yahoo site has him in Tyre on the Wednesday (pictured above left), acting as part of a fire crew. This is captured by AP /Lefteris Pitarakis, in a photograph with the following caption:

People gather at the rubble of a destroyed building minutes after an Israeli airstrike on the centre of the coastal city of Tyre, Lebanon, on Wednesday.

We also have another photograph of him in Qana (above right), also from the Yahoo site, this time in the crater caused, we are told, by the Israeli bomb. There, once again, he is at the centre of the action, his authority to be there undisputed.

He was also depicted on the BBC Newsnight together with "White Tee-shirt". At the beginning of a sequence, the body of the girl in our first post on this issue is handed to "White Tee-shirt", whence "Green Helmet" appears from out of shot and grabs the body preparatory to carting it off. What again seems to be evident again is the undisputed authority of the man. He calls the shots and no one argues.

Nevertheless, there seems a certain discrepancy in this sequence as it purports to show the body being removed from the collapsed building. "Green Helmet" is all kitted up and we see him photographed in all manner of poses, carrying her. But we also see him without his helmet and kit, putting her in the ambulance.

It stretches belief to breaking point to argue that, on his way to the ambulance, he took off his helmet, his fluorescent waistcoat and his flack jacket just in order to pose for the cameras putting the body in the wagon – especially as we have the body being placed on the "guerney" – which means the scenes are totally inconsistent. Beyond speculation, we don't have the answer to these inconsistencies, but they cannot be dismissed lightly or ignored.

We remain convinced that knowing the identity of "Green Helmet" and something about him could help significantly in understanding what went on at Qana.

Meanwhile, on an entirely domestic note, to our amazement, we did over 115,000 hits yesterday, as against a normal average of just under 2,000. Welcome though they were, we would have preferred a happier note on which to sail past our million hits mark, some two months earlier than expected. However, as long as you keep reading us, we will keep posting. We thank all our readers, and look forward to our next million hits.

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